Voting Technology and Election Administration in the United States

by

R. Michael Alvarez

• LAST REVIEWED: 26 May 2023
• LAST MODIFIED: 26 May 2023
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756223-0358

Introduction

Voting technologies and election administration have become a growth area for academic research. Before the 2000 US presidential election, a strong body of research in election science did not exist. However, in the decades since that close and contested presidential election, researchers from multiple academic disciplines have produced many excellent studies of election procedures, laws, administration, and technologies. This chapter provides an overview of the political science and political administration research literature on voting technologies and election administration in the United States.

General Overviews

There have been a number of book-length general overviews focusing on election administration in the United States. An early study is Harris 1934, and other books that take a historical perspective on election administration include Keyssar 2000 and Bensel 2004. Hale, et al. 2015 provides a contemporary analysis of American election administration, while Hale and Brown 2020 examines election administration innovation. Finally, the Brown, et al. 2019 edited volume examines current issues and future changes in the administration of elections in the United States.

• Bensel, Richard F. The American Ballot Box in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

  DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511606724

  A history of American election administration.

• Brown, Mitchell, Kathleen Hale, and Bridgett King, eds. The Future of Election Administration: Critical Cases and Conversations. New York: Palgrave, 2019.

  An overview of critical issues in contemporary election administration.

• Hale, Kathleen, and Mitchell Brown. How We Vote: Innovation in American Elections. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2020.

  DOI: 10.2307/j.ctv1169bgj

  An overview of American election procedures and technologies, from the perspective of public administration and public management.

• Hale, Kathleen, Robert Montjoy, and Mitchell Brown. Administering Elections: How American Elections Work. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2015.

  DOI: 10.1057/9781137388452

  An introduction to American election administration.

• Harris, Joseph. Election Administration in the United States. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1934.

  An early-20th-century overview of American election administration.

• Keyssar, Alexander. The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States. New York: Basic Books, 2000.

  The right to vote has evolved considerably over the course of American history, as argued in this book.