This academic paper revisits public attitudes about voter identification and voter fraud in a period of intensifying partisan polarization. It is relevant because beliefs about fraud and exposure to misleading claims are central mechanisms through which confidence in election outcomes rises or falls.
Resources
Use our resource library to explore the latest research in the field of election science.
In this paper, authors draw upon the 2016 and 2020 Cooperative Election Study to analyze the likelihood that Trump supporters: (1) voted by mail, (2) self-reported voting by mail, and (3) self-reported not voting by mail when they did (misreporting VBM). In 2020, Trump supporters were markedly less likely to cast a VBM ballot and were also significantly more likely to disclaim voting by mail when they actually did.
The survey included an expansive set of disability questions and validated voter turnout responses against state voter files. The analyses reveal a high disability incidence; large disability turnout gaps; and even greater gaps estimated with validated compared to reported turnout. Much smaller turnout gaps and better voting experiences are found in the states that conduct their elections with all-mail voting.
This research's findings suggest that signature validation, which serves as a primary safeguard for mail voting integrity, may be systematically influenced by underlying biases
This study characterizes how confidence in the accuracy of national elections changed with the projected election of President Trump on Election Day.
Paper sharing the results of three studies exploring the effectiveness of earned and paid media, federal vs state elected officials, and videos vs static images to convey trusted election information.
Registered voters in some legislative districts in Los Angeles County were subjected to universal voting by mail in the March 2020 primary. This research indicate that voter turnout increased by 3 to 4 percentage points for voters who do not automatically receive a mail ballot, and the increase is generally larger for registered partisan voters than those without a party affiliation.
This research focuses on the results of novel survey experiments that expose respondents in one state to messages produced by election officials in another state. Republicans, Democrats, and Independents all become more trusting once they are exposed to information about other states’ election protections.
Article summarizing how short-form, low-budget vertical videos can be used by election officials to improve voter trust.
This academic paper examines the administrative practices, official communications, or legal steps that help voters understand and trust election outcomes. It is relevant because trusted, timely, and nonpartisan communication is one of the main tools election officials and civic groups use to counter distrust. For this dataset, it helps capture the most recent post-2020 trust environment and the continuing effects of election denial, security concerns, and polarization.
At think link, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission houses a variety of reports, best practices guides and implementation tools (e.g., quick start guides) to help election officials manage mail voting processes and serve voters who use vote-by-mail or absentee voting options.
Three experiments about election official messaging are summarized, which:(a) compare the impact of messages conveyed through earned versus paid media; (b) ask whether Americans are more responsive to messages from federal or from state election officials; (c) explore the impact of videos and static visuals.