This paper is the result of a nationwide study of polling place dynamics in the 2016 presidential election. Research teams, recruited from local colleges and universities and located in twenty-eight election jurisdictions across the United States, observed and timed voters as they entered the queue at their respective polling places and then voted. We report results about four specific polling place operations and practices: the length of the check-in line, the number of voters leaving the check-in line once they have joined it, the time for a voter to check in to vote (i.e., verify voter’s identification and obtain a ballot), and the time to complete a ballot. Long lines, waiting times, and times to vote are closely related to time of day (mornings are busiest for polling places). We found the recent adoption of photographic voter identification (ID) requirements to have a disparate effect on the time to check in among white and nonwhite polling places. In majority-white polling places, scanning a voter’s driver’s license speeds up the check-in process. In majority nonwhite polling locations, the effect of strict voter ID requirements increases time to check in, albeit modestly.

In this paper we evaluate the relationship between political control and bureaucratic performance using information requested by researchers via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and congress via congressional committee requests. The information requested was the same, and the timing of requests was similar. We find a relationship between agency politicization and a lack of responsiveness to requests for information from the public and Congress. Politicized agencies are slower to respond to requests even when controlling for agency size and workload. There is little evidence, however, that these agencies are more likely to respond poorly when they do respond. The difficulties in responding appear to be due to poor performance of the FOIA offices, either because political actors focus more on other agency activities or because of poorer management agency-wide, rather than intentional efforts to hide information or delay due to extra review. We conclude that efforts to make agencies responsive to elected officials may hurt management performance.

Campaign finance disclosure is the last (somewhat) robust regulation we have in American campaign finance, and it is under threat. We urgently need more research on disclosure. Regulatory complexity makes studying campaign finance disclosure daunting. It also creates so-called dark money and anonymous speech online. Scholars must understand the existing regulatory loopholes as they plan studies to avoid biased estimates and understand the conditions in which their results generalize to a broader population. The court's disclosure jurisprudence is thin and based on largely unproven assumptions. As the research on campaign finance disclosure matures, scholars should take a broad view of the costs and benefits of disclosure, rather than the narrow, court-led focus many studies have had until now. We must also take seriously the ways in which cognitive limitations can limit the benefits of disclosure. I explain the doctrine and review existing studies, highlighting opportunities to expand the literature.

In recent years, the courts have invalidated a variety of campaign finance laws while simultaneously upholding disclosure requirements. Courts view disclosure as a less-restrictive means to root out corruption while critics claim that disclosure chills speech and deters political participation. Using individual-level contribution data from state elections between 2000 and 2008, we find that the speech-chilling effects of disclosure are negligible. On average, less than one donor per candidate is likely to stop contributing when the public visibility of campaign contributions increases. Moreover, we do not observe heterogeneous effects for small donors or ideological outliers despite an assumption in First Amendment jurisprudence that these donors are disproportionately affected by campaign finance regulations. In short, the argument that disclosure chills speech is not strongly supported by the data.

Do audits by executive agencies impact the behavior of those audited? Does revealing negative information about legislators affect electoral results and behavior? Institutions that encourage transparency, such as campaign finance disclosure, influence mass and elite behavior. We theorize that greater transparency provides information to voters during legislative campaigns about the character of candidates, and this information affects voter and legislator behavior. The U.S. Federal Election Commission conducted random audits of 10 percent of U.S. House members in the 1970s. This FEC program is the only randomized experiment a U.S. agency has conducted on federal legislators and their electorates. We find that legislators with audits yielding campaign finance violations did poorly in the subsequent election relative to the control group. Audited nonsouthern legislators had reduced general election margins; and audited southern legislators faced more primary competition. Audited incumbents whose audits revealed violations were more likely to resign.