Laws and regulations

Model Reveals Why Debunking Election Misinformation Often Doesn’t Work
By Anne Trafton
When an election result is disputed, people who are skeptical about the outcome may be swayed to accept the fairness and integrity of the election. A new study identifies factors that can make these efforts more successful.
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Right-Wing Activists Pushed False Claims About Election Fraud. Now They’re Recruiting Poll Workers in Swing States.
By Phoebe Petrovic, Wisconsin Watch
Elections officials say they welcome skeptics. As the system is secure, they anticipate problems from spreading misinformation rather than interfering with the process.
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U. of California Faces Lawsuit for Not Hiring Illegal Aliens
By Tate Miller, The Center Square
UC’s Board of Regents decided by a vote in January to suspend for one year the implementation of its policy that allowed the hiring of illegal aliens. Now, the university faces a lawsuit for not offering jobs to illegal aliens.
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Public Trust in U.S. Elections Is Decreasing. But Should It Be?
By Rachel Leven
Recent polls show public trust in the integrity of U.S. elections is decreasing, largely among Republicans. But this doesn’t signal that our elections are getting less reliable, scholars said.
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Election Security: When to Worry, When to Not
By Cindy Cohn
Everyone wants an election that is secure and reliable and that will ensure that the voters’ actual choices are reflected in the results. At the same time, not every problem in voting technology or systems is worth pulling the fire alarm —we have to look at the bigger story and context. And we have to stand down when our worst fears turn out to be unfounded.
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Election Skeptics Are Running Some County Election Boards in Georgia. A New Rule Could Allow Them to Exclude Decisive Votes.
By Doug Bock Clark and Heather Vogell
An examination of a new election rule in Georgia suggests that local officials in just a handful of rural counties could exclude enough votes to affect the outcome of the 2024 presidential race.
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Crime Is Down, FBI Says, but Politicians Still Choose Statistics to Fit Their Narratives
By Amanda Hernández
Violent crime and property crime in the United States dropped in 2023, continuing a downward trend following higher rates of crime during the pandemic. Murder in the United States fell nearly 12% in 2023 compared with 2022.
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In 2019, Congress Finally Funded Gun Violence Research. Here’s How It’s Changed the Field
By Jennifer Mascia, Chip Brownlee, and Fairriona Magee
A Trace analysis of federal data found that the amount of money going to gun violence studies has soared since lawmakers lifted a de facto federal funding ban.
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Research Sheds Light on Impact and Bias of Voter Purging in Michigan
By Jack Harrison and Kim Ward
In recent years, some states have prioritized purging their voter rolls of those who have passed away or moved out of state. Voter purging can be an important step for creating election integrity, but others have raised concerns about how the process is conducted and who it targets.
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Some Online Conspiracy-Spreaders Don’t Even Believe the Lies They’re Spewing
By H. Colleen Sinclair
There has been a lot of research on the types of people who believe conspiracy theories, and their reasons for doing so. But there’s a wrinkle: My colleagues and I have found that there are a number of people sharing conspiracies online who don’t believe their own content.
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Weak "Guardrails" on Police Face Recognition Use Make Things Worse
By Hayley Tsukayama
Police use of face recognition technology (FRT) poses a particularly massive risk to our civil liberties, particularly for Black men and women and other marginalized communities.
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Changing Demographics and the Political Calculus of Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric in Swing States
By Gloria Rebecca Gomez
Immigration is a far more complex topic than border security alone, and strategists may be miscalculating by failing to consider some key voters and their nuanced perspectives, recent polling shows. Growing populations of new and first-generation citizens in the swing states — with the power to sway elections — are transforming demographics and voter concerns.
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Voting by Mail? Election Workers Are Worried About Issues at the Postal Service.
By Barbara Rodriguez
State election officials are encouraging people who vote by mail to be proactive about making sure their ballots are counted.
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In the Tightest States, New Voting Laws Could Tip the Outcome in November
By Matt Vasilogambros
This year’s presidential election will likely be decided by voters in the seven tightly contested states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. How legislatures, courts and election boards have reshaped ballot access in those states in the past four years could make a difference: Pandemic protections offer more ballot options. Election lies are driving new restrictions.
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Trump’s 2020 Stolen Election Claims Are Wrong on the Merits
By Walter Olson
Donald Trump is back to saying the 2020 election was stolen from him, and his followers regularly echo these claims. It’s therefore helpful to keep on hand one or two of the exhaustively detailed state-by-state accounts by election lawyers and scholars of why this isn’t so.
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