2018 Conference
About the 2018 Conference
The 2018 Election Sciences, Reform, and Administration conference took place at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on July 26-27, 2018.
The invitation-only conference brought together political scientists, election professionals, and other experts in election administration to develop rigorous empirical approaches to the study of how law and administrative procedures affect the quality of elections in the United States. Participants identified major questions in the field, share new insights, foster collaboration between election administrators and election scientists, and connect senior and junior scholars. Click here for a link to the program.
This 2nd annual ESRA conference was generously supported by the Elections Research Center at UW-Madison and the MIT Election Data and Science Lab.
The 2018 ESRA Conference was supported by:
2018 Host Committee
2018 Program Committee
2018 Program: Thursday, July 26
Chair: Kenneth Mayer (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Discussants:
- Eric McGhee (Public Policy Institute of California)
- Judd Choate (Colorado Division of Elections)
Presentations:
“Evaluating the Impact of Drop Boxes on Voter Turnout” (blog post)
- William McGuire
- Benjamin O’Brien Gonzalez
- Katherine Baird,
- Benjamin Corbett
- Loren Collingwood
“Registration Innovation: The Impact of American Registration Regimes, 1996-2016” (blog post/slides)
- Holly Ann Garnett
- Peter Miller
“A Field Experiment to Examine States’ Efforts to Increase Registration and Turnout” (blog post)
- Lisa Bryant
- Michael Hanmer
“A Field Experiment to Examine States’ Efforts to Increase Registration and Turnout: Who Votes When and Why?” (blog post)
- Brian T. Hamel
- Jan E. Leighley
- Marvin R. McNeese, Jr.
- Robert M. Stein
Chair: Mitchell Brown (Auburn University)
Discussants:
- Paul Gronke (Reed College)
- Adam Lasker (Chicago Board of Elections)
Presentations:
“Estimating the Differential Effects of Purging Inactive Registered Voters”
- Michael Herron
- Daniel Smith
“Managing Voter Registration Rolls the Hybrid Way: The Case of Mississippi” (blog post)
- Thessalia Merivaki
- Sean Conner
Chair: Charles Stewart III (MIT)
Panelists:
- Lori Edwards (Polk County, FL)
- Amy Cohen (National Association of State Election Directors)
- Steve Trout (State of Oregon)
- Willie Green (Floyd County, GA)
Cameron Wimpy (MEDSL)
Chair: Paul Herrnson (University of Connecticut)
Discussants:
- Michael Miller (Barnard College)
- Edward Foley (Ohio State University)
Presentations:
“Photo ID Implementation in Missouri Counties”
- Joseph Anthony
- David Kimball
“Information and Identification: A Field Experiment on Virginia’s Photo Identification Requirements” (blog post)
- Kyle Endres
- Costas Panagopoulos
“A Disproportionate Burden: Strict Voter Identification Laws and Minority Turnout” (blog post)
- Zoltan Hajnal
- John Kuk
- Nazita Lajevardi
“Who Votes without Identification? Using Affidavits from Michigan to Learn about the Potential Impact of Strict Photo Identification Laws”(blog post/slides)
- Phoebe Henninger
- Marc Meredith
- Michael Morse
2018 Program: Friday, July 27
Chair: David Kimball (University of Missouri-St. Louis)
Discussants:
- Bernard Fraga (Indiana University)
- Jonathan Robinson (Catalist)
Presentations:
“What Nationwide Voter Files Can Tell Us about the Effects of Election Laws” (blog post)
- Bernard Fraga
- John Holbein
- Christopher Skovron
“Modeling Voting Service Times with Machine Logs”(blog post/slides)
- Jacob Jaffe
- Charles Stewart III
- Jacob Coblenz
“A Method to Audit the Assignment of Registered Voters to Districts and Precincts”(blog post)
- Brian Amos
- Michael McDonald
Katy Owens Hubler (Democracy Research) (slides)
Chair: Tammy Patrick (Democracy Fund)
Panelists:
- Lance Gough (Chicago Board of Elections)
- Paul Linnell (Anoka County, MN)
- Scott McDonell (Dane County, WI)
- Meagan Wolfe (Wisconsin Elections Commission)
Chair: Jan Leighley (American University)
Discussants:
- Lonna Atkeson (University of New Mexico)
- Kevin Kennedy (Kennedy Election Law Services)
Presentations
“Election Administration Spending in Local Election Jurisdictions: Results from a Nationwide Data Collection Project” (blog post)
- Zachary Mohr
- Martha Kropf
- JoEllen Pope
- Mary Jo Shepherd
- Madison Esterle
“Maintaining the Machinery of Democracy: Assessing the Quality of Voting Equipment in the 21st Century” (blog post)
- Nadine Gibson
“The Costs of Ranked Choice Voting” (blog post)
- Christopher Rhode