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.
