Resources

This research assesses whether messages reinforcing election integrity increased participation in the 2020 election through a large-scale voter mobilization field experiment. California registrants were mailed a letter that described either existing safeguards to prevent vote-by-mail fraud or the ability to track one’s ballot and ensure that it was counted. Analysis of state voter records reveals that neither message increased turnout over a simple election reminder or even no contact.

This research finds even in the absence of elite claims of vote fraud, authors see strong and immediate shifts in mass views. Once the results became clear, those who supported the losing side became significantly less likely to trust that votes were counted correctly or to be satisfied with the election process, while trust and support for the process rose from pre-to post-election for voters on the winning side.

This report provides practical guidance for conducting tabulation audits, with discussion of audit methods and links to risk limiting audit resources.

This survey / research report focuses on election misinformation, fraud narratives, or public misperceptions and their effects on confidence in U.S. elections. It is relevant because beliefs about fraud and exposure to misleading claims are central mechanisms through which confidence in election outcomes rises or falls. For this dataset, it adds evidence on one of the recurring drivers of election trust: experience, information, partisanship, security, or institutional performance.

The past two decades have seen a decline in trust in American elections that has primarily been driven by a slow but steady decline in trust among Republicans. Surprisingly, the increased polarization in trust most recently has been due more to Democrats suddenly becoming more trusting. Election officials must continue to try to overcome attacks on trust in the system, but it is unclear how long they can sustain the legal system guaranteeing free and fair elections without broad-based public trust in how elections are administered.

This report outlines Virginia's 2022 risk limiting audit process, results, observations, and recommendations for future audits.

This National Task Force on Election Crises resource explains how election officials communicate results, conduct canvasses and audits, and confirm outcomes to build public trust.

This research finds that explicit cues about rigged voting machines increase belief in such theories, especially when the cues target the opposing political party. Explicit cues also decrease confidence in elections regardless of the targeted party, but they have no effect on satisfaction with democracy or support for election security funding.

This report provides a national overview of post-election audits, audit types, history, and state practices across the United States.

Employing national surveys from 2012, 2016, 2018, and 2020, this paper that beliefs in election fraud are common and stable across time, and only occasionally relate to partisanship.

This evaluation report examines philanthropy & trust-building in relation to the entry’s stated focus on election security; confidence; field-building. It is relevant to the dataset because it connects election rules, information environments, or administrative performance to public confidence and perceived legitimacy.

This research finds that a majority of Trump voters in the survey sample falsely believed that election fraud was widespread, and that Trump won the election. It also finds that Trump conceding or losing his legal challenges would likely lead a majority of Trump voters to accept Biden’s victory as legitimate, although 40% said they would continue to view Biden as illegitimate regardless.