The Race Gap over Trust in Elections (and How to Close It)

• In Event: Electoral Mistrust, Voter Confidence and Minority Voter Turnout

Abstract

Question: While the contemporary conversation about trust in American elections focuses on the mistrust among white Republicans, do minority groups that have long faced barriers to accessing the ballot lack confidence in the accuracy and integrity of the vote count? Is there an enduring gap along racial and ethnic lines over trust in American elections and, if so, what determines the magnitude of this gap?

Theory: Grounding our theory in the literatures on race and trust in institutions broadly and on trust in elections, we outline hypotheses about the mechanisms of mistrust that could lead to a gap in trust across racial and ethnic groups. We also draw on work on voter disfranchisement and leverage the variation in election laws across the American states to theorize about how contemporary and historical experiences with barriers to voting could impact trust among minority groups.

Data: First, we use the Survey of the Performance of American Elections (SPAE) from 2012 through 2022 to analyze descriptive trends in ethnorace and trust over time. Second, we analyze data from a nationally representative survey we fielded in 2022.

Findings: Results from our analysis of racial gaps in trust in elections mirror expectations from the broader literature on trust in government: Black and Indigenous Americans have lower levels of trust in elections when compared to white Americans, with interesting patterns along partisan lines. While the trust gap that exists for Latines is partially explainable by demographic characteristics, like education and income, Asian Americans are not statistically unlike whites in their level of trust. Looking at how the trust gap varies across states, we demonstrate the profound importance of state voting laws: In states that impose high barriers to accessing the ballot, the gap between white and Black Americans’ trust in elections doubles in size, while in states with inclusive voting laws, the racial gap in trust disappears.

Authors

• Tye Rush, UC San Diego

• Thad Kousser, University of California, San Diego

• Laura Uribe, University of California San Diego