Resources

This paper examines the barriers that Native Americans face
when trying to register and participate in elections. Through conducting several field hearings, authors uncover several important findings related to polling place access and first generation voting barriers that prevent them from casting a ballot.

This report finds that the disinformation campaign surrounding the risk of voter fraud associated with mail-in ballots follows an elite-driven, mass media model.

Authors describe the difficulties that vote-by-mail presents for Native American voters. Specifically, “members of the 574 federally recognized tribes” face barriers to political participation to a greater degree than any other racial or ethnic group. The authors also define measures that can be taken to level the field, all while respecting social distancing.

There is increasing evidence that voters’ confidence in the outcome of elections, and more specifically, that their vote was counted accurately, is dominated by the whether the voter supported the winning or losing candidate in an election. Authors ask whether this winner (loser) effect is consistent over time and parties. Additionally, they test whether the strength of this effect on voter confidence varies across electoral level (i.e., confidence in a county, state, and nations vote counting).

In this paper, Merivaki and Smith seek to examine who is more likely to cast a provisional ballot and why some provisional ballots are rejected. They suggest that beyond individual-level factors, there are administrative reasons why some prospective voters are more likely to be required to cast provisional ballots, and why some provisional ballots are rejected.

Cantoni examines the effect of voting costs - specifically distance to a polling location - on ballots cast. He finds that small increases in distance to a polling location reduce ballots cast. He also finds that during non-presidential elections, these effects are three times larger in high-minority areas than in low-minority areas.

Utilizing the 2008–2016 Survey on the Performance of American Elections (SPAE), the analysis finds that wait times have a negative effect on confidence as do challenges with the voting equipment and voter registration.

This post-election survey reports on how Americans cast ballots in 2020 and how confident they were that votes were counted accurately.

This report summarizes projections of how many people with disabilities would be eligible to vote in the November 2020 elections, using data from the Census Bureau’s 2014-2018 American Community Survey combined with Census Bureau population projections for 2020-2021. The report breaks down key demographic characteristics of eligible voters with disabilities.

This Berkman Klein Center work analyzes media ecosystems and disinformation narratives around mail voting, voter fraud, and public discourse in the 2020 election. 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.

This explainer reviews public attitudes toward voting machines, ballot-marking devices, paper records, and related election technologies and describes how confidence depends not only on actual system security but also on whether voters understand the safeguards protecting registration, voting, and counting.

This paper, focusing on Colorado and Washington, finds that the implementation of vote by mail causes a significant decrease in voter confidence in both states. However, this decrease appears to be temporary, disappearing after only single election cycle.