cstewartiii.bsky.social

I'm honored to be on the list of newly elected fellows to the National Academy of Public Administration.
napawash.org/press-relea...

I'll be the election expert in this upcoming conversation, happening in about an hour and a half.

Interesting research on the relationship between partisanship of county voters and election boards in NC in setting salaries for local election directors.
www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10...?

Interesting research on ways to induce voters on BMDs to check their ballots.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10...

Looks like attitudes toward voter ID in the UK are similar to those in the US.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10....

Public trust in elections Join us for a conversation on public trust in elections with an elections expert and two experienced election officials.

Please join @SethBluestein , Karen Brinson Bell, and me for a @votebeat webinar on public trust in elections, moderated by @JessicaHuseman on Friday, Sept. 19, noon EDT. Register here:
www.eventbrite.com/e/public-tr...

Call for Proposals to Host

Conference hosting opportunity: The Association for Election Science, Reform, and Administration (the board that oversees the ESRA conference) has released a call for proposals to host the 2026 or 2027 summer conference. DM or email me if you're interested.
esra-conference.org/call-propos...

www.ncsl.org/state-legis...

Because I know you wanted it, here's the partisan breakdown of mail ballots by party from 2008 to 2024 in each state. Data from the Survey of the Performance of American Elections. For reference, I've also included the national time series.

I've just written a Substack post that explores some of the public opinion aspects of President Trump's recent anti-VBM post, and the political implications for the movement he has claimed leadership of.
open.substack.com/pub/playing...

The correlation between clean elections and the availability of mail/postal voting is positive, but I suspect the causality runs mostly from free and fair elections to postal voting. On the data, see
www.idea.int/data-tools/... &
www.idea.int/data-tools/...

I'm going to be on the Smerconish show on SiriusXM Channel 124 (POTUS) at 11am Eastern Time tomorrow (Tuesday), talking about mail ballot, voting machines, and election integrity.

New article: When people have access to newspapers, belief that elections are well run is less likely to be influenced by the winner-loser effect than in counties with little newspaper penetration.
doi.org/10.1016/j.e...

Just published: Research into poll worker recruitment that relies on a unique survey of poll workers in 2022. Check it out.
doi.org/10.1111/ssq...

What are the Federal Voluntary Voting System Guidelines? | Bipartisan Policy Center The Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) are a set of principles and standards for the election equipment that Americans use to vote.

The Bipartisan Policy Center has just put out a very helpful explainer on the federal Voluntary Voting System Guidelines. This may sound like a dry subject, but it is central to President Trump's executive order on elections. Check it out.
bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/w...

NH has increased documentary requirements for voting by mail. As this ternary plot indicates, NH is among the last 2 traditional states when it comes to convenience voting. The law probably won't affect mail voting rates much overall, but might affect rates for some populations.

Here's an interesting and important article by a team of social psychologists on the question of how people perceive the fairness of election outcomes given the order in which votes are cast.
doi.org/10.1177/095...

Greg Huber and colleagues have written an interesting study on beliefs about electoral integrity that distinguishes b/t severity and frequency of fraud, and also b/t uncounted & forgone votes. Check it out.
huber.research.yale.edu/materials/1...

Yes, the Google trends data indicate a recent surge in searches on "Epstein." However, the states with the most searches (relatively speaking) are disproportionately from blue states.

As the nation and state ponder California's distinctly long period for certifying elections, remember that the certification deadline isn't the only distinct thing about California election laws.

Who would vote for Elon Musk's America Party? Crunching the numbers on the potential coalition for an anti-spending, anti-Trump, anti-Democrats, anti-Republicans political party... wait what?

Elliot Morris walks through the data to estimate that the market for the America Party is b/t 1% & 2% of electorate. I suspect some party candidates will be able to do better than that, but the numbers show just how uphill the Musk effort is. Read on: open.substack.com/pub/gelliot...

Just a reminder: @mitelectionlab is hosting the EAC's Data Summit. If you're in town, come by MIT to be in person. If out of town, you can follow the livestream. (Register if you will be attending in person. You don't have to register if you're remote.)
www.eac.gov/events/2025...

A reminder that I'll be participating in this event at AEI tomorrow to talk about how the 2024 was run--with data. I'm looking forward to the event with three friends and colleagues. Attend in person or watch online.

www.aei.org/events/how-...

For those who have been waiting, the 2024 EAVS data and report have been posted by the EAC: www.eac.gov/research-an...

Delighted to be participating in this event looking back at the 2024 general election next week at AEI. Register for it, remote and in person.

www.aei.org/events/how-...

I just published this discussion of Rockland County, NY's 2024 election results on my Substack: open.substack.com/pub/playing...

On the occasion of the PA House being ready to approve a new voter ID law, here's a time series of D & R support for requiring photo ID to vote among PA respondents to the SPAE. The D growth in support mirrors national trends.

The latest from MEDSL on PNAS: "Audits of the 2020 American election show an accurate vote count"
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073...

Ballot box carried off in car repossession causes Columbus precinct to open a half-hour late A municipal election voting precinct opened 30 minutes late Tuesday morning because an election worker’s vehicle containing ballots was repossessed overnight.

Here's a new variant on "anything can happen on Election Day." (Lesson: if you're having a sleep-over with a ballot box, make sure it spends the night in the house, not in the car)

cdispatch.com/news/ballot...

Although conversion was some of the story in WI, so was turnout. Here's a plot of the change in turnout in counties ('25 vs. '24') against Trump% in '24: Excepting Milwaukee County, strong negative correlation. Also, Musk's rally didn't appear to goose turnout in Brown County.