Voting access reforms and policy feedback effects on political efficacy and trust

In 2020, states pursued divergent voting access reforms in an effort to facilitate a safe and secure election in the midst of a global pandemic. For some voters, options like mail-in or no-excuse absentee voting were familiar; for others, they were novel. While scholars have explored how election reforms affect turnout, we know less about how state-level electoral policies influence people's political efficacy and trust, and how political context and voter partisanship condition those effects. Employing a policy feedback framework, our analysis combines original data on state changes to election procedures with ANES survey data from 1988 to 2020 to understand the context-specific effects of voting access reforms on people's political efficacy and trust. Using time-event difference-in-difference analysis, we find little evidence that electoral reforms affect political efficacy and trust overall; however, partisanship and state political context appear necessary to understand the true relationship between electoral reform and political behavior.

Duke Scholars

Author Mallory Elizabeth SoRelle Sanford School of Public Policy