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Making Every Vote Count: The Important Role of Managerial Capacity in Achieving Better Election Administration Outcomes
Author(s) -
Kropf Martha,
Pope JoEllen V.,
Shepherd Mary Jo,
Mohr Zachary
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
public administration review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.721
H-Index - 139
eISSN - 1540-6210
pISSN - 0033-3352
DOI - 10.1111/puar.13216
Subject(s) - agency (philosophy) , context (archaeology) , administration (probate law) , voting , public economics , residual , outcome (game theory) , politics , public administration , business , public management , economics , political science , microeconomics , sociology , computer science , paleontology , social science , algorithm , law , biology
A public agency's capacity to implement policy and achieve valued public outcomes has been a long‐running area of research in public administration. Many articles provide theory and empirics regarding the capacity to implement policy, but relatively few examine multiple types of agency capacity within the same analysis. This article develops a model based on the election administration literature in political science and public administration to examine the effects of managerial capacity, financial capacity, and technology on the election management outcome of the residual vote rate in North Carolina election jurisdictions. The results indicate that higher levels of management capacity and technology significantly reduce problems with voting as measured by the residual vote rate. Financial capacity shows a negative association with the residual vote rate but is not significant. The article concludes by discussing how studying election administration provides an important and uniquely good administrative context for developing administrative theory.