Archives

  1. California’s Long Count: Examining Efficiencies in Ballot Processing for Earlier Results

    A new report released by the California Voter Foundation (CVF) finds that California’s long vote count is not inevitable, but driven by fixable operational challenges, outdated processes, and uneven county resources. Released ahead of county certification deadlines on July 2nd, California’s Long Count: Examining Efficiencies in Ballot Processing for Earlier Election Results identifies proven strategies […]

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  2. 2024 Precinct Project

    The MIT Elections & Science Data Lab (MESDL) 2024 precinct project is now finished—our largest and most expansive yet! This year’s nationwide dataset contains vote counts for more than 54,000 candidates running for over 12,000 offices across 200,000 precincts nationwide, taking over 500 days to complete by 12 talented researchers. Precinct project data come from […]

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  3. Ballots vs. Backlash: Trends, Threats, and the Future of Direct Democracy

    As state legislatures across the country become more polarized, citizens are increasingly turning to direct democracy to protect fundamental rights and advance popular policies that elected officials refuse to address. But the success of recent initiatives, especially around issues like reproductive rights, has prompted a strong backlash from some state legislatures opposed to those efforts. […]

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  4. America’s County Governments: A Primer on County-Level Election Administration

    The United States has a decentralized system of election administration, where states and local governments share the responsibility of overseeing election administration.1 The organization of local election systems can vary such that states allow several local offices or authorities to supervise election administration.2 In certain states, election administration responsibilities are divided between a local election […]

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  6. How to Retain Election Officials and Secure Future Elections

    The 2020 presidential election was called the most secure in U.S. history, largely due to efforts to protect the nation’s different physical and cyber infrastructure. This was a triumph considering the physical, cyber, and even human assets that make up the election infrastructure have been and continue to be susceptible to threats. In 2020, many […]

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  7. United States of America, General Elections, 3 November 2020: Final Report

    The Statement of Preliminary Findings and Conclusions issued by the IEOM on 4 November concluded that the elections “were competitive and well managed despite legal uncertainties and logistical challenges. In a highly polarized political environment, acrimonious campaign rhetoric fuelled tensions. Measures intended to secure the elections during the pandemic triggered protracted litigation driven by partisan […]

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  8. Logical Election Policy

    The Logical Election Policy report is a roadmap for legislators—particularly at the state level—to understand their policy options and highlight the upstream and downstream effects of policy reforms. The recommendations include: ways to meet voter expectations for more modern, integrated, and secure voter rolls; updated and more efficient methods of casting ballots; and better ways […]

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  9. Stewards of Democracy: The Views of American Local Election Officials

    Stewards of Democracy: The Views of American Local Election Officials covers the 2018 survey results of more than 1,000 elections officials nationwide regarding their opinions about election administration, access, integrity, and reform. The goal of the survey, conducted in partnership with Reed College, is to help understand the issues local election officials face and elevate […]

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  10. Elections Administration Research Database

    The Elections Administration Research Database contains elections administration reports published between 2000 and the present. The reports span a range of topics from election costs to voter ID to online voter registration and reflect a variety of perspectives, ranging from election administrators to nonprofit organizations to academic researchers. Each report has been coded by subject, […]

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