Privatized Democracy: The Role of Election Services Vendors in the United States

Abstract

Election equipment in the United States is exclusively purchased from private-sector vendors. When a jurisdiction purchases voting equipment, it is actually purchasing the hardware and software along with a variety of services for the initial implementation and long-term maintenance and support of the system. Election services constitute roughly one third of county-level election expenditures. The results of logistic regression analyses estimating the likelihoods of county purchases of different election services from election services vendors suggest a relationship between purchasing decisions and county demographics, namely the size of the minority population. Localities in states with centralized contracting systems were also substantially more likely to purchase all forms of vendor services.