This article examines how concurrent voting can create opportunities for campaign finance circumvention when overlapping political contests are governed by asymmetrical regulatory regimes. It develops a framework of regulatory asymmetry that identifies the conditions—divergent disclosure requirements, unequal spending limits, overlapping electorates, and weak oversight—under which political actors may redirect resources toward less regulated contests while continuing to influence more tightly regulated competition. The argument is illustrated through Poland’s 2023 parliamentary elections, held alongside a government-initiated nationwide referendum. Drawing on legal analysis and financial data, the article demonstrates how the statutory separation between electoral and referendum finance regimes created a weakly regulated arena for political spending: state-owned enterprises and affiliated foundations financed large-scale “informational” campaigns that indirectly benefited the incumbent camp while remaining outside electoral spending limits, while referendum campaigning generated financial and mobilizational spillovers into the electoral contest. Comparative evidence from five European cases situates Poland toward the permissive end of the regulatory spectrum. The article argues that fragmented campaign finance regimes weaken transparency and erode the anti-corruption function of campaign finance regulation, and it proposes regulatory harmonization and strengthened disclosure as safeguards for electoral integrity under concurrent voting.
The enforcement of city- and county-preserving “no-split” rules in redistricting can complicate estimations of the expected partisan seat splits and responsiveness of neutral map drawing, even creating the impression that these nominally partisan-blind rules favor one party. This work presents a case study of Ohio’s post-2020 Congressional and legislative redistricting to illustrate how a new spatial analysis technique can quantify the (surprisingly small) statewide and localized impacts of these map-drawing constraints on expected outcomes of neutrally drawn maps, consistent with results from a recently published parametric study of seven populous states. The conversion of votes to seats also appears minimally shifted when building districts out of communities of interest rather than administrative boundaries. The lack of a significant no-split effect is attributed to the low fraction of seats that are in the competitive range and thus possibly impacted by applying no-split rules.
We consider equity in pathways to democratic participation in the United States by examining the effects of voter registration laws on registration rates of Blacks, Hispanics, and non-Hispanic Whites, with a special focus on the youth in each demographic group. We do so by updating and refining the Difficulty of Registration Index (Jansa, Motta, and Herrick, 2022 ) to measure registration hurdles across states and over time. Although we hypothesize that difficult registration laws will disproportionately and adversely affect Blacks and Hispanics, our results are more nuanced. We find that registration difficulty depresses registration across all three racial groups, but we do not find evidence of racial disparities. Among youth, though, Hispanic citizens are disproportionately less likely to register as difficulty increases, while the analogous effect of difficulty on Black youth registration is not statistically distinguishable from zero. We explore the implications and nuances of these findings, highlighting the complex interplay between registration laws and demographics.
In May 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a key racial gerrymandering decision in Alexander v. South Carolina NAACP. At issue was whether South Carolina's mapmakers selected precincts for the redrawn first congressional district based on their racial composition or partisanship. In overturning the district court's conclusion that the state's 1st congressional district (CD #1) was a racial gerrymander, Justice Alito argued that mapmakers have no reason to use racial data when drawing districts to favor one party: they simply need partisan data. Justice Kagan challenged this claim, arguing in her dissent that racial data can yield a superior partisan gerrymander. We evaluate these competing claims with an original longitudinal dataset of precinct election results in South Carolina from 2010 to 2020. Our analysis allows us to assess how well a precinct's racial and partisan makeup in the election before redistricting explains election results over the subsequent decade. We find that the use of race, although potentially unlawful, can significantly help mapmakers predict future election outcomes. Not only does race improve post-redistricting election forecasts-even when controlling for partisanship-but also the analysis reveals (1) precinct race has a substantively large effect on future election results and (2) race is a more stable predictor compared to party. Our findings suggest that state legislatures, particularly those with demographics like South Carolina, have good reason to rely on racial data when drawing partisan districts, either alone as a proxy for partisanship or in combination with partisan data. We believe this article provides much-needed insight into a key issue for future racial gerrymandering and voting rights litigation.
The Constitution empowers states to manage elections, yet this aspect of federalism poses formidable challenges with overlapping geographic and partisan divisions. We first provide descriptive evidence that, even though nonpartisan election officials use similar methods to protect ballot-counting across the country, Republican voters nationwide report low levels of trust in the elections run by the blue state of California, just as Democrats are less trusting of elections in the red state of Texas. Could a public information campaign providing factual messages from election officials help to restore trust across party lines? We report 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. Our findings suggest that a robust public information campaign by state election officials could mitigate polarized trust in election integrity.
Population equality across congressional districts within a state is a hallmark of the redistricting decisions issued by the Supreme Court cases in the 1960s. Beginning with Wesberry v. Sanders (1964) and following from Karcher v. Daggett (1983), the norm has been to minimize differences in district total population after redistricting. Abolishing malapportionment has given rise to new forms of electoral manipulation. Courts, commissions, and legislatures may achieve population balance across districts in different ways. This article builds on a previous study that estimated the shift in population in the 2000 redistricting cycle by accounting for population shifts in the six redistricting cycles since the 1970 census. We find population shifts have more than tripled in this time. We show population shifts are a function of the size of the congressional delegation, whether seats are gained or lost in apportionment, the political match or mismatch between an incumbent's party and the party in control of the redistricting process when the legislature draws the map. With an eye toward institutional variation in redistricting, we show appointed and independent commissions draw significantly different plans with regard to the preservation of previous districts. District change is high among partisan gerrymandered plans and plans drawn by independent commissions, though we find the latter are associated with changes in apportionment.
Debates on election reforms and the use of convenience voting methods revived after the COVID-19 election postponements. In parallel, digitalization has made it necessary to revisit what we understand by convenience voting. While the term suggests that convenience voting methods inherently reduce participation costs, recent research demonstrates that such voting methods are not always perceived as convenient, nor do they necessarily make voting cheaper, easier, or more accessible. They may be introduced for reasons unrelated to participation, such as administrative efficiency, resource constraints, or even manipulation. Definitions of convenience voting methods often vary significantly across countries and contexts. This article revisits the concept of convenience voting through a meta-synthesis of 106 studies. Specifically, we (1) map existing types and definitions of convenience voting; (2) classify convenience voting methods into six archetypes; and (3) propose a revised definition of convenience voting that incorporates recent innovations in voting. This revised definition addresses the newest debate that the existing conceptualization of convenience voting might appear normativist and value-laden. The proposed conceptual clarification allows for a more empirical and positivist discussion of electoral reforms across different contexts.
Observers suggest the effects of redistricting with excessive partisan bias or gerrymandering are particularly distinct and durable today. In this telling, partisan polarization, sophisticated technology, and detailed information of voter behavior permit those who draw state legislative and congressional plans to secure favorable electoral outcomes for their party throughout the decade the plan is in effect. We provide an empirical test of this basic claim by comparing three plan "pairs"-essentially juxtaposing plans accused of exhibiting excessive partisan bias by academics, journalists, or the courts with equivalents that are not. Using traditional indicators of partisan bias in redistricting, we find evidence that gerrymandered plans differ less than implied by characterizations from the non-gerrymandered plans with which they are paired and that any advantage given to a party at plan conception tends to decline over the course of a decade as partisan bias in the gerrymandered maps declines and differences in plan pairs alleviate. We conclude with thoughts regarding the implications of our results for political scientists, potential litigants, and jurists.
Data from the Decennial Census are published only after applying a disclosure avoidance system (DAS). Data users were shaken by the adoption of differential privacy in the 2020 DAS, a radical departure from past methods. The goal of this article is to better understand how the perturbations from the 2020 DAS combine with sharp legal thresholds to impact redistricting. We consider two redistricting settings in which a data user might be concerned about the impacts of privacy-preserving noise: drawing equal population districts and litigating voting rights cases. What discrepancies arise if the user does nothing to account for disclosure avoidance? How can the discrepancies be understood and accounted for? We study these questions by comparing the official 2010 Redistricting Data to the 2010 Demonstration Data-created using the 2020 DAS-in an analysis of millions of algorithmically generated state legislative redistricting plans. We find that thresholding can amplify the impact of the noise from disclosure avoidance. Large discrepancies do occur, but in ways that are well-captured by simple models and appear to be possible to account for. We demonstrate the utility of these models by proposing an approach to mitigate discrepancies when balancing district populations. At least for state legislatures, Alabama's claim that differential privacy "inhibits a State's right to draw fair lines" lacks support.
We consider two symmetry metrics commonly used to analyze partisan gerrymandering: the Mean-Median Difference (MM) and Partisan Bias (PB). Our main results compare, for combinations of seats and votes achievable in districted elections, the number of districts won by each party to the extent of potential deviation from the ideal metric values, taking into account the political geography of the state. These comparisons are motivated by examples where the MM and PB have been used in efforts to detect when a districting plan awards extreme number of districts won by some party. These examples include expert testimony, public-facing apps, recommendations by experts to redistricting commissions, and public policy proposals. To achieve this goal we perform both theoretical and empirical analyses of the MM and PB. In our theoretical analysis, we consider vote-share, seat-share pairs (V, S) for which one can construct election data having vote share V and seat share S, and turnout is equal in each district. We calculate the range of values that MM and PB can achieve on that constructed election data. In the process, we find the range of (V,S) pairs that achieve MM = 0, and see that the corresponding range for PB is the same set of (V,S) pairs. We show how the set of such (V,S) pairs allowing for MM = 0 (and PB = 0) changes when turnout in each district is allowed to vary. By observing the results of this theoretical analysis, we can show that the values taken on by these metrics do not necessarily attain more extreme values in plans with more extreme numbers of districts won. We also analyze specific example elections, showing how these metrics can return unintuitive results. We follow this with an empirical study, where we show that on 18 different U.S. maps these metrics can fail to detect extreme seats outcomes.
The idea of free and fair elections is the foundation of a democratic society, where every vote must be counted equally. Elections are essential mechanisms for ensuring accountability, transparency, and representation. Fraud and manipulation corrupt this system, silencing voters and eroding trust. When fraud is uncovered—or even merely suspected—it undermines legitimacy and can spark repression, unrest, or civil conflict. Determining whether electoral outcomes genuinely reflect voter preferences or instead result from manipulation is, therefore, crucial. The credibility of representative democracy depends on the integrity of its elections. Until recently, few quantitative methods existed for assessing electoral fraud beyond in-person observation. Electoral forensics has emerged to fill this gap by analyzing anomalies in results that may signal irregularities. However, scholars continue to debate which forensic tools are the most effective, and no framework currently integrates multiple approaches. This article surveys recent quantitative and machine learning methodologies used in election forensics, with particular attention to their ability to identify at-risk polling stations and estimate the scope of manipulation. We review applications across contexts, evaluate their strengths and limitations, and highlight persistent challenges. In doing so, we provide an updated foundation for future research and practical guidance for election administrators seeking to safeguard elections.
The idea of free and fair elections is the foundation of a democratic society, where every vote must be counted equally. Elections are essential mechanisms for ensuring accountability, transparency, and representation. Fraud and manipulation corrupt this system, silencing voters and eroding trust. When fraud is uncovered-or even merely suspected-it undermines legitimacy and can spark repression, unrest, or civil conflict. Determining whether electoral outcomes genuinely reflect voter preferences or instead result from manipulation is, therefore, crucial. The credibility of representative democracy depends on the integrity of its elections. Until recently, few quantitative methods existed for assessing electoral fraud beyond in-person observation. Electoral forensics has emerged to fill this gap by analyzing anomalies in results that may signal irregularities. However, scholars continue to debate which forensic tools are the most effective, and no framework currently integrates multiple approaches. This article surveys recent quantitative and machine learning methodologies used in election forensics, with particular attention to their ability to identify at-risk polling stations and estimate the scope of manipulation. We review applications across contexts, evaluate their strengths and limitations, and highlight persistent challenges. In doing so, we provide an updated foundation for future research and practical guidance for election administrators seeking to safeguard elections.
This study examines the extent to which citizens' trust in election management bodies (EMBs) is shaped by the autonomy of these institutions. Drawing on 5 years of survey data from 17 Latin American countries and a series of (mixed-effects) ordered-logistic regressions, it reveals two key findings. First, there is a robust, positive association between EMB autonomy and citizens' trust. And second, both individual- and country-level factors significantly influence citizens' trust in EMBs. In doing so, the study makes an empirical contribution to a literature often confined to single-year or single-country analyses. It also makes a theoretical contribution by treating EMBs as regulatory institutions, and by extending the literature on regulatory trust to the electoral domain. This offers new conceptual insights, as well as practical guidance for policy makers seeking to strengthen democratic legitimacy through institutional design.
The vast majority of persons incarcerated in jails are eligible to vote, but only via absentee ballot. Voting rights advocates argue that absentee-only voting results in disenfranchisement given jailers' control over mail and the administrative burden involved in registering and requesting absentee ballots. I examine the case of the Cook County Jail, which in 2020 became one of the few jurisdictions to allow incarcerated persons to vote in-person. Using data on the ballots cast from jail, I compare the turnout between incarcerated and nonincarcerated Cook County voters, before and after the reform. I show that the reform increased the turnout between 7 and 33 percentage points depending on the election or between 170% and 440% over pre-reform baselines. These findings are not driven by fluctuations in the jail population due to the pandemic or state and local bail reforms, as excluding elections affected by these events yields similar results. In-person voting can increase voter turnout among incarcerated persons, and low voter turnout among those incarcerated in the few states allowing prison voting may be due to absentee-only participation.
Scholars have analyzed the effect of public funding of campaigns on many aspects of U.S. politics, particularly in the context of U.S. state legislatures. One important yet unanswered question is whether public financing, in freeing state lawmakers from the time demands of fundraising, enhances their effectiveness as legislators. Using Bucchianeri, Volden, and Wiseman's recently introduced measure of legislative effectiveness for state lawmakers (State Legislative Effectiveness Score), we investigate the impact of public funding on state lawmaker legislative effectiveness in the three states that offer full public funding to state legislative candidates: Arizona, Connecticut, and Maine. Accounting for the fact that legislators' decision to take public financing is not random, we find some evidence that state legislators who rely on public funding to finance their campaigns are more effective lawmakers than those who rely on private funding. Notably, however, the effect of public funding on legislative effectiveness is relatively modest compared with other factors that typically influence legislative effectiveness-for example, serving as a committee chair. Although we cannot conclude with confidence that the influence of public funding on legislative effectiveness differs between the two parties, we do find that public funding appears to influence legislative effectiveness differently within each party. Our findings should be of interest not only to scholars but also to policy makers aiming to enhance the legislative effectiveness of state lawmakers by reducing the time they spend fundraising.
A basic premise of democracy is that all citizens have an equal opportunity to participate in governance via the ballot. Decades of research have shown that electoral access is inequitable even if it is equal-meaning that while most have the right to vote, some face greater barriers than others. One of the challenges in assessing the degree of electoral equity in the United States is that the country does not have a single electoral system; instead, it consists of multiple systems at the state and local levels. The local level of election administration is a critical aspect of the U.S. electoral system, with important implications for voter access. Voting access varies widely within states depending on service provision by local election officials. To better understand the role of local election administration and its impact on voters, we develop a novel, empirically grounded tool for measuring local-level voter access: the Measure of Voter Equity (MOVE) index. To construct this measure, we conducted an intensive pilot data collection project at the county level in two states-Arizona and Nevada. We find that rural counties in both states have significantly lower levels of access. The MOVE index, along with its subcomponent scores, offers a comprehensive measure of voting access at the local level that can be used by scholars and policy practitioners to more precisely assess electoral equity.
In 2020, Alaska voters approved a ballot measure that implemented ranked choice voting (RCV) in statewide elections, state legislative contests, as well as Congressional races. The 2022 election was the first cycle in which voters and election officials experienced voting using RCV rules. This article analyzes election results in Alaska from 2014 through 2022 to assess whether the shift to RCV substantially increased voter confusion. This article also examines the information landscape surrounding the RCV elections, including how Alaskan organizations and newspapers communicated with voters about the new 2022 rules. We use data gathered from newspaper coverage surrounding the election as well as from interviews conducted with organizational stakeholders to understand key messages delivered to the public. Finally, we note that Alaska provides unique opportunities to analyze RCV understanding in minority constituencies. We find that compared with previous elections in Alaska, rates of ballot errors slightly decreased in the first top four primary elections and slightly increased in the RCV general elections of 2022. In general, we do not observe unusually high levels of ballot error in the 2022 Alaska elections. Voters made fuller use of the RCV rules in areas with greater news coverage of the new voting system, and voters seemed to mimic the posture of their preferred candidates toward RCV. We attribute these results in part to the concerted efforts on the part of organizations and election officials to educate voters about the new system.
Following the 2020 election, there has been renewed scrutiny of election administration in the United States. Given that election officials typically operate behind the scenes, media coverage of them represents one of the few opportunities for voters to learn about who oversees elections in their states. Drawing on literature on media effects, public opinion, and election administration, I seek to evaluate the conditions under which state election officials receive news coverage. How frequently does the media consider election administrators to be "newsworthy," and in what contexts are they covered? When problems arise in election administration, how are election officials portrayed, and what might voters learn about them? To answer these questions, I collect and analyze an original dataset of more than 1,100 newspaper articles mentioning the state-level chief election officials in 10 states across 4 election cycles (2016-2022). Using a novel codebook, I manually code my data across a range of criteria to evaluate the election officials' newsworthiness ("newsworthiness index") and the conditions under which they are covered. My results suggest that media coverage referencing election officials occasionally elevates them as highly newsworthy actors. In line with literature on negativity bias in the media, news coverage of election officials is dominated by articles reporting on problems in the electoral process. Moreover, when election officials make headlines, a greater share of that coverage is problem related than not. These results have implications for the information that voters may acquire about their election officials through the media. Despite having a relatively low profile, chief election officials who do find themselves in the media spotlight may discover that their salience to constituents is often in the context of a problem occurring in election administration.
A necessary condition for democracy is the periodic conduct of elections. U.S. federal and state governments must hold elections on specific dates mandated by law. However, Florida localities may run elections at times and manners largely of their choosing. Furthermore, elections in Florida are canceled if only one candidate qualifies for each office on the ballot. The confluence of these policies results in some Florida localities not holding elections for decades. Drawing on an original dataset of local elections across Florida, we explore the conditions under which Florida localities held-or did not hold-their most recent regularly scheduled at-large election. Jurisdiction size and whether the most recent regularly scheduled election was concurrent with state or federal contests are positively correlated but a council-manager form of government is negatively correlated with jurisdictions holding their last regularly scheduled election. These democracy deserts raise normative concerns about the state of representative governance in local jurisdictions in the United States.
Election workers are crucial to the question of democratic representation in their role of managing effective and fair elections. In this article, we examine whether the partisanship of a county commission and the community play a role in election director salaries. We draw from our data collected from the North Carolina County Salary Survey reports from 2006 to 2021 to study this issue. We find that the county commission partisanship in North Carolina interacts with community partisan votes to affect election director salaries. Counties with Republican-controlled-County commissions and higher Republican vote share are associated with higher election director salaries. The models also show that non-Republican commissions pay less for election directors as the share of the Republican vote increases. This interactive effect for election directors is different from prior research on aggregate spending, which theorized an electoral advantage from marginal voters turning out. However, election administrators see higher salaries in jurisdictions where the county commission shares higher partisanship with the community, which may signal county commission recognition of partisan electoral advantage. These findings support theories of partisan electoral advantage. As election workers are leaving the profession because of increased workloads and threats to their security, we need to better understand how these salary decisions are made to keep these frontline workers in place for democracy, regardless of local politics.
