Something for coverage of the next election: Images of long voting lines can discourage voting, research shows

Newly published research "shows that people who watch a television news story that depicts polling place lines are less likely to say they will vote in future elections," the researchers write for NiemanLab.

Kathleen Searles of Louisiana State University and Christopher Mann of Skidmore College say their analysis of news coverage found that coverage of lines is prevalent, and "seeing images of lines in news stories about voting made people more likely to think that voting is time-consuming and decreased their stated confidence in elections. . . . While researchers have investigated the experience of waiting in lines to vote and the reasons for long loans at polling places, our work is the first to examine the effects of news that covers lines."

The Presidential Commission on Election Administration said in a 2014 report that no American should have to wait more than 30 minutes to vote. According to research by the MIT Election Data and Science Lab (disclosure: Christopher Mann, this post’s coauthor, is on its advisory board), the share of voters waiting more than 30 minutes to vote in person (either on Election Day or via early voting) declined from 16% in 2008 to 9% in 2016, when the average wait time was 10.4 minutes. The trend reversed in 2020, due to Covid precautions at polling places and record-breaking turnout, with the average wait time for in-person voting rising back to 2008 levels — 14.3 minutes, with 18% of voters’ waits on Election Day exceeding the PCEA recommendation.

In their study, researchers told told participants that they would see a short video of a local news story. The story "featured a voiceover discussing early voting details and clips depicting common voting imagery such as ballot boxes and poll workers," they write. "We created a second version of the story with one difference: It also featured clips of people waiting in polling place lines." A nationally representative sample of adults, recruited online survey, was done in January 2021 and again last week.

"Americans who see news coverage that shows generic 'line' images at polling places are significantly less likely to say they will vote in future elections. In our most recent experiment about midterm elections, 54% of people who saw the TV coverage that showed lines said they 'definitely' planned to vote, while 59% of people who saw the TV coverage without lines said they 'definitely' planned to vote. Our January 2021 experiment produced a similar 5-percentage-point decrease in vote intention when people saw TV coverage showing lines compared to TV coverage without lines (64% vs 69%). Seeing news about lines to vote also appears to have negative impacts on elections beyond the polling place. After seeing stories about polling place lines, the share of respondents who reported that elections were 'well run' dropped by 6 percentage points in November 2022 and 5 percentage points in January 2021.

Searles and Mann have recommendations: "Journalists should ask themselves if 'lines' are a crucial part of the story. . . . If voting lines are important to the story, it’s useful to provide more context. Journalists can check to see if wait times are longer than the 30-minute maximum recommended by the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, and can also check whether wait times are consistent throughout the day. . . . When wait times are significant, more detail is important. Are the lines indicative of a meaningful election administration failure? Are they due to high turnout? Context about reasons for a wait will help voters hold election officials accountable when there is a genuine problem. But generic images of polling place lines shouldn’t be used thoughtlessly — because they may dissuade people from voting and reduce their confidence in elections."