Research & Reports

The Elections & Voting Information Center (EVIC) studies the evolving landscape of American elections through the Local Election Official (LEO) Survey and specialized academic research. Explore our core projects, recent scholarship, and searchable archive below.

Current Projects

Local Election Official (LEO) Survey

The EVIC Local Election Official (LEO) Survey is a yearly, nationally representative effort designed to track the administrative, policy, and operational conditions of election officials across the U.S. EVIC has fielded seven waves of the survey (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025), with the 2026 survey in development.

Oregon Trust in Elections

The Oregon Elections Trust Project is a research-practice partnership between EVIC, UC San Diego, and the Oregon Association of County Clerks (OACC). This initiative uses statewide surveys and experiments to evaluate public trust, providing data to better understand Oregon’s election landscape.

Voter List Maintenance Framework

This MEDSL-funded National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) and EVIC list maintenance project produces comprehensive state snapshots, a publicly accessible dataset, and a virtual convening, providing accurate, up-to-date data to better inform policymakers, researchers, and the general public.

Select Publications

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In Ballots and Beliefs: Diverging Views on Election Integrity From the Public and Officials, researchers find that local election officials report higher confidence in election integrity and lower belief in fraud than the general public. Similarities exist between both groups on election security and reform, but partisan divides are notably larger among the public. Professional expertise moderates but does not eliminate partisan polarization. Technocratic authority alone cannot restore public trust when partisan narratives dominate.

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In Policy Stability and Policy Change: Understanding Staffing Challenges in Oregon's Local Elections Offices, researchers examine how rapidly shifting election policy has outpaced staffing and workforce development in local elections offices. Using "policyscape" and "policy drift" as frameworks, and drawing on interviews with Oregon election officials, the study finds a growing disconnect between service expectations and existing staffing models. The authors call for more theory building and qualitative research to better understand the needs of local election administrators.

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In How Elections Under COVID-19 May Change the Political Engagement of Older Voters, researchers examine how the pandemic-driven shift to mail voting affects older Americans in two key ways. While older voters already use mail and early voting at higher rates, many remain habituated to in-person voting. More significantly, a reduction in polling places threatens to eliminate a vital civic engagement opportunity, as older Americans make up the majority of the nation's poll workers.

Search Our Full Archive

This archive is a comprehensive collection of EVIC’s published reports and peer-reviewed publications. Use the database to filter our past work by topic.

Explore our Database