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Flooding the Vote: Hurricane Katrina and Voter Participation in New Orleans (PDF)
Natural disasters present a range of challenges for election administrators. Even after these problems are solved, however, questions about voter participation in their aftermath remain. In this new study, R. Michael Alvarez, Thad Hall, and Betsy Sinclair examine voter participation in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and identify which characteristics made individuals more likely to vote immediately post-disaster.

Read the report here (PDF).
Featured Resources
Although ethnic diversity of the U.S. has been increasing, voter registrations have not followed this trend. A new report finds that although the voting population is still unrepresentative of the American population at large, the 2008 voting population was more diverse than in years past.
This paper examines the impact of electoral laws on turnout in elections. The authors find that by aggregating turnout among different demographic groups, they can estimate the impact of electoral reforms over time.
In this piece, the Election Reform Project's Jessica Leval reviews Heather Gerken's book, The Democracy Index, which details a proposal for creating a ranking system for state and local governments based on the performance of their elections.
A pilot study examined the effectiveness of combining in-person training with on-line educational tools. Those who participated in on-line training performed better, were more confident in their work, and knew the specifics of their job better than those who had not participated in on-line training.
Ned Foley’s post on Election Law @ Moritz delves into the issue of uncounted ballots. This category includes absentee ballots either wrongly rejected or arriving late (usually from overseas) and provisional ballots that haven’t yet been evaluated.
Research Projects
FairVote develops and promotes practical strategies to improve elections at the local, state and national levels.
electionline.org provides daily news updates on election reform issues, as well as deeper analysis of selected topics, including recent reports on voter registration, recount procedures, and the progress in implementing the Help America Vote Act since 2002.
As part of its broader research focus on elections, campaign ethics, campaign finance, and the legislative process, the Center for American Politics and Citizenship at the University of Maryland is engaged in research projects on voting technology and ballot design specifically.
Dēmos is a non-partisan public policy research and advocacy organization founded in 2000. A multi-issue national organization, Dēmoscombines research, policy development, and advocacy to influence public debates and catalyze change.
Part of the Institute for Governmental Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, the Election Administration Research Center (EARC) aims to improve the administration of elections.
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