Tracking Confidence: The Effect of Mail Ballot Tracking on Voter Confidence

• In Event: Increasing Confidence in Elections

Abstract

Recent elections have seen large shifts in how voters cast their ballot, with individuals increasingly moving to mail and absentee voting. Extant literature finds that mail voters have lower confidence compared to in-person voters, however, there is little research on how mail ballot tracking affects the confidence among those who vote by mail. Mail ballot tracking allows voters to check their ballot as it makes it ways through the mail balloting pipeline. Does ballot tracking increase voter confidence, and if so, for whom? Using data from the Survey of the Performance of American Elections (2022), this study finds that ballot tracking increases confidence among mail voters, with the largest effects concentrated among those who held prior beliefs about mail voter fraud. However, only one third of mail voters tracked their ballot and roughly a quarter of all mail voters are unaware they could track their ballot. These results suggest tracking ballots can increase confidence, particularly among the most distrusting. However, a lack of knowledge and underutilization of ballot tracking has limited its influence on the American public.

Authors

• Joseph Alexander Coll, Texas Tech University

• Enrijeta Shino, University of Alabama