The role of partisanship in confidence of elections is well established, particularly with effects of the false rhetoric from President Donald Trump. But is partisanship the only reason why someone may express less confidence in elections and those who run them? We examine the role that the political context of the state may play in shaping perceptions. Some states (e.g. Louisiana) have a history of corruption. Other states (e.g. Wisconsin) have relatively egregious gerrymandering affecting legislative elections. We expect that greater incidence of public corruption and gerrymandering in a state may lead people to doubt the honesty and fairness of their election officials and vote counts. We merge state-level measures of public corruption and legislative gerrymandering with individual-level measures of public confidence in vote counts and confidence in election officials and find evidence to support our hypotheses. Corruption and gerrymandering may have little to do with election officials and how votes are counted, but may nonetheless erode trust in public processes generally, including elections.
AbramowitzA. I.AlexanderB.GunningM. (2006). Incumbency, redistricting, and the decline of competition in US House elections. The Journal of Politics, 68(1), 75–88. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2508.2006.00371.x
2.
AlvarezR. M.HallT. E.LlewellynM. H. (2008). Are Americans confident their ballots are counted?The Journal of Politics, 70(3), 754–766. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022381608080730
3.
AndersonC. J.LoTempioA. J. (2002). Winning, losing and political trust in America. British Journal of Political Science, 32(2), 335–351. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0007123402000133
4.
AnsolabehereS.PersilyN. (2008). Voter fraud is in the eye of the beholder (Vol. 121, p. 1737). Harvard Law Review.
5.
AnsolabehereS.PersilyN. (2016). Revisiting public opinion on voter identification and voter fraud in an era of increasing partisan polarization (Vol. 68, pp. 1455–1489). Stanford Law Review.
AtkesonL.SaundersK. (2007). The effect of election administration on voter confidence: A local matter?PS: Political Science & Politics, 40(4), 655–660. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1049096507071041
8.
AtkesonL. R.McKown-DawsonE.SteinR. M. (2024). The costs of voting and voter confidence. Political Research Quarterly, 78(7), Article 10659129241283169. https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129241283169
9.
BerlinskiN.DoyleM.GuessA. M.LevyG.LyonsB.MontgomeryJ. M.NyhanB.ReiflerJ. (2023). The effects of unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud on confidence in elections. Journal of Experimental Political Science, 10(1), 34–49. https://doi.org/10.1017/xps.2021.18
10.
BolsenT.DruckmanJ. N.CookF. L. (2014). The influence of partisan motivated reasoning on public opinion. Political Behavior, 36(2), 235–262. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-013-9238-0
BowlerS.DonovanT. (2018). Partisan predispositions and public support for making it easier to vote. American Politics Research, 46(6), 971–995. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673x18763875
13.
BoylanR. T.LongC. X. (2003). Measuring public corruption in the American states: A survey of state house reporters. State Politics and Policy Quarterly, 3(4), 420–438. https://doi.org/10.1177/153244000300300405
14.
CanonD. T.ShermanO. (2021). Debunking the “big lie”: Election administration in the 2020 presidential election. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 51(3), 546–581. https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12721
15.
CarsonJ. L. J. S.WilliamsonR. D. (2024). Nationalized politics: Evaluating electoral politics across time. Oxford University Press.
16.
CordisA. S.MilyoJ. (2016). Measuring public corruption in the United States: Evidence from administrative records of federal prosecutions. Public Integrity, 18(2), 127–148. https://doi.org/10.1080/10999922.2015.1111748
17.
DanillerA. M.MutzD. C. (2019). The dynamics of electoral integrity: A three-election panel study. Public Opinion Quarterly, 83(1), 46–67. https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfz002
DincerO. C.JohnstonM. (2020). Pas de Deux of illegal and legal corruption in America 2020 (November 6). Social Science Research Network. Available at SSRN:https://ssrn.com/abstract=3726358
21.
EggersA.GarroH.GrimmerJ. (2021). No evidence for voter fraud: A guide to statistical claims about the 2020 election. Stanford University. Unpublished working paper.
22.
EngstromE. J. (2013). Partisan gerrymandering and the construction of American democracy. University of Michigan Press.
23.
FlavinP.ShufeldtG. (2019). Comparing two measures of electoral integrity in the American states. State Politics and Policy Quarterly, 19(1), 83–100. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532440018800338
24.
FougereJ.AnsolabehereS.PersilyN. (2010). Partisanship, public opinion, and redistricting. Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy, 9(4), 325–347. https://doi.org/10.1089/elj.2010.9405
25.
FriedmanJ. N.HoldenR. T. (2009). The rising incumbent reelection rate: what’s gerrymandering got to do with it?The Journal of Politics, 71(2), 593–611. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022381609090483
GrantM. D.FloresA.PedersenE. J.ShermanD. K.Van BovenL. (2021). When election expectations fail: Polarized perceptions of election legitimacy increase with accumulating evidence of election outcomes and with polarized media. PLoS One, 16(12), Article e0259473. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259473
28.
GrumbachJ. (2022). Laboratories against democracy: How national parties transformed state politics. Princeton University Press.
29.
HaleK.MontjoyR.BrownM. (2015). Administering elections: How American elections work. Palgrave MacMillan.
30.
HaleK.SlatonC. D. (2008). Building capacity in election administration: Local responses to complexity and interdependence. Public Administration Review, 68(5), 839–849. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2008.00925.x
31.
HopkinsD. J. (2018). The increasingly United States: How and why American political behavior nationalized. University of Chicago Press.
32.
JacobsonG. C. (2021). Donald Trump’s Big Lie and the future of the Republican party. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 51(2), 273–289. https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12716
33.
McCarthyD. (2022). Limits of partisanship in citizen preferences on redistricting. Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy, 21(2), 155–170. Finds preference for fairness. https://doi.org/10.1089/elj.2020.0709
MeierK. J.HolbrookT. M. (1992). “I seen my opportunities and I took’ em:” Political corruption in the American states. The Journal of Politics, 54(1), 135–155. https://doi.org/10.2307/2131647
PanagopoulosC. (2013). Public awareness and attitudes about redistricting institutions. Journal of Politics and Law, 6(3), 45–54. https://doi.org/10.5539/jpl.v6n3p45
41.
RogersS. (2023). Accountability in state legislatures. University of Chicago Press.
42.
SinghS. (2014). Not all election winners are equal: Satisfaction with democracy and the nature of the vote. European Journal of Political Research, 53(2), 308–327. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12028
43.
StephanopoulosN. O.McGheeE. M. (2015). Partisan gerrymandering and the efficiency gap (pp. 831–900). University of Chicago Law Review.
VanderMolenK.MilyoJ. (2016). Public confidence in the redistricting process: The role of independent commissions, state legislative polarization, and partisan preferences. State and Local Government Review, 48(4), 236–245. https://doi.org/10.1177/0160323x17690884
47.
WilsonJ. Q. (1966). Corruption: The shame of the states. The Public Interest, 1(2), 28–38.
WiseC. R. (2001). Election administration in crisis: An early look at lessons from bush versus gore. Public Administration Review, 61(2), 131–139. https://doi.org/10.1111/0033-3352.00014
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
