Little systematic empirical research exists to document the perception voters have of the voting experience and the ways is which these perceptions shape their confidence in democracy. With wholesale changes in voting technology occurring in 2006, this project examines the impact of these changes on voters' experiences at the polls.
The Utah Colleges Exit Poll has extensive experience training and deploying undergraduates as interviewers on Election Day and collecting accurate data on the attitudes and behavior of voters. For more than twenty years, scholars at Brigham Young University have conducted a statewide exit poll using hundreds of college students from a consortium of Utah colleges and universities. This project expands this poll to include the highly competitive state of Ohio in the 2006 midterm elections. It surveys voters immediately after they leave the polling place and creates a data set capable of linking voter attitudes to the characteristics of the polling place. This study will serve as a pilot to expand to more states for the 2008 presidential election.
Utilizing innovative sampling technology, voters in Utah and Ohio are asked questions in exit interviews concerning the objective conditions of the polls, eg. the length of lines, characteristics of poll workers, and the organization of the polling place, and questions concerning their reactions to the new voting technologies and processes. This information is used to help understand how the administration of elections impacts their overall confidence in voting and democracy.
Besides providing scholars of elections and policymakers with information of how voters perceive changes in voting technology, this project provides hundreds of undergraduates with the opportunity to learn about issues of sampling and survey measurement.
