Thessalia Merivaki, Mara Suttmann-Lea, and Rachel Orey. "Staying Close to Home: Preferred Sources of Information and Voter Confidence" (Under Review).
The proliferation of mis/disinformation has disrupted the health of the U.S. election information ecosystem, directly impacting confidence in accurate ballot counting. Despite the notable decline in trust across the United States, voters consistently express higher confidence that their own ballot and ballots cast in their community were counted as intended. We argue this happens due to voters' direct experiences with election administration, as current research suggests, but also because they choose to be informed by "close to home" sources, such as their local election office and local news media. To test our theory, we use a nationally representative survey conducted prior to the 2022 U.S. midterm elections to assess whether the public's preferred sources of election-related information can bolster voter confidence. We find that when voters seek information about how to register and vote from their local election official, local/regional TV station, and print media, local and statewide voter confidence increase. We also find that the selection of local TV news (rather than national TV), and print media have some spillover effects on confidence that votes nationally are counted accurately. These findings persist even among voters more prone to election denial - those who voted for Trump in 2020. Our findings have important implications about the mutually beneficial relationship among key constituencies in the election information ecosystem - election officials and local media - in building public trust in elections.
Fernanda Gonzalez, Alejandro Flores, Samuel Baltz, Thessalia Merivaki, Mara Suttmann-Lea. " “Do local governments provide information about elections in the languages their constituents speak?”
Large segments of the American electorate engage in politics in languages other than English. It is a distinct political experience codified into law in Sections 4(f)(4) and 203 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1975 with the inclusion of constitutional protections challenging the very notion of an English-only electoral process. We investigate modern-day compliance with such directives with the goal of understanding whether, when, and how do public officials take steps to accommodate the linguistic needs of their constituents. Because Americans are increasingly participating in politics online, and the process of registering for elections typically begins on a local government office’s website or an election administrator’s social media account, we measure the availability of multilingual, election-related information on these platforms across three states: Texas, Massachusetts, and Florida. We find that the availability of translations does broadly track with the presence of linguistic groups who that translation serves, but that there are important exceptions, including localities that have Section 203 requirements to provide election materials in a certain language but do not by default translate their election websites into those languages. Through this research, we can begin to understand how voting is or is not made more accessible for all voters, particularly for those that must navigate a linguistic divide.
Joelle Gross, Samuel Baltz, Mara Suttmann-Lea, Thessalia Merivaki, and Charles Stewart III. "Online Hostility Towards Local Election Officials Surged in 2020."
One of the biggest success stories of the 2020 presidential election was the ability of election officials to conduct a smooth and safe election despite the many challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. This success story, however, brought a barrage of harsh rhetoric against election officials in online spaces, driven by false information about the legitimacy of elections. More election officials are now using social media to communicate with voters, but recent trends show that voters also use these channels to disrupt the provision of information by posting threats and negative rhetoric. Evidence from the 2020 election shows state election officials were subject to this behavior on Twitter. In this chapter, we investigate whether these trends exist at the local level by analyzing the content and sentiment of responses to local election official's tweets between 2012 and 2022. We collect and analyze tweets from all 258 Twitter accounts run by local election officials, analyzing their 264,905 tweets and the 133,199 replies to those tweets over the last decade. Considering the surges in resignations of local election officials since 2020, it is important to investigate how harsh language directed at them on social media adds to a hostile environment, making it difficult for election officials to administer elections.
The proliferation of mis/disinformation has disrupted the health of the U.S. election information ecosystem, directly impacting confidence in accurate ballot counting. Despite the notable decline in trust across the United States, voters consistently express higher confidence that their own ballot and ballots cast in their community were counted as intended. We argue this happens due to voters' direct experiences with election administration, as current research suggests, but also because they choose to be informed by "close to home" sources, such as their local election office and local news media. To test our theory, we use a nationally representative survey conducted prior to the 2022 U.S. midterm elections to assess whether the public's preferred sources of election-related information can bolster voter confidence. We find that when voters seek information about how to register and vote from their local election official, local/regional TV station, and print media, local and statewide voter confidence increase. We also find that the selection of local TV news (rather than national TV), and print media have some spillover effects on confidence that votes nationally are counted accurately. These findings persist even among voters more prone to election denial - those who voted for Trump in 2020. Our findings have important implications about the mutually beneficial relationship among key constituencies in the election information ecosystem - election officials and local media - in building public trust in elections.
Fernanda Gonzalez, Alejandro Flores, Samuel Baltz, Thessalia Merivaki, Mara Suttmann-Lea. " “Do local governments provide information about elections in the languages their constituents speak?”
Large segments of the American electorate engage in politics in languages other than English. It is a distinct political experience codified into law in Sections 4(f)(4) and 203 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1975 with the inclusion of constitutional protections challenging the very notion of an English-only electoral process. We investigate modern-day compliance with such directives with the goal of understanding whether, when, and how do public officials take steps to accommodate the linguistic needs of their constituents. Because Americans are increasingly participating in politics online, and the process of registering for elections typically begins on a local government office’s website or an election administrator’s social media account, we measure the availability of multilingual, election-related information on these platforms across three states: Texas, Massachusetts, and Florida. We find that the availability of translations does broadly track with the presence of linguistic groups who that translation serves, but that there are important exceptions, including localities that have Section 203 requirements to provide election materials in a certain language but do not by default translate their election websites into those languages. Through this research, we can begin to understand how voting is or is not made more accessible for all voters, particularly for those that must navigate a linguistic divide.
Joelle Gross, Samuel Baltz, Mara Suttmann-Lea, Thessalia Merivaki, and Charles Stewart III. "Online Hostility Towards Local Election Officials Surged in 2020."
One of the biggest success stories of the 2020 presidential election was the ability of election officials to conduct a smooth and safe election despite the many challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. This success story, however, brought a barrage of harsh rhetoric against election officials in online spaces, driven by false information about the legitimacy of elections. More election officials are now using social media to communicate with voters, but recent trends show that voters also use these channels to disrupt the provision of information by posting threats and negative rhetoric. Evidence from the 2020 election shows state election officials were subject to this behavior on Twitter. In this chapter, we investigate whether these trends exist at the local level by analyzing the content and sentiment of responses to local election official's tweets between 2012 and 2022. We collect and analyze tweets from all 258 Twitter accounts run by local election officials, analyzing their 264,905 tweets and the 133,199 replies to those tweets over the last decade. Considering the surges in resignations of local election officials since 2020, it is important to investigate how harsh language directed at them on social media adds to a hostile environment, making it difficult for election officials to administer elections.