Ohio State Election Law Program Receives MIT Election Data + Science Lab Grant to Study Voter List Maintenance Litigation

Election Law at Ohio State University (ELOSU) recently received a $47,279 grant from MIT Election Data + Science Lab (MEDSL) to support a new practice‑oriented research project examining litigation related to voter list maintenance. The project is led by ELOSU Deputy Director Steven Huefner, Principal Investigator, with Senior Fellow Matt Cooper serving as a key collaborator. 
 

In recent years, state election officials have faced a sustained wave of legal challenges to voter list maintenance practices in both state and federal courts. Many of these cases are predicated on misunderstandings of how voter registration systems operate or on incomplete interpretations of the governing law. 

 
The funded project, titled “The Litigation Landscape Concerning Voter List Maintenance: Cataloging, Summarizing, and Analyzing Legal Challenges to Voter List Maintenance Procedures to Inform Sound Policy and Administrative Practice,” will examine the body of state and federal litigation concerning voter list maintenance systems. The research is designed to produce a comprehensive, fact‑based account of how courts have evaluated voter list maintenance practices and the evidence used to defend or challenge them. 

“Our goal is to achieve immediate practical impact by equipping election administrators, policymakers, and other practitioners with clearer tools to understand, improve, and defend the security and accuracy of voter rolls,” said Huefner.  
 
Building on ELOSU’s existing infrastructure used in the Major Pending Election Law Cases database, the project will catalog, summarize, and analyze litigation involving voter list maintenance procedures nationwide. Particular attention will be paid to expert reports, data sources, and evidentiary records developed during judicial proceedings. Legal challenges arising under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), as well as those involving state‑specific maintenance procedures, will be systematically indexed and evaluated. The project will culminate in a final technical report, which will be deposited in Harvard Dataverse to ensure public accessibility and long‑term preservation. 
 
Research began in early May, with the onboarding of three outstanding J.D. candidates, Austin Eagen, Griffen Messmer, and Jade Mongold, who will serve as student researchers on the project. ELOSU expects to supplement the research team by hiring additional law students with strong interests in election law, empirical legal research, or public administration. Students interested in applying are invited to do so through Workday. 
 
 
 
About the Grants Program 

This grant was awarded as part of a new initiative by the MIT Election Data + Science Lab, which is supporting ten projects designed to address practical challenges in the administration of U.S. elections. Other projects funded through this program include: 

• James Alcorn & Rebecca Green (William & Mary Law School, Election Law Program) 
  Operational Timelines: Quantifying and Visualizing the Lifecycle of Voter List Maintenance 

• R. Michael Alvarez (California Institute of Technology) 
  Measures & Models for Voter List Accuracy in Orange County, California 

• Vanessa Fry (Boise State University, Idaho Policy Institute) 
  Building Authoritative Election Geography: Improving Voter Registration and List Maintenance in Idaho 

A full list of the projects is available through MEDSL’s  website.