Journal Article

Who Asks For Voter Identification? Explaining Poll-Worker Discretion

Atkeson, Lonna Rae, Hall, Thad E., Alvarez, R. Michael, Kerevel, Yann P.

2014

Overview

As street-level bureaucrats, poll workers bear the primary responsibility for implementing voter identification requirements. Voter identification requirements are not implemented equally across groups of voters, and poll workers exercise substantial discretion in how they apply election law. In states with minimal and varying identification requirements, poll workers appear to treat especially minority voters differently, requesting more stringent voter identification. We explain why poll workers are different from other street-level bureaucrats and how traditional mechanisms of control have little impact on limiting poll-worker discretion. We test why many poll workers appear not to follow the law using a post-election survey of New Mexico poll workers. We find little evidence that race, training, or partisanship matters. Instead, poll worker attitudes toward photo-identification policies and their educational attainment influences implementation of voter-identification laws.

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press,University of Chicago Press
• Subject: Attainment / Attitudes / Bureaucracy / Bureaucrats / Corporate bureaucracy / Discretion / Educational attainment / Election Law / Election laws / Elections / Employee attitude / Identification / Identification documents / Implementation / Law / Local elections / Minority groups / Opinion Polls / Partisanship / Polls / Polls & surveys / Race / States / Training / U.S.A / Voter attitudes / Voter behavior / Voter fraud / Voter registration / Voters / Voting / Voting precincts / Voting rights / Worker Attitudes / Workers