Pre-election voter information interventions led by electoral management bodies can improve voter confidence (Policy Studies)

This study investigates the effectiveness of voter information campaigns led by centralized Electoral Management Bodies (EMBs). While existing research highlights the value of voter education in decentralized systems like the United States, its applicability in contexts with centralized EMBs remains underexplored. This article addresses this gap through a survey experiment (N = 1004) conducted in partnership with Elections New Brunswick, testing a multi-topic audiovisual information campaign in a pre-electoral setting. The findings demonstrate that exposure to the intervention significantly increased citizens’ self-reported understanding of the electoral process, their confidence in the fairness and accuracy of the vote, and their comfort with voting by mail. Further analysis reveals these effects were not driven by any single video and that a lack of effect on in-person voting comfort was likely due to a pre-existing ceiling effect. The results confirm that proactive voter education is a powerful tool for centralized EMBs, offering an evidence-based model for reinforcing trust in elections and countering increasingly salient narratives challenging electoral integrity.

Conspiracy Theories and their Believers: A Comparative Outlook (Cambridge Elements)

Co-authored with Daniel Stockemer

This Element leverages a comparative approach to understand how conspiracy theories and their believers differ within and across countries. Using original survey data from eight varied cases (Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Lebanon, Morocco, South Africa, and the United States) the authors present specific contemporary conspiracy theories, illustrate how these theories appeal in their national context, and determine whether the characteristics of the typical conspiracy theory believer vary across setting. They first demonstrate that there is a wide range of conspiracy theories, some of which have worldwide reach, whereas others are more context specific. Then, they show that the determinants of individual conspiracism are very similar in the Western world and Brazil, but do not necessarily travel to Lebanon, Morocco and South Africa. Lastly, they summarize the main conclusions of this Element and discuss the need for greater comparative research on conspiracy theories and propose clear areas for future research.