Release:
Today, Columbia World Projects (CWP) issued a new report, “Building Trust: Election Administration and the Role of Higher Education.”
The report highlights the need to address the alarming erosion of trust in elections in the United States and the urgent threat this crisis of trust poses to democracy. The report finds that universities are well-placed to bolster trust in elections and must act to restore public trust in our electoral systems.
Columbia World Projects, an initiative that mobilizes Columbia University resources to confront the great challenges of our time, brought together a bipartisan group of experts including secretaries of four U.S. states that played pivotal roles in the 2020 presidential election, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Washington; local election officials; and top researchers in election science to debate and plan how universities can help rebuild public trust in the electoral system and elections.
Their recommendations, outlined in the report, are to:
- Promote collaborations among election science scholars and election practitioners
- Modify academic approaches to directly respond to the needs of election officials
- Broaden and diversify the institutions and researchers engaged in the study of elections
- Invest in higher education-election administration partnerships