Resources

In this paper, authors estimate the effects of American Indians' group consciousness on their political interests, voting rates, and support for co-ethnic candidates. They find that American Indians who have higher levels of group consciousness are more likely to support co-ethnic candidates, but little effect on their political participation and interest.

This report draws on ethnographic interviews with naturalized U.S. citizens to explore why so eligible immigrant voters don't participate in elections. Researchers found that voting barriers go beyond language, including distrust of government, the overwhelming logistics of adjusting to life in the U.S., and gaps in civic literacy. The report offers practical recommendations for election officials to remove barriers to new citizens participating in civic life.

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.

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 study assesses the impact of time and registration source on the rates of rejected voter registration applications by analyzing monthly county-level voter registration reports during the 2012 election cycle in Florida. It finds that there is a dynamic relationship between administrative and seasonal factors at the county level, which condition the rates of rejected voter registrations as the registration deadline approaches.

The results of this study demonstrate that state online voter registration increases voter turnout. The difference-in-difference analysis shows that the states’ implementation of online voter registration increases the turnout of young voters by about 3 percentage points in presidential election years.

This report examines the tools state and local election officials use to maintain voter registration lists, which include Postal Service change of address forms and death records. Authors also review the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) efforts to ensure compliance with the National Voter Registration Act and address election fraud in 2001–2017. During this time, the DOJ's Voting Section investigated 99 alleged violations of the Act and filed 14 cases.

In this MS thesis, Houghton develops a methodology to estimate voter arrival rates at polling stations using electronic poll book transaction logs. It includes service time observations collected through time studies during the 2018 Rhode Island midterm election across seven precincts. The study applies a Hidden Markov Model to infer voter arrival patterns from the check-in records. Finds that e-pollbook logs offer a scalable, less labor-intensive alternative to manual observation for estimating arrival rates.

In this MS thesis, Bernardo investigates how ballot-length metrics (words, questions, selections, pages, sheets, bilingual status) affect voting errors during the 2018 Rhode Island midterm election. He uses logistic regression models that control for municipal- and precinct-level demographics to analyze machine-based, human-machine interaction, and ballot-marking errors. Bernardo finds that longer ballots and urban precincts significantly increase the odds of voting errors, with implications for ballot design and jurisdiction-level oversight.

This paper finds that large numbers of voters do not perceive their ballots as secret and harbor doubts about the institution's ability to keep them private, with perceptions varying by voting method and polling place design.

This paper analyzes how vote centers influence voter turnout in various election types in Texas, showing that their effect depends on the election context and voter demographics.

In this paper, authors provide a concise policy-oriented introduction to evidence-based elections and risk limiting audits, including legislative principles and implementation considerations.