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.
Resources
Use our resource library to explore the latest research in the field of election science.
This report highlights key trends in voter turnout among voters with disabilities in the 2022 elections. Authors note an increase in turnout among these voters compared to the 2018 midterms, especially in states with expanded vote by mail policies. However, approx. 14% of voters with disabilities reported some difficulties voting.
In this article, authors analyze on-site early voting locations on two reservations in Nevada. They find that on-site early voting substantially increased voter turnout in the general election on the reservations studied. These findings support providing convenient locations and longer periods to cast a ballot increases voter turnout.
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 MIT Election Data + Science Lab analysis explains the 2020 “blue shift,” where later-counted ballots disproportionately favored Democrats, and why that pattern mattered for public interpretation of results.
In this paper, authors examine the effects of automatic voter registration (AVR) on both registration and turnout. They find that ind it does raise registration rates substantially, that the effect of AVR gradually builds the longer it is in place, and that the different types of AVR have significantly different effects on both registration and turnout.
Research shows that printed ballots pose challenges for blind voters and low-vision voters, who cannot read them directly.
This is a report of a project examining the legibility of summary ballots printed by ballot marking devices. The goal of the investigation was to to identify aspects of design, layout, or typography that can make a summary-style ballot easier to read and to increase the likelihood that voters detect a mistake or change on their ballot.
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.
In this article, authors argue that supported decision making is ideal for people with dynamic cognitive and functional impairments that place them at the margins of autonomy. This research supports the idea that people with cognitive
disabilities can make important decisions such as voting while relying on trusted assistors in executing those decisions.
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.
This survey 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 helps explain why the 2020 election became a turning point in public debates over fraud, mail voting, certification, and legitimacy.