Search

Grant Recipients

In 2019, we are proud to be funding 11 new projects as part of our New Initiatives in Election Science Program, giving a total amount of just under $100,000 for this round of New Initiatives Grants. Recipients this year came from 15 institutions around the U.S.; in all, 20 scholars have received funding as individuals or research teams.

The New Initiatives program was made possible through a generous grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

2019

Michael Byrne and Philip Kortum

Voter detection of anomalies on bmd ballots

$3,500

Jesse T. Clark

The Maine Event? The gap between expectations and reality in election reform

$8,500

Laurel Eckhouse, Allison Harris, Hannah Walker, and Ariel White

Finding families affected by felon disfranchisement

$9,992

Christian R. Grose and Nathan K. Micatka

Do post-election audits increase confidence in elections?

$9,850

Martha Kropf, Jason Windett, and Samira Shaikh

Using data science to create election science

$20,000

Todd Makse

Early voting and the implications of non-simultaneity for political discussion

$5,200

Christopher Mann and Kathleen Searles

Media myths and public perception of polling place wait times

$6,396

Ellen Seljan and Paul Gronke

Happy birthday: you get to vote!

$3,300

Bernard Tamas

Does malapportionment and voter suppression cause disproportionality and inflate electoral bias? A district-level analysis of US house elections (1870-2018)

$7,961

Chris Warshaw

A new database of local legislative and executive elections

$14,000

Logan Woods

How do voters react to problems when casting their ballot?

$5,400

 

2018 Grants

We funded 8 proposals in 2018 under our New Initiatives Program; the total amount granted was just under $100,000. Grantees totaled 15 scholars from 9 institutions, many of whom are junior faculty members or Ph.D. students.

2018

Lisa Bryant

Vote Center Implementation in California: Analysis of a Beta Test in the 2018 Primary and General Elections

$8,874

Bridgett King

Administrative Decision Making & Barriers to Political Participation

$11,000

Shiro Kuriwaki

Ballot Image Logs: Data Collection and Standardization

$10,000

Thessalia Merivaki, Dallas Breen, and Ioannis Ziogas

Voter List Maintenance Within a Hybrid Structure of Data Management: The Case of Mississippi

$18,000

Zachary Mohr, Martha Kropf, Mary Jo Shepherd, and JoEllen Pope

Estimating Election Administration Spending in the 50 States

$20,000

Lauren Prather and Sarah Bush

Does Foreign Influence Undermine Political Trust?

$10,530

James Szewczyk

Does Vote-By-Mail Cause Voters to Gather More Information About Politics?

$15,000

Adriano Udani and David Kimball

Correcting Perceptions of Voter Fraud in U.S. Elections

$5,000

 

2017 Grants

In 2017, we funded 14 proposals as part of our New Initiatives Grants in Election Science Program. The total amount granted was just over $160,000. Grantees totaled 30 scholars from 21 institutions. Of the 14 proposals funded, 12 went to teams that were led by junior faculty members or Ph.D. students.

 

Scroll through the projects and explore the research funded by the 2017 round of grants. Below, you'll find information including project summaries, links to published articles from the research, and information for accessing the data as it becomes available.

2017

Brian Amos and Michael McDonald

Fabricating Precinct Boundaries

$17,000

Joseph Anthony and David Kimball

A Study of Photo ID Implementation in Missouri Jurisdictions

$3,280

Kyle Endres and Costas Panagopoulos

Field Experiment in the 2017 Virginia Election

 

Our study was designed to assess the effects of providing informational reminders to registered voters in the November 2017 general election in Virginia on turnout and views of the election.

 

Summary Report

$12,000

Brian J. Gaines

Primary Election Laws, State by State

 

My goal was to create a data set describing the election rules governing primary elections in the American states, with an emphasis on enfranchisement (who is permitted to take part in the election), and not the election results. Briefly, we wished to compile a definitive coding of which states employ “open”, “closed”, etc. primaries, and when these occurred.

 

Summary Report

Dataset

$5,000

Nadine Gibson

Maintaining the Machinery of Democracy: Assessing the Quality of Voting Equipment in the 21st Century

$15,000

Brian Hamel, Jan Leighley, and Robert Stein

Who Votes When—and Why?

$10,000

William McGuire, Benjamin Gonzalez O'Brien, Katherine Baird, Benjamin Corbett, and Loren Collingwood

Evaluating the Impact of Drop Boxes and Get-Out-The-Vote Advertising on Voter Turnout in Pierce County, WA

 

Voter turnout in the United States lags behind most other developed democracies. This project examines the impact the installation of new ballot drop boxes had on voter turnout in Pierce County, the second largest county in Washington State. To identify the causal effects of these boxes on the decision to vote, we exploit the randomized placement of five new ballot drop boxes in Pierce prior to the 2017 general election.

 

Summary Report

Dataset

$16,365

Thessalia Merivaki and Joseph "Dallas" Breen

Investigating Voter List Maintenance Practices at the Local Level: The Case of Mississippi

$5,000

Michael Miller and Bernard Fraga

Who Does Voter ID Legislation Keep From Voting? Evidence from Texas

 

Our plan called for the collection and digitization of all Reasonable Impediment Declarations (RIDs) filed by Texas voters in the 2016 general election. We then planned to identify the voters who filed these RIDs in the voter file, and merge their information with certain attributes in the Catalist database. The end goal of our work was to produce a dataset that could be shared with other election scholars studying this topic.

 

Summary Report

$10,235

Zachary Mohr, Martha Kropf, Mary Jo McGowan Shepherd, JoEllen Pope, and Madison Esterle

How Much Are We Spending on Election Administration?

 

As elections administration and public budget researchers, we were curious if we could find data on the cost of elections and wanted to know if the costs had changed since 2000.  We wanted to get an updated answer to the question: how much does it cost to conduct elections in the United States?

 

Summary Report

Dataset

$19,895

Brandon Rottinghaus and Jeronimo Cortina

The Impact of Vote Centers on Turnover: The Case of Texas

$9,000

Mara Suttmann-Lea

The Deserving Voter: Poll Worker Decision Making at the American Ballot Box

$10,000

Adriano Udani and David Kimball

What Fraud Looks Like: A Conjoint Analysis to Examine Perceptions of Voter Fraud

$17,500

Abby Wood, Christopher Elmendorf & Douglas Spencer

Vouchers, Information and Ideology

$14,000