The Effect of Election Administration on Voter Confidence: A Local Matter?

Abstract

The 2000 presidential election was a wake-up call to elected leaders, public officials, and election scholars. The electoral fiasco—most prominent in Florida, but also taking place in states like New Mexico and Ohio—revealed many deficiencies in voting equipment (Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project 2001). In addition to faulty equipment, registration mix-ups and problems with absentee ballots led to the loss of as many as six million votes (Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project 2001). Confusing ballots, like the butterfly ballot in Florida's Dade County, were found to have led voters to vote incorrectly (Wand et al. 2001). While these problems have, no doubt, existed for a long time, the closeness of the 2000 presidential race and the fact that the number of lost votes had the power to change the election outcome have brought election administration questions to the forefront of policy making. Results were first presented at “The Future of Election Reform and Ethics in the States,” hosted by Kent State University, Department of Political Science, Columbus, Ohio, January 16–17, 2007, and the following paper was presented at the Midwest Political Science Association's Annual Meeting, Chicago, Illinois, April 12–15, 2007. Data were collected by monies generously provided by the University of New Mexico's Research Allocation Committee. We'd like to thank Luciana Zilberman, Lisa Bryant, Alex Adams, David Magleby, and the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young University for their assistance with this project. Of course, any errors are our own.