Michael Herndon
Michael Herndon is a political science PhD candidate studying the intersection of racial prejudice and elections. His dissertation takes an existing puzzle in voting rights (racial discrepancies in ballot rejection) and uses a mixed-methods approach to measure the severity of the problem, identify its root causes, and test the effectiveness of various remedies for policy makers to consider. As a Senior Data and Research Fellow at the Voting Rights Project (VRP) and the Latino Policy and Politics Institute (LPPI), Michael specializes in statistical analysis that substantiates claims of racial discrimination in voting rights lawsuits.
In 2022 as a part of VRA lawsuit against three counties in Washington (Reyes et al. v Chilton et al. 2022), he conducted a survey experiment that had respondents accept or reject a combination of white and Hispanic signatures originally collected at UCLA. With nearly 2,000 survey responses, the results indicated that the Washington signature verification procedures tested in the survey experiment were racially discriminatory and disproportionately harmed Hispanic voters. With the help of this evidence provided as expert testimony, a settlement agreement was reached that requires signature reviewers to receive a comprehensive training process that includes cultural competency.
Since then, Michael has continued to field new survey experiments related to signature verification tasks with the goal of developing policy reforms, or “nudges” that protect minorities from being unfairly discriminated against. As artificial intelligence becomes more widely used in government and specifically in election administration, this also includes algorithmic biases in computer vision tools that are increasingly used by election workers to help adjudicate ballots (i.e. Automatic Signature Review or ASV). To this end, he has partnered with the CalTech Vision Lab to develop standard benchmarks of racial bias and accuracy among existing ASV softwares for local governments to refer to before contracting with one of many ASV vendors on the marketplace.
Beyond signature verification, Michael has also been involved in the collaboration between the VRP and the California Secretary of State’s office. In 2023 he co-authored two election reports that provided an improved understanding of California’s voter demographics and election accessibility. In these reports he detailed county compliance with federal and state election laws and provided recommendations that would improve accessibility.
