What do election observers do?
And can they improve trust in elections?
Editor’s note: Does the presence of nonpartisan election observers at polling places hurt or help voter confidence in elections?
In New Mexico, a team of researchers set out to test that question. How did they approach answering it? Read on!
What’s all this about, again?
This is the final interview in our three-part series of conversations with researchers who studied the 2024 election. You can find the earlier interviews here and here.
For context, Public Agenda connects research to action in service of a healthier democracy. We built the Democracy Renewal Project (DRP) to answer questions that matter to people doing the practical work of strengthening democratic processes, institutions, and cultures.
In the first DRP cycle, we funded ten research teams who are using rigorous methods to produce practical evidence on how we can increase access to electoral participation while strengthening trust in elections. We timed our grantmaking so researchers could study the 2024 presidential election, and right now they are wrapping up data analysis. We eagerly await their findings. But even before we have answers to specific research questions, we can learn from their experience conducting research during an election cycle.
Now that the 2024 election is several months behind us, most Americans are naturally focused on the actions of the people who won those elections, not least because we are experiencing rapid and dramatic change. That makes sense. But the pace and magnitude of change should remind us that the primary way Americans can act on their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with elected officials is through elections. So now is a great time to dig into the latest high-quality election research.
The interview
Democracy Renewal Project researchers Wendy L. Hansen (University of New Mexico) and Lonna Rae Atkeson (Florida State University) have a long history observing elections and working with local election officials in New Mexico. Their current research examines whether the presence of election observers at polling places affects voter confidence. I have condensed and revised our conversation.
Emily Sandusky, Director, Public Agenda: What is your experience with elections in New Mexico?
Lonna Atkeson: Wendy and I have long relationships in New Mexico. We’ve been doing election observation with the permission of county clerks since 2006. In 2011, the state legislature passed a law that allows academics to be treated like international election observers. That happened because one of the county clerks said that we needed to pass a law or eventually we would lose access to observe polling places. She was very wise. New Mexico is the only state with that kind of law on the books.
ES: What’s the role of an election observer?
LA: Just observing to provide feedback. Observers are different from election monitors who actively monitor the voting process for mistakes.
ES: Describe your work during the 2024 election.
Wendy Hansen: Well, 22 undergraduate students in my research methods class observed polling places across Sandoval County. Most had no idea how elections were run. Some of them had never voted before, so it was their first time in a polling place. They were surprised that there were both Democrats and Republicans running things. They were surprised by how friendly and nice people were! They were surprised that the Democrats and Republicans were getting along with each other.
ES: What did students do at the polling places?
WH: Just what we were doing: they stood there and watched. Some of the poll workers and presiding judges took them under their wings, and explained what was going on. Otherwise, they were told that they couldn't interact with the voters, that they were just supposed to observe what was going on, and write down what they observed.
LA: Research outside of the U.S. has shown that the presence of observers in polling places can increase confidence in elections.
ES: How did voters know that the students were observers?
WH: They all wore bright blue polo shirts that said Nonpartisan Election Observer.
ES: I know that the student observers were part of a field experiment, and that the presence of a nonpartisan election observer at a polling place was the treatment condition. How did you assign treatment and control conditions?
LA: Our observers were students who had classes and jobs, so we had to be flexible. But, there were observers at every polling place at different times of the day throughout early voting and on election day.
ES: How do you know which voters overlapped with observers?
LA: The New Mexico Secretary of State provided data from the e-poll books, which voters sign before they vote. It provides the time and location where each person voters, so we can match those records with our observer locations.
After the election we fielded a survey of voters in Sandoval County and throughout New Mexico. We asked respondents to report on their confidence in the election.
ES: What are the opportunities and the challenges of doing an experiment in the field during an election?
LA: I think it's exciting. The field experiment answers a really different question than a survey experiment.
ES: Right. You can compare levels of confidence between voters who were at polling places when there was an observer and voters at the same polling places with no observer present.
LA: Yes. We also ran a survey experiment. Some surveys described the University of New Mexico’s 2024 election observation work and noted that we did not see any problems with the election. The survey experiment can tell us the effect of providing voters with information about election observers. But, we want to know if the presence of observers has an effect. These are two different things.
In our case, the field experiment provides a means to test in the real world whether the presence of independent, nonpartisan election observers improves voter confidence in the integrity of the election. But there are challenges. One challenge is that you don't know if every student observer is as visible as every other one. A second challenge is we don't know whether voters actually see the observers. It’s a bit messier than a survey experiment where we can easily isolate how information changes attitudes. We’ve incorporated both designs into our study.
Emily Sandusky is a Director at Public Agenda.
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