The Administrators of Democracy: a Research Note on Local Election
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Donald P. Moynihan University of Wisconsin – Madison Carol L. Silva University of Oklahoma Special PAR Th e Administrators of Democracy: A Research Note on Symposium on Election Local Election Offi cials Administration Donald P. Moynihan is an associate Local election offi cials are the administrators of demo- for election administration and the role of local offi - professor in the La Follette School of Public cracy, but we know little about their views. Th is paper cials as implementers of those requirements. Th e data Affairs at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. His research examines the draws from two national surveys of local election offi cials. come from two surveys undertaken in the aftermath application of organization theory to public Th e authors fi nd that local election offi cials generally of the 2004 and 2006 elections. Th e surveys were management issues such as performance, support the goals of the federal Help America Vote Act sponsored by the Congressional Research Service and homeland security, election administration, and employee behavior. He is the author of but are less enthusiastic about the actual impact of the form the basis of two reports to Congress. Th is paper The Dynamics of Performance Management: legislation. Implementation theory helps explain their is distinct from those reports in that it tests how im- Constructing Information and Reform evaluation of federal reforms. Goal congruence with plementation theory can explain LEO attitudes to- (Georgetown University Press, 2008). E-mail: [email protected] reform mandates, resource availability, and a willingness ward HAVA. Th e Government Accountability Offi ce to accept federal involvement predicts support for these ( GAO 2001, 2006 ; formerly the General Accounting Carol L. Silva is an associate professor reforms. Federal policy changes have promoted electronic Offi ce) and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission in the Department of Political Science and the Center for Applied Social Research at systems, and some of the authors’ fi ndings are relevant ( EAC 2007a ) have also surveyed LEOs. Th ese surveys the University of Oklahoma. Her research to research on e-government. Users of electronic voting include questions about the practice of election ad- interests include environmental politics and machines tend to have high confi dence in them despite ministration but do not probe attitudes toward HAVA policy, the politics and management of elections, contingent valuation methodol- the signifi cant criticism the machines have faced. Local and largely do not focus on the implementation issues ogy, policy analysis, survey research election offi cials who support e-government generally are that have arisen since the passage of HAVA, specifi - methodology, risk analysis and assessment, more likely to more positively evaluate federal reforms. cally the criticisms of DREs. and gender and risk perception. E-mail: [email protected] It’s not the voting that’s democracy, it’s the Th e survey evidence presented also has the advantage counting. of coinciding with two separate waves of election reforms, uniquely tracking the views of LEOs in the — Tom Stoppard, Jumpers, Act I midst of dramatic policy change. Th e fi rst wave was characterized by the passage of HAVA and pressures to hile elections in the United States have replace older voting technologies with newer ones, historically been managed at the state including e-voting machines. Th e second wave of W and local levels, the federal government reform was a reaction to the adoption of DREs, as has gradually become more involved through such most state governments began to pay attention to the legislation as the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the concerns of computer scientists about the potentially National Voter Registration Act of 1993. Th e prob- catastrophic security weaknesses of DREs ( GAO lems associated with the 2000 presidential election led 2005; Moynihan 2004 ) and implemented another to a dramatic increase in the federal role. In October level of reform mandates by requiring the use of voter- 2002, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act verifi able paper audit trails. (HAVA). Th is act set up new requirements for both voting and voter registration systems, sought to im- Th e fi rst section of this paper provides some back- prove election administration, and aimed to increase ground detail on LEOs and explains how data were access for the disabled. HAVA also encouraged the collected on this population. We then examine the adoption of new voting technologies, in particular goals of HAVA and provide evidence on LEO agree- the adoption of direct-recording electronic (DRE) ment with these goals while also pointing to concerns systems, sometimes known as e-voting machines. about the perceived diffi culty of implementing HAVA. Next, we draw on implementation theory to Using a national data set of the perceptions and opini- develop and test a series of hypotheses to explain the ons of local election offi cials (LEOs), this paper inves- attitudes of LEOs toward HAVA. Th e fi nal section of tigates the relationship between federal requirements the paper focuses on the most controversial of new 816 Public Administration Review • September | October 2008 voting technologies, e-voting machines, and fi nds that tested with a group of LEOs and subsequently revised. these machines retain strong support among their Th e later survey was additionally revised to refl ect users. lessons from the initial survey and new policy ques- tions. For both surveys, the sample pool was based on Understanding the Views of Local a national database of all LEOs maintained by the Election Offi cials Election Reform Information Project. Because there is Th e disputed presidential election in Florida in 2000 great variation in the number of election offi cials per transformed the role of LEOs. Th e public and policy state that is not completely related to population, a makers came to realize the im- random sample would cause portance of a previously obscure states with more decentralized group of public offi cials respon- Th e disputed presidential election administration systems sible for election administration. election in Florida in 2000 to have a disproportionate infl u- LEOs now found themselves key transformed the role of LEOs. ence on the data. To reduce the actors in a major policy issue. In dominance of states with large 2005, the Commission on populations of election offi cials, Federal Election Reform, known as the Carter-Baker we split the states into categories of large states (more Commission, identifi ed the importance of competent than 150 LEOs) and small states (fewer than 150 election administration to popular confi dence in LEOs), surveying all LEOs in small states and survey- democracy. Th e commission cited public opinion ing 150 randomly sampled LEOs from large states. polls that showed the majority of Americans were not Because our analysis was not weighted according to very confi dent that their votes would be accurately the size of the election offi cial population, this sam- counted. Other polls showed that 86 percent of Amer- pling strategy had the eff ect of increasing the infl uence icans agreed that “we clearly have a major problem in of smaller states relative to their actual number of the way that votes are cast and counted and this needs LEOs while ensuring that a relatively high number of to be fi xed” ( Moynihan and Silva 2005, 32 ). individuals were sampled from the states with large numbers of election offi cials. Th e Carter-Baker Commission bemoaned the absence of useful research on election administration: “Despite Th e primary means of data collection was an elec- the wealth of expertise and literature on U.S. elections tronic survey, but follow-up paper surveys were sent to and voting behavior, little research focuses on the respondents who did not complete the initial e-mail administration or conduct of elections . To eff ec- invitation to respond. Th e 2005 survey generated tively address the challenges facing our election sys- 1,518 usable responses, 40.2 percent of the total pop- tems, we need to understand better how elections are ulation, while the 2007 survey included responses administered” (2005, 57). A wave of recent research from 1,506 respondents, 39.7 percent of its total has begun to remedy this problem (e.g., Alvarez and sample population. Th e GAO estimated that the Hall 2006; Hall, Monson, and Patterson 2007; number of LEOs is approximately 10,000 ( GAO Kimball and Kropf 2006; Kimball, Kropf and Battles 2001 ), while the Election Assistance Commission 2006; Stewart 2006 ), but our knowledge on the views (2007a) found that LEOs from 7,220 local jurisdic- of LEOs remains impoverished. LEOs are the admin- tions (of 15,449 total local jurisdictions) were able to istrators of democracy. Th eir actions can disenfran- respond to a survey that it submitted. While a defi ni- chise voters, subvert the political process, and damage tive tally of LEOs is not clear, our sample represents a public confi dence in democracy. For instance, Ansola- signifi cant portion of this population, including repre- behere and Stewart (2005 , 367) proposed that their sentatives from cities, counties, townships, and fi nding that dummy variables for “county” accounted villages. for a very substantial percentage of the variance among residual votes (unmarked, spoiled or un- Who are the respondents who completed our surveys? counted ballots) was the result of variation in local Th ey are mostly experienced, full-time elected offi cials administration. Such evidence underlines the need to who spend a substantial amount of time on election understand LEO attitudes toward election administra- duties. Almost 71 percent reported having full-time tion and reform, as this knowledge can help explain positions as election offi cials, but their positions often election outcomes and the success of mandates for include duties beyond election administration, such as change.