Laboratories of Electoral Democracies: What Have We Learned from a Quarter Century of Research on Voting and Elections in the American States?

Abstract American federalism gives the US states considerable discretion in designing their election policy ecosystems. The result is a 50-state patchwork nation of election policy arrangements. This essay reviews the last three decades of election policy research in the US states, focusing on three interrelated and sufficiently developed sub-literatures: election policy diffusion, support for election policies, and how these policies affect voter turnout. We first detail the current structure of state election policy ecosystems and the patterns of election policy diffusion. Second, we review public support for election policies. Third, we discuss the political behavior consequences of election policies, namely whether they affect voter registration and participation in elections. Lastly, we end with a discussion of current theoretical and methodological limitations to the research agenda, with suggestions for future work.