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Polling Place Quality and Access

Election Administration
Field Research
Electoral Politics
Democratic Accountability
Quantitative Methods
Polling places across the United States in the 2016 election generally exhibited high quality. Variation in polling place access, facilities, and practices was largely a function of county and state-level factors, not voter demographics.
Published

January 1, 2020

Research Question

How do polling place conditions vary across jurisdictions, and what factors account for this variation?

Main Finding

Polling places across the United States in the 2016 election generally exhibited high quality. Variation in polling place access, facilities, and practices was largely a function of county and state-level factors, not voter demographics.

Research Design

The study used a multi-jurisdictional field assessment of polling places across 26 jurisdictions in 17 states, combining observational data and administrative records.

Data Employed

Data come from in-person evaluations and administrative data collected during the 2016 presidential election. The study builds on prior localized research but scales up to a national analysis.

Substantive Importance

The study provides critical evidence that challenges prior findings of systemic disparities in polling place quality along racial or socioeconomic lines, suggesting institutional rather than demographic sources of variation. This has implications for election policy and equity in access to the vote.

Research Areas

Election Administration, Field Research, Electoral Behavior, Democratic Accountability, Quantitative Methods

Citation

@incollection{access,
  author = {Stein, Robert and Mann, Christopher and III, Charles Stewart and with Zachary Birenbaum and Fung, Anson and Greenberg, Jeb and Kawsar, Farhan and Alberda, Gayle and Alvarez, R. Michael and Beaulieu, Emily and Birkhead, Nathaniel A. and Boehmke, Frederick and Boston, Joshua and Burden, Barry C. and Cantu, Francisco and Cobb, Rachael and Darmofal, David and Ellington, Thomas C. and Fine, Terri and Finocchiaro, Charles J. and Gilbert, Michael and Haynes, Victor and Janssen, Brian and Kimball, David and Kromkowski, Charles and Llaudet, Elena and Mayer, Ken and Miles, Matthew R. and Miller, David and Nielson, Lindsay and Ouyang, Yu and Panagopoulos, Costas and Reeves, Andrew and Seo, Min Hee and Simmons, Haley and Smidt, Corwin and VanSickle-Ward, Rachel and Victor, Jennifer Nicoll and Wood, Abby and Wronski, Julie},
  title = {Polling Place Quality and Access},
  booktitle = {The Future of Election Administration},
  publisher = {Palgrave Macmillan},
  pages = {83--100},
  year = {2020},
}