North Carolina Election Reform Ten Years After the Help America Vote Act

Abstract

To what extent have the reforms of the last decade led to measurable improvements in election administration? Enacted in 2002, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) addressed a variety of election reform issues, but emphasized modernizing voting equipment across the country (Kropf and Kimball, 2012). It did not require changes in ballot design, although states and localities have implemented some new practices in this area. This article examines changes in voting technology and ballot design in North Carolina, focusing on residual votes in the state's 2004 and 2008 general elections. North Carolina is an especially useful state to study, because county-level early and absentee voting data are available by race. It is also a presidential battleground state covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. This study finds that residual votes went down in North Carolina from 2004–2008 due to new voting equipment. It also finds evidence that ballot design marginally improved over that time period.