Paper proposals are being invited for the 5th Summer Conference on Election Science, Reform, and Administration.



The conference will be held virtually July 19 – July 21.  The conference will kick-off with a keynote address on Monday, July 19 at 7:00 EDT/4:00 PDT by NASS President and NM SOS Maggie Toulouse Oliver, followed by a social hour.  The following two days will consist of 2 academic/practitioner panels or roundtables to be determined based upon the submissions received.



The goals of the conference are to engage the community of scholars and practitioners who work in election science and election administration. The conference invites participation from scholars in political science, public administration, law, computer science, statistics, and other fields who are working to develop rigorous empirical approaches to the study of how laws, technology, and administrative procedures affect the quality of elections in the United States; and, second, to build scientific capacity by identifying major questions in the field, fostering collaboration, and connecting senior and junior scholars. In addition, the conference is meant to connect practitioners and scholars to facilitate collaboration, and exchanges of information to create opportunities for policy evaluation and innovation.



We hope that a wide variety of topics will be addressed at the conference. We are particularly interested in new and innovative projects that address long standing questions about the impact of election reforms on registration and turnout at both the state and federal level; how the voter experience has improved or eroded during the two recent waves of election reforms and in relation to the pandemic; and the research design and methodological challenges in election science. The following is an incomplete list that provides a few sample ideas, but should not be considered exhaustive:



●      How new or changed election laws affect the size and makeup of the pool of registered voters and the federal, state, and/or local electorates;

●      Professionalization (or the lack thereof) and the quality of election administration;



●      Evaluating the impact of voting centers, consolidated precincts, and convenience voting;



●      How election reform has differentially impacted historically disadvantaged segments of the electorate;

●      The analytical and methodological tools needed to work with voter registration and voter history files, and challenges in making causal inferences when working with these files;

●      New methods for connecting other behavioral records (e.g. survey data) or geospatial data with voter history and voter turnout data

●      Implications of COVID reforms on future elections



Lonna Atkeson (University of New Mexico), Lisa Bryant (CSU Fresno), and Charles Stewart (MIT) will serve as program co­chairs. Charles Stewart and the MEDSL will act as conference organizers and hosts.



Paper proposals of no more than 250 words should be submitted by April 30, 2021.



Submit proposals to the Google Form on the main website (https://electionlab.mit.edu/events/esra-2021). We expect to announce decisions by May 24.



Any questions can be sent to [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>, [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>,  or [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>.



Scholars wishing to attend without presenting a paper should contact Claire DesSoi ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) or Abigale Belcrest ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) by June 1.  Further details about the conference will be posted at the conference website: https://electionlab.mit.edu/events/esra-2021.



Please feel free to re­distribute this announcement to relevant individuals and e­mail lists. We look forward to reading your paper proposals!



 We are looking forward to hearing from you!



Lonna Atkeson, Lisa Bryant, & Charles Stewart







---------

Lonna Atkeson

Professor of Political Science

Director, Center for the Study of Voting, Elections and Democracy

Executive Director, Institute for Social Research









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