Seeing Is Believing: An Experiment on Absentee Ballots and Voter Confidence

Abstract

Since the 2000 election, researchers have taken an interest in the role of voter confidence and its importance as an assessment of public trust in electoral outcomes. Many factors may influence voter confidence including the way in which a voter casts their ballot. Previous research has found that absentee voters consistently report the lowest levels of confidence that their votes were counted correctly. This study uses an experiment to examine how voting method impacts voter confidence. Voters were randomly assigned to either an in-person or absentee voting condition. Participants assigned to the absentee condition expressed lower levels of confidence that their votes would be counted correctly than those assigned to the in-person voting condition. Voters who had to ask for assistance during the experiment also reported lower levels of confidence. This could have implications for voter confidence levels nationally as vote-by-mail continues to grow in popularity.