Explicit partisan candidate support and bureaucratic responsiveness in hyper-partisan environment: Evidence from a field experiment

Abstract

Previous studies have analyzed public officials' responsiveness toward citizens based on citizens' racial and ethnic, gender, or religious identities. However, much less attention has been paid to whether a citizen's explicit partisan identification influences election officials' responsiveness. Therefore, this study investigates whether election officials discriminate against partisan identifying constituents when responding to election-related email inquiries using a nation level audit experiment. In doing so, email inquiries about voting information with varying experimental conditions are sent to election officials across the United States (n = 6606). I find a lower likelihood of response for email inquiries with explicit partisan identifying conditions compared to those without any explicit partisan identification. The results provide implications on how recent increase in burdens associated with election official duties, aided by extraordinarily high levels of affective polarization and negative partisanship in the United States, can undermine some American voters' general ability to freely and fairly participate in elections.