Winners, Losers, and Voter Confidence in Response to Partisan Electoral Reform

Abstract

In this article, we examine individual- and state-level voter confidence in Georgia from 2020 to 2022—an extremely contentious moment in Georgia politics. For the first time in 28 years, Georgia's electoral votes went to a Democrat, Joe Biden, in 2020. Then, in early January 2021, Democrats won both of Georgia's two U.S. Senate runoffs, giving their party majority control. In the wake of these surprising, historic, and consequential losses, Georgia Republicans’ voter confidence plummeted, and their party responded by passing comprehensive electoral reform in Senate Bill (SB) 202. Using survey data, we tracked voter confidence in Georgia before and after 2020, after passage of SB 202 in 2021, and after the 2022 midterm. Partisans’ voter confidence is greatly affected by the winner/loser effect in election outcomes. Also, SB 202 did boost Republicans’ confidence in Georgia's election system, which, in turn, increased their individual- and state-level voter confidence in the 2022 midterm. In contrast, Georgia Democrats overwhelmingly opposed SB 202; therefore, the bill did not have the same salutary effect on their voter confidence in the 2022 elections.