2026 Conference Program

Monday, June 1

3:30pm-5:00pm: Pre-Conference Registration Check-In

Location: The Beus Center for Law and Society (111 E Taylor St., Phoenix AZ 85004) 

6:40pm: Optional Outing to Arizona Diamondbacks vs. Los Angeles Dodgers

Location: Chase Field (401 E Jefferson St., Phoenix AZ 85004) 
Meet the 2026 host committee at Chase Field for an evening baseball game! We've secured a group rate for seats that includes your ticket and food at the game. (Opt-in required at registration. Please note that selecting this option will add the cost of the ticket to your registration fee.)

Tuesday, June 2

Location: The Beus Center for Law and Society (111 E Taylor St., Phoenix AZ 85004) 

7:15am: Breakfast and Registration Check-In

8:25am-8:40am: Welcome and Opening Remarks

Opening remarks from:

• Charles Stewart, AESRA Board President
• Bill Gates, ASU Mechanics of Democracy Laboratory
• Kate Brophy McGee, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chair 

8:50am-9:40am: Sessions 1, 2, 3, and 4 (concurrent)

Panel 1: Election Administration After a Disaster: What Can We Learn from the Response to Hurricane Helene

• “North Carolina Response to Helene” (Karen Brinson Bell, Advance Elections) [View slides]
• “Come Helene and High Water: Reflections on a Post-disaster Election.” (Corinne Duncan, Buncombe County, NC Election Services) [View slides]
• “Electoral Resilience in the Face of Disaster: The Impact of Hurricane Helene on the 2024 Election in North Carolina” (Chris Cooper, Western Carolina University) [Download slides]
• “Voter Access and Election Integrity: Perceptions of procedural legitimacy after Hurricane Helene.” (Martha Kropf, University of North Carolina, Charlotte) [View slides]

Panel 2: Ballot Rejection

Moderator, TJ Pyche

• “Analyzing Rejected and Undeliverable Ballots in California's 2025 Special Election” (Michael Herndon, UCLA) [Download slides]
• “Pushing the envelope: Voter experience and the timing of returned vote-by-mail ballots” (Daniel A. Smith, University of Florida; Michael C. Herron, Dartmouth University) [View slides]
• “Who Bears the Burden of SB 747? Deadline Tightening and Inequality in North Carolina’s Mail Voting” (Abida Sultana, University of Florida) [View slides]
• “Understanding Trends in Challenged and Rejected Mailed Ballots in Washington State” (Scott W. Allard, University of Washington; Jacob M. Grumbach, Goldman University of California, Berkeley; Lauren Woyczynski, University of Washington; Isaiah Wright, University of Washington) [View slides]

Panel 3: Leveraging the 2024 Election Administration Voting Survey (EAVS) for Improved Election Administration

• “Evaluation of Changes to Section A of the 2024 Election Administration and Voter Survey (EAVS): A Mixed Methods Approach” (Lindsey Nielson, Kiersten Down, David Varas Alonso, Fors Mars; Raymond Williams, U.S. Election Assistance Commission) [View slides]
• “Using the Election Administration and Voting Survey (EAVS): A framework for error detection and correction” (Sina Shaikh; Ethan Singer, MIT) [View slides]
• “Recruiting Democracy: Individual-level Determinants of Becoming a Poll Worker” (Daniel Smith; Juliana Mucci; Jacob Kaplan; Riley Shahin, University of Florida) [View slides]
• “A Geospatial Analysis of UOCAVA Ballot Processing” (James Houghton, The Turnout)

Roundtable 4: Research-Practice Partnerships to Understand Voter ID

Moderator, Samuel Novey, University of Maryland and Baltimore City Board of Elections [View slides]

• Michael Hanmer (University of Maryland)
• Lauren Kunis (VoteRiders)
• Jillian Andres Rothschild (University of Maryland)
• Dana Lewis (Pinal Co. Elections)

9:50am-10:40am: Sessions 5, 6, 7, and 8 (concurrent)

Panel 5: Redistricting

• “Automated Redistricting and Communities of Interest” (Chris Kirkwood, University of Kentucky) [View slides]
• “Mid-Decade Redistricting and Election Administration: How Distinct are the New Maps?” (Christian Grose, University of Southern California; Jose Alcocer, Harvard Law School; Seth McKee, Oklahoma State) [View slides]
• “Public Opinion Toward Redistricting and How It Is Done” (Trey Hood, University of Georgia; Seth McKee, Oklahoma State) [View slides]
• “Partisan Fairness in Congressional Redistricting:  A Paradox” (Eric McGhee, Public Policy Institute of California) [View slides]

Panel 6: Media and Communication

• “Democracy in the Lede: Introducing the Election Administration Media Dashboard” (Liz Stark, University of Pennsylvania) [View slides]
• “Uneven Access: Election Information Availability on County Websites Across the United States” (Cameron Wimpy; William P. McLean, Arkansas State University) [View slides]
• “An Audit of Municipal Election Results: Shortfalls in Election Transparency” (Michael McDonald; Maxwell Clarke; Emily Mojtabaee, University of Florida) [View slides]
• “American voter guides from 1998-2024” (Mason Reece, Zayne Sember, Joseph Loffredo, Honor Durham, Sina Shaikh, Ning Soong, Charles Stewart III, MIT) [View slides]

Roundtable 7: Building Bridges: Cultivating Trust Between Election Technology Providers, Practitioners, and the Security Research Community

Moderator: Trevor Timmons, Ready for Tuesday [Download slides]

• Michael A Specter, Georgia Tech
• Delaney Goman, Georgia Tech 
• Sam Derheimer, Hart InterCivic

Roundtable 8: Mayhem at the Polls: Violence, Threats and Safety around Voting

Moderator, Victoria Bassetti, States United Democracy Center

• Jennifer Cole, States United Democracy Center [View slides]
• Victoria Bassetti, States United Democracy Center
• Paul Penzone, former Maricopa County sheriff
• Karen Brinson Bell, Advance Elections
• Lisa Marra, AZ Secretary of State's Office
• Sequoia Andrade, UC Berkeley [View slides]

10:50am-11:50am: Sessions 9, 10, 11, and 12 (concurrent)

Roundtable 9: The (Non)Issue of Non-Citizen Voting Ahead of the 2026 Midterms

• Kelly Rader, States United
• Dax Goldstein, States United [View slides]
• Justin Grimmer, Stanford University
• Gabriel Di Chiara

Panel 10: List Maintenance 

• “Moving Targets: Evaluating the Accuracy of Inactivation Triggers in Voter List Maintenance” (Clint Swift, VoteShield/ProtectDemocracy; Sara Loving, VoteShield / ProtectDemocracy) [View slides]
• “VERITY: A Proactive Voter Roll Maintenance Framework Using Vital Statistics Data Integration” (Lakshmi Narasimha Ramohally Umesh, San Joaquin County Elections; Eric Diaz, San Joaquin County Elections)
• “Active, Inactive, and Everything in Between: Active Voter Registration Rates and Policies for Making Voter Registration Records Inactive” (April Tan, The Center for Election Innovation and Research; Kira Flemke) [Download slides]

Roundtable 11: What Builds and Breaks Voter Trust Headed Toward the 2026 Elections: Evidence from Experiments and Insights from Practitioners

• Thad Kousser, UC San Diego
• Lauren Prather, UC San Diego
• Cheryl Boudreau, UC Davis
• Jennifer Gaudette, UC Riverside
• Stephen Richer, Harvard Kennedy School
• Keely Varvel, Office of the Arizona Secretary of State

Roundtable 12: From Frontlines to Online: Transforming Election Operations with Real-Time Wait Time Data [Download slides]

• Carolina Lopez, Partnership for Large Election Jurisdictions (PLEJ)
• Gretchen A. Macht, The University of Rhode Island, Engineering for Democracy Institute (EDI)
• Brian Pollock, Kane County, IL Elections Office

12:00pm-1:00pm: Lunch

With remarks by Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes

1:10pm-2:30pm: Sessions 13, 14, and 15 (concurrent)

Session 13: Poster Session One

• “Measuring the Rural Election Administration: Evidence from the 2024 EAVS Across Multiple Rurality Classifications” (Cameron Wimpy, Arkansas State University) [View poster]
• “When Women Win: Electoral Performance and Representation of Female Candidates Running for Local Office” (Honor Durham, MIT) [View poster]
• “Elections Don’t End on Election Day: Post-Election Processing Timelines Across the United States” (Sarah Nunes, Gretchen A. Macht, Nicholas Bernardo, Engineering for Democracy Institute, University of Rhode Island)
• “Administering the Future: Understanding AI Adoption Among Local Election Officials” (Adriana Stephan, University of Oxford)
• “Not Just How, But Who: The Effect on Voter Confidence and Turnout if Election Audits Were Conducted by Professional Accountants Trained and Credentialed as Certified Election Auditors” (William Kresse, Governors State University) [View poster]
• ““Use it or Lose it”: Analysis of a Texas Voter Bill” (Andrea K. Barriero, Southern Methodist University; Robin Lederer, National Coalition for Voting Rights) [View poster]
• “Identifying (and Sharing) Best Practices in Election Administration with Practitioner-Researcher Partnerships” (Carly Colen, University of Michigan; Kira Flemke, April Tan, and Kyle Upchurch, Center for Election Innovation and Research) [View poster]
• “Ensuring election communications veracity through provenance labels” (Julian Lehman, Visar Berisha, Isabella Lenz, Arizona State University)
• “Nothing About Us Without Us: Human-Centered AI and Accessible Election Design” (Kyle Lemargie, University of Washington)
• “Voices Behind the Vote: Public Attitudes on Felony Disenfranchisement and their Implications for Election Administration” (Stephanie Puello, University of Miami) [View poster]
• “Signature Verification by the Clock: Assessing Processing Times Throughout the Day” (Gretchen A. Macht, Alexis Ahle, Leonie S. Otte, University of Rhode Island)
• “The Effect of Workload on Public Official Retention: Evidence from Local Election Officials” (Joshua Ferrer, American University) [View poster]
• “Who Votes Early in California? An Examination of In-Person Voters Casting a Ballot Before Election Day (Mindy Romero, USC Center for Inclusive Democracy) 

Panel 14: Workforce and Professional Development

• “Election Administration in Public Administration Arizona Universities Consortium” (Sara Rinfret, Northern Arizona University ; Eric Wise, Northern Arizona University; Tonia Tunnell, Office of the Arizona Secretary of State; Keely Varvel, Office of the Arizona Secretary of State; Bill Gates, Arizona State University; Alex Braithwaite, University of Arizona)
• “From Implementers to Influencers: A Study on GAVREO’s impact in the Georgia General Assembly “(Lana Goitia-Paz, Auburn University)
• “Building the Election Workforce: Training, Development, and Retention of Election Staff” (Shaniqua Williams, West Virginia University and Center for Election Innovation and Research; Carly Colen, University of Michigan; Mia Minkin, Center for Election Innovation and Research) [View slides]
• “The Civic Engagement Fellowship: From Recommendation to Implementation” (Demiana Rizkalla, NYC Campaign Finance Board)
• “Why Election Administrators Comply with Established Laws and Procedures” (Larry Jacobs, Judd Choate, Caitlyn N. Barrett, University of Minnesota; Lyn Kathlene, LK Consulting) [View slides] [View report]

Roundtable 15: If Research Appears in An Academic Journal, but No Election Official Hears It… Lessons in Effectively Communicating Academic Research to Practitioners

Moderator: Kyle Yoder, Center for Election Innovation and Research

• Christopher Mann, Center for Election Innovation and Research and Skidmore College
• Karen Brinson Bell, Advance Elections
• TJ Pyche, Ready for Tuesday
• Mindy Moretti, ElectionLine
• Eric Fey, High Turnout Wide Margins podcast & St. Louis County (MO) Board of Elections
• Brianna Lennon, High Turnout Wide Margins podcast & Boone County (MO) Clerk
• Michelle Shafer, Magenta Sage Strategies 

2:40pm-3:30pm: Sessions 16 and 17 (concurrent)

Roundtable 16: The Frontlines of Democracy: Investing in the Right Skills for Election Success

• Keely Varvel, Office of the Arizona Secretary of State 
• Adrian Fontes, Office of the Arizona Secretary of State
• Alysoun McLaughlin, University of Maryland
• Cameron Quinn, Former Virginia Election Official
• Gauri Rege, American Institutes for Research [View slides]

Panel 17: Voter Access Indices

• “Measuring Voting Equity in Indian Country” (Joseph Dietrich, Towson University; Melissa Rogers, Claremont Graduate University; Tessa Provins, University of Arizona; Jean Schroedel, Claremont Graduate University) [View slides]
• “Cost of Voting in the American States: 2026” (Michael J. Pomante II, Claremont Graduate University) [View slides]
• “A New Framework for Understanding the Effects of Voter ID Laws: Case Studies from Georgia and Texas” (Michael Hanmer, Jillian Andres Rothschild, Samuel Novey, University of Maryland Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement) [View slides]
• “Evaluating and Increasing Polling Place Efficiency” (Lindsay Nielson, Carl Turner, Christopher Williams, David Varas Alonso, Krysha Gregorowicz, Fors Marsh) [View slides]

3:40pm-5:00pm: Host Spotlight

Gen Z Voter Focus Group
Hosted by ASU Mechanics of Democracy Laboratory, the Arizona Clean Elections Commission, and the ASU Center for Independent and Sustainable Democracy.

6:00pm: Cocktail Hour

Location: Renaissance Hotel Downtown Phoenix
Sponsored by the Center for Inclusive Democracy.

7:00pm: Dinner

Location: Renaissance Hotel Downtown Phoenix

8:00pm: Karaoke

Location: Renaissance Hotel Downtown Phoenix

Wednesday, June 3

Location: The Beus Center for Law and Society (111 E Taylor St., Phoenix AZ 85004) 

7:15am: Breakfast and Registration Check-In

8:25-8:40am: Welcome and Opening Remarks

8:50am-9:40am: Sessions 18, 19, 20, and 21 (concurrent)

Panel 19: The Landscape of Election Administration

• “The Road to Widespread Deployment of Next Generation VVSG 2.x-Certified Voting Systems” (Will Adler, Bipartisan Policy Center) [View slides]
• “The Evolution of Absentee/Mail Voting Laws, 2016-2026” (Brenna Nelson, Katie King, National Conference of State Legislatures) [View slides]
• “Overview of Ballot Data Availability: 2016-2024” (Natalie Wingard, The Center for Tech and Civic Life) [View slides]
• “Election Officials as Policy Actors in State Legislatures” (Joseph Loffredo, MIT) [View slides]

Roundtable 19: Deepfakes, Doubt, and Democracy: The Case for Content Provenance in Elections

• Visar Berisha, Arizona State University
• Michael Moore, Office of the Arizona Secretary of State
• Mounir Ibrahim, Truepic

Roundtable 20: Voting Through the Storm: Supporting Election Resilience During Natural Disasters

• Thulasi Seshan, Southern Poverty Law Center [View slides]
• Zach Mahafza, Southern Poverty Law Center
• TJ Pyche, Ready for Tuesday
• Karen Brinson Bell, Advance Elections

Panel 21: Homestyle, Election Administration Edition: Exploring LEO Relationships to their Constituents

Moderator: Tommy Gong, Lake County, OR and Gabriella Cázares-Kelly, Pima County, AZ 

• “Ignorance Is Not Bliss: Election Law Knowledge, Voter Confidence, and Attitudes towards Election Officials” (Lisa Bryant, California State University, Fresno; Mara Suttman-Lea, Connecticut College; Thessalia Merivaki, Georgetown University; Martha Kropf, UNC Charlotte) [View slides]
• “Excitement and opposition at the front line: How local election officials evaluate election administration policy proposals” (Paul Manson, Elections & Voting Information Center, Portland State)
• “On the Front Lines (and Front Pages) of Democracy: Evaluating Media Coverage of Election Officials” (Liz Stark, University of Pennsylvania) [View slides]

9:50am-10:40am: Sessions 22, 23, 24, and 25 (concurrent)

Panel 22: The Architecture of Inclusion: Administrative Innovation and the Path to Equitable Access

• “Making Elections Work for Everyone: Towards Full Accessibility for Voters with Disabilities” (Renee Edwards, Rutgers University) [View slides]
• “Research and collaboration between election offices and disability organizations to improve access” (Misty Crooks, Whitney Quesenbery, Center for Civic Design) [View slides]
• “Evaluating Federal Grant Programs to Improve Voting Accessibility” Grace Klinefelter, Bipartisan Policy Center) [View slides]

Panel 23: The Evolving Dynamics of Voter Confidence

• “Communicating to Build Confidence in Elections: Evidence-Based Strategies for 2026” (Carah Ong Whaley, University of Virginia and Better Choices for Democracy)
• “Exploring Confidence in American Elections and Its Consequences” (Kevin K. Banda, States United Democracy Center) [View slides]
• “The Nature and Consequences of Public Views about Election Administration in their States” (Barry Burden, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Jacqueline Qiu, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Caroline Tolbert, University of Iowa) [View slides]
• “The Election Day Vote Center Experience” (David Kimball, Anita Manion, Jake Shaw, University of Missouri-St. Louis) [View slides]

Roundtable 24: Observational Research on the HR of Democracy

• Alysoun McLaughlin, University of Maryland
• Sam Novey, Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement
• Paul Gronke, Elections and Voting Information Center
• Cameron Quinn, former election official (VA)
• Pam Anderson, former election official (CO) 

Roundtable 25: Election Law

• Rebecca Green, William and Mary Law School [View paper: "Legal Support for Election Officials"] [View slides]
• Gary Restaino, former US Attorney, District of Arizona
• Karen Hartman-Tellez, Office of the Arizona Attorney General

10:50am-11:50am: Sessions 26, 27, 28, and 29 (concurrent)

Panel 26: New Technology and Tools

• “Testing AI Chatbots for Election Communications: Evidence from Two Prebunking Experiments” (Mitchell Linegar, Caltech; Michael Alvarez, Caltech; Betsy Sinclair, WashU St. Louis) [View slides]
• “AI + Elections Hackathon: A Participatory Model for Ethical AI, Election Communication, and Civic Trust” (Allison Lester, Peter Nagy, Arizona State University)
• “Evaluating the Eforensics Model: (Marc Meredith, University of Pennsylvania; Michael Alverez, Caltech; Justin Grimmer, Stanford)
• “Exploring Operational Trade-Offs for Mail Sorter Systems in the Vote-by-Mail Process” Gretchen Macht, University of Rhode Island; Judd Choate, Colorado Secretary of State; Leonie S. Otte, University of Rhode Island
• “Sentinel Bag: Evaluating a Secure Ballot Transport Bag to Strengthen Chain-of-Custody and Incident Resolution” Lakshmi Narasimha Ramohally Umesh (San Joaquin County, CA) [View slides]

Panel 27: The Administrative State of Trust: Processing, Auditing, and Election Integrity

• “Election Transparency: Do Postelection Audits Improve Voter Confidence?” (Sarah Case, Lonna Atkeson, Yimeng Li, Austin Llyod Culter, Marli Wang Dunietz, Florida State University) [View slides]
• “Behind the Count: How Transparency in Election Audits Can Reduce Voter Confidence” (Sarah Case, Florida State University) [View slides]
• “Does Jamal’s Vote Count Less Than James’? An Online Experiment of White Racial Attitudes and Election-Related Signature Rejection” (Michael Herndon, UCLA) [View slides]

Roundtable 28: Resolving Election Disputes Before They Reach the Courts: How Administrative Election Dispute Resolution Can Reduce Litigation and Strengthen Public Trust [View slides]

• Chad Vickery, The Concord Project
• Katherine Ellena, The Concord Project
• Rebecca Green, William and Mary Law School

Session 29: Introducing the National Election Worker Survey: Opportunities for Election Officials and Researchers and Group Discussion: What Should We Ask Poll Workers? [View slides]

• Barry Burden and Jess Esplin, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Matt Lamb and Joseph Coll, Texas Tech
• David Kimball and Anita Manion, University of Missouri-St. Louis

12:00pm-1:00pm: Lunch and Keynote Speaker

Native Vote Discussion led by Professor Patty Ferguson Bonhee, ASU College of Law

1:10pm-2:30pm: Sessions 30, 31, 32, and 33 (concurrent)

Session 30: Poster Session Two

• “Left in the Dark: Local Newspaper Closure and Rural Political Disengagement” (Cameron Wimpy, Arkansas State University; Murat Abus, Syracuse University) [View poster]
• “Are Fewer Elections Better Elections? The Impact of On-Cycle Elections on the Electoral Experience” (Zoltan Hajnal, UCSD; Joshua Ferrer, American University) [View poster]
• “Challenges in Security and Safety from the Perspective of U.S. Election Officials” (Delaney Gomen, Georgia Institute of Technology; Michael Specter) [View poster]
• “Misunderstanding, Mischaracterization, and Fabrication: Examining Claims about Noncitizen Registration and Voting” (Kyle Yoder, Mia Minkin, Iris Ong, Daniel Mussell, Center for Election Innovation & Research) [View poster]
• “How Race, Ethnicity, & Experience Shape Support for Vote Centers & Vote-by-Mail” (Michael Hanmer, Jillian Andres Rothschild, Isabelle Jensen, Alysoun McLaughlin, Samuel Novey, University of Maryland) [View poster]
• “The Effect of In-Person “Early Early” Voting on Turnout in California” (Eric McGhee, Public Policy Institute of California; Mindy Romero, USC Center for Inclusive Democracy)
• “When Voters Arrive at the Wrong Precinct: The Hidden Local Administrative Burden of Provisional Ballots and Potential Policy Alternatives” (Frances Summers, University of Virginia) [View poster]
• “Elections Administration Simulation Model for Civic Learning” (Bassel Elkalaf, Arizona State University)
• “From Signature Rejection to Signature Curing—Investigating and Visualizing State Regulations” (Gretchen Macht, University of Rhode Island, Leonie Otte, University of Rhode Island, Bridgett King, University of Kentucky)
• “Assessing Election Worker Noise Training and Hearing Protection in the Ballot Tabulation Process” (Gretchen Macht, Jeremy Herrera Santos, Leonie Otte, University of Rhode Island)

Roundtable 31: Academic Freedom in the Current US Landscape: Challenges in Conducting/practitioner Partnerships

Moderator, Mindy Romero, University of Southern California

• Judd Choate, Colorado Elections
• Lisa Bryant, California State University, Fresno
• Matt Lamb, Texas Tech
• Dan Smith, University of Florida

Roundtable 32: Forthcoming projects in Election Sciences

• “National Election Director Salary Study” (Mary Jo McGowan, UNC Charlotte; Robert Hines) [View slides]
• “The Disinformation Divide: legislators, election officials, and the politics of electoral integrity” (Joseph Anthony, SUNY Cortland)

Roundtable 33: Strengthening Associations of Election Officials

• Tammy Patrick, Election Center, National Association of Election Officials - Coalition of Election Association Leaders (CEAL)
• CEAL members and representatives

2:40pm-5:00pm: AI + Elections Mini Bootcamp

• William Gates, Arizona State University
• TJ Pyche, Ready for Tuesday
• Allison Lester, Arizona State University
• Michael Moore, Office of the Arizona Secretary of State

Thursday, June 4

10am and 1pm: Optional Tour of the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center

Location: MCTEC (501 S 3rd Ave., Phoenix AZ 85003) 
Come with us on a tour of the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center. Roundtrip shuttles to the facility will be provided. (Opt-in required at registration.)

UPDATE, 5/1/26: Our 10am tour of the facility is AT CAPACITY. We have coordinated with MCTEC to add a new tour at 1pm! All new registrations after 4/30/26 will have the option to select the 1pm tour.