The primary law governing voter registration for federal elections remains the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which was passed in 1993. Registration for most state and local elections continues to follow the requirements laid out in the NVRA, including requirements for states to implement a general program of voter list maintenance and implement safeguards to avoid removing voters by mistake.The most significant extension of the NVRA occurred in 2002 with the passage of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which required states to establish a centralized, statewide voter registration list and linked new voter registrations to an individual’s driver’s license and Social Security number.
While the NVRA and HAVA represented advances in access to voter registration and systematic attention to the accuracy of voter lists, the landscape of election administration has substantially changed in the years since their passage. Pressure points have grown in number and intensity over the decades, to the point where there is now widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo, even if there is not widespread agreement about what to do about it.
Many of the current concerns reflect frustration over the inability to take advantage of new data science techniques and data sources; there has also been a lack of dissemination of new techniques to the larger election administration community. Administrators and policymakers alike who wish for practice and policy to be guided by evidence have also been hampered by a research literature that is incomplete and outdated.
About the Grants
Through this new program, the MIT Election Data + Science Lab is supporting ten projects aimed at addressing these concerns. These projects, which have been designed to inform practitioners and policymakers about current issues and close practice gaps, will be grounded in data, provide a more comprehensive picture of existing practices and challenges, and ultimately offer innovative solutions to the practical problems election officials face.
Click here to learn more about the projects
This grant program is generously supported by the Election Trust Initiative.
Research Teams
Project Lead(s) | Project Title |
James Alcorn & Rebecca Green – William & Mary Law School (Election Law Program) | Operational Timelines: Quantifying and Visualizing the Lifecycle of Voter List Maintenance |
R. Michael Alvarez – California Institute of Technology | Measures & Models for Voter List Accuracy in Orange County, California |
Vanessa Fry – Boise State University (Idaho Policy Institute) | Building Authoritative Election Geography: Improving Voter Registration and List Maintenance in Idaho |
Steven Huefner – Ohio State University (Election Law) | The Litigation Landscape Concerning Voter List Maintenance: Cataloging, Summarizing, and Analyzing Legal Challenges to Voter List Maintenance Procedures to Inform Sound Policy and Administrative Practice |
Katy Owens Hubler – National Conference of State Legislatures | Toward A Common Framework for Voter List Maintenance |
Chris Mann – Center for Election Innovation & Research (CEIR) | Identifying Best Practices in List Maintenance Procedures |
Anita Manion & David Kimball – University of Missouri–St. Louis | Opting Out: The Consequences of Leaving ERIC |
Wren Orey – Bipartisan Policy Center | Evaluating How the USCIS SAVE System Performs in Practice: Evidence from Election Offices |
Whitney Quesenbery – Center for Civic Design | Strategies for designing effective list maintenance notices |
Mara Suttmann-Lea – Connecticut College - Alisa Gray (Ball State VSTOP/CEATS) | List Maintenance Legibility: Improving Public Understanding of Voter Registration and List Maintenance Practices |