electionline Weekly

In Focus This Week

Election administration in New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial elections
Survey shows satisfaction with election day, mixed views on voter confidence

By Charles Stewart III
Special to electionlineWeekly

Conducting the fourth in a series of surveys to gauge the experience of voters at the polls, a team of researchers associated with the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project studied the experience of 2,500 registered voters each in New Jersey and Virginia immediately following the November 3, 2009 gubernatorial elections.

The November 2009 study was a part of the Survey of the Performance of American Elections series that has been funded by the Pew Center on the States’ Election Initiative.  Previous surveys were conducted immediately following the November 2007 gubernatorial elections in Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi; the February 2008 “Super Tuesday” presidential primary; and the November 2008 presidential election.

As with past surveys, voters in New Jersey and Virginia reported overall high levels of satisfaction with their experience in the most recent election. 

In New Jersey, 94 percent of respondents stated that it was “very easy” to find their polling place; 90 percent said their polling places were run “very well;” 2 percent encountered problems with their voter registration; 97 percent waited five minutes or less to vote; 1 percent encountered problems with the voting equipment; and 68 percent reported they were “very confident” their vote was counted as cast.

Respondents in Virginia reported similar experiences:  93 percent said it was “very easy” to find their polling place; 88 percent said their polling places were run “very well;” 1 percent reported problems with their voter registration; 93 percent waited five minutes or less to vote; 1 percent encountered problems with the voting equipment; and 75 percent reported they were “very confident” their vote was counted as cast.

One issue that has emerged since the controversial 2000 presidential election is that election administration has become more subject to partisan conflict, and voters have begun to interpret the fairness of elections from the perspective of whether their candidate won.  The results from the 2009 survey, combined with results from previous surveys in this series, help to illustrate this point.

First, consider New Jersey, where the Democrat Jon Corzine was defeated in a tight, bitterly fought race by Republican Chris Christie.  While 68 percent of New Jersey voters overall stated they were “very confident” their own votes were counted as cast, 73 percent of Christie’s voters were very confident, compared to 63 percent of Corzine’s.

This is in contrast to the 2008 presidential election, in which Obama carried New Jersey 57 percent–42 percent over McCain.  There, 79 percent of Obama voters, compared to 60 percent of McCain voters, stated they were very confident their vote was counted as cast.

New Jersey also participated in the 2008 Super Tuesday primary.  Hillary Clinton won the Democratic primary in the state, and 78 percent of her supporters stated they were very confident their votes were counted as cast, compared to 73 percent of supporters of other candidates.  John McCain won the Republican primary in New Jersey; 79 percent of his supporters were very confident, compared to 49 percent for the supporters of other candidates.

Second, consider Virginia, where the Republican Bob McDonnell defeated the Democrat Creigh Deeds by a comfortable margin in the gubernatorial race.  Here, 56 percent of the McDonnell voters, but only 41 percent of the Deeds voters, stated they were very confident their votes were counted as cast.  Following the 2008 presidential election, in which Obama carried Virginia 53 percent–46 percent, 79 percent of Obama voters but only 68 percent of McCain voters were very confident their vote was counted as cast.

Returning to 2009, respondents in both states showed much greater confidence that their own votes were counted as cast than the votes of others. 

For instance, while 67 percent of all New Jersey respondents reported they were very confident their own vote was counted as cast, only 52 percent expressed similar confidence that votes in their city or county, as a whole, were counted as cast; a much lower 39 percent said they were very confident votes were counted as cast statewide.  Similar numbers appear for Virginia respondents (74 percent, 62 percent, and 50 percent, for these three questions).

These responses are similar for other surveys of government service provision — people usually believe the government services they receive are pretty good, but wonder about the quality in other parts of the state or the nation.

The complete survey not only asked questions about overall experience with in-person and absentee voting and about voter confidence, but also asked questions to understand why non-voters didn’t vote, along with questions probing attitudes about popular reform ideas (making Election Day a holiday, voting technology, instituting Election Day Registration, etc.) and voting rights for minorities.  A final report detailing the complete survey results, along with a dataset with all the data, will be released in March.

(Charles Stewart III is the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor and Head of Political Science Housemaster of McCormick Hall Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow at the Massachusetts of Institute of Technology.)