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Abstract

The Electoral Integrity Project at Harvard University has conducted a new expert survey of the 2020 US Presidential Elections. The research gathered the views of almost 800 scholars of elections, parties and American state politics located in all 50 states plus DC. After the polls closed, these experts shared their experiences and observations of the elections and parties in their own state. The study found that experts overwhelmingly rejected claims of alleged fraud. Nevertheless, a series of flaws still undermine the quality of American elections, such as gerrymandering, campaign finance, and misinformation. Worsening performance since 2016 signifies a deepening legitimacy crisis over American elections. The conclusion recommends a program of comprehensive reforms, including passage of H.R.1 (2019) For the People Act, to restore confidence in American elections. The Electoral Integrity Project is an independent non-partisan scientific research project based at Harvard University. Established by Professor Pippa Norris, since in 2012 EIP has compared over 300 nationwide elections in 166 countries around the world. PEI-US-2020 is the fourth in the series of state-level US surveys, monitoring changes over successive American elections from 2014-20. The full electronic dataset will be released in mid-December.

Citation

Norris, Pippa. "Electoral Integrity in the 2020 U.S. Elections." Electoral Integrity Project, December 2020.