Democracy on the Front Pages: Evaluating Media Coverage of Election Officials

• In Event: The Electoral Impacts of Media and Messaging

Abstract

Following the 2020 election, there has been renewed scrutiny of election administration in the United States. Extant literature, however, has overlooked media coverage as a mechanism by which voters acquire information about their states’ election administrators. Given that voters’ awareness of these officials is likely low, the instances in which election administrators do make headlines represent one of the few opportunities for voters to receive information about who is running elections in their states. The main research question this paper seeks to address is under what conditions are state-level election administrators covered in the news? When problems or malfunctions arise in elections, how are these election administrators covered, and to what extent are they portrayed as being at fault? To answer these questions, I analyze an original dataset of more than 1,000 news articles across four election cycles (2016-2022) that contain at least one reference to state-level election administrators. Using content analysis, I evaluate my dataset across a range of criteria, including the news topics covered, frequency of direct quotes from election administrators, and personal information reported about them. I further leverage a problem-oriented causal framework for evaluating how election administrators are portrayed when election-related problems arise. This paper contributes to our understanding of the media landscape about election officials, with implications for voters’ perceptions of democracy and election administration overall.

Author

• Liz Stark, University of Pennsylvania