Replication Data for: The Racial Gap in Trust in Elections (and how to close it)

While the contemporary conversation about trust in U.S. elections focuses on mistrust among white conservatives, we whether racial and ethnic minority groups also lack confidence in the integrity of the vote count. Is there an enduring gap along ethnoracial lines over trust in elections and, if so, what determines the magnitude of this gap? Grounding our theory in the literature on race and trust in institutions and elections, we outline hypotheses about the mechanisms of mistrust for minority groups. We use an original national survey as well as data from the Survey of the Performance of American Elections from 2012 through 2022. We find that Black and Native Americans have lower levels of trust in elections when compared to white Americans. Asian Americans are not statistically unlike whites in their level of trust, and the trust gap that exists for Latines is partially explainable by demographic characteristics such as education and income. We further demonstrate the profound importance of state voting laws: in states that impose high barriers to accessing the ballot, the gap between white and Black Americans’ trust in elections doubles in size, while in states with the most inclusive voting laws, the racial gap in trust disappears.