The American Dilemma in Election Administration: How Street Level Bureaucrats Racialize Voting

Author: Michael Alan Herndon

Problem: The COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in a new reliance on non-traditional voting methods, as over one third of voters utilized vote-by-mail (VBM) in the 2024 general election. While this sweeping transition has increased convenience for many voters, it has opened a door for another form of voter suppression: ballot rejection via signature discrepancy. In the 2024 general election, over 580,000 VBM ballots were rejected nationwide – with the most popular reason being a signature discrepancy. Importantly, these ballot rejections are not randomly distributed and are instead felt unequally by racial minorities. VBM ballot rejections are an important component to election outcomes, yet the processes leading to these types of rejections has yet to be empirically scrutinized.

Methodology: My dissertation investigates disproportionate ballot rejection through two approaches. First, I conduct an observational analysis using detailed voter data from California and Washington to measure gaps in rejection rates across counties, demographic groups, and elections. Unlike prior studies that examine single contests, I track ballot rejection over time. Second, I use survey experiments to test psychological mechanisms that can explain why certain groups face higher rejection risk and offer insight into what interventions election administrators might employ to reduce these disparities.

Results: The results of my observational analysis show that non-White voters see their ballots rejected up to four times as often as White voters, but that this relationship is largely driven by age and the fact that non-White voters tend to be younger on average. My survey experiments find that the average lay-person is more likely to accept White signatures and reject non-White signatures while holding all else equal (e.g. authenticity, penmanship, etc.) and that racial attitudes influence the process of signature verification even when controlling for partisanship, age, and other demographic factors.

Conclusions: My dissertation underscores 1) the theoretical importance of understanding election administration as a bureaucracy that is vulnerable to biased decision-making, 2) the existence of important demographic and regional disparities in vote-by-mail ballot rejection rates, and 3) the practical need for reforms that ensure election systems are not undermined by bias or discrimination, especially in VBM signature review which entails the most ambiguity and subjectivity.

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