Election administration and perceptions of fair elections

• Perceptions of fair elections are modeled as a function of election quality and photo ID laws.
• Respondents in places with higher quality elections were more likely to see elections as fair.
• Photo ID laws had only limited effects.
• Perceptions were shaped more by partisanship and status as an under-represented minority.
• There may be limits to how much administrative reforms can improve confidence in elections.

Scholars of democracy proposes an important relationship between the quality of elections and democratic legitimacy, but there are few studies of how the conduct of elections affects perceptions of elections being fair. We examine how election administration and individual-level demographic traits affect public perceptions of fair elections in the US. Since administration of US elections is largely the responsibility of individual states we are able to exploit variation in the quality of how elections are conducted to assess effects of electoral administration on public perceptions. We find evidence that administrative performance is positively and significantly related to perceptions of elections being fair. Voter identification laws, in contrast, are not associated with greater confidence in elections. We also find some evidence that speaks to the limits of these findings, as individual-level factors such as partisanship and minority status have larger effects than administration on perceptions of electoral fairness.