Files
Abstract
This study evaluates county-level responses to decreased voter confidence in election security after the 2016 U.S. presidential election. This study relies on analysis of the complied data on annual adopted budgets for county elections offices in Florida and New York. The voter turnout per population percentage is then compared to three potential factors of confidence in election integrity — (1) engagement with the community (calculated via compiled county elections office Facebook page follower counts), (2) designated security rate of the voting machine type used in the 2020 Presidential election, and (3) each county’s adopted 2020 election budget. Semi-structured interviews with New York county Election Commissioners, Florida county Election Supervisors, and voters from each state helped inform the factors that should be evaluated as a part of this study as well as how to address sources of low confidence in election security and integrity. Findings establish that after 2016, most counties in either state did not significantly change their outreach methods to increases public knowledge of the county’s elections process aside from occasionally updating social media outreach. While federal security support from in both Florida and New York increase between 2016 and 2020, county budgets in New York and Florida increased variably. Additionally, counties rarely consulted security assistance outside of what the state provided. As lost confidence in election integrity continues to strain bureaucratic processes and national unity, the gap in research on how local governance plays a role in strengthening public confidence in elections grows even more critical. The findings of this study point to the urgent need to boost support for county-level programs run out of election offices to engage with the public. Findings also highlight the absence of any significant financial evaluation of the national cost of elections and how those funds are used.