Evidence map›Paper›PMID 42696568›Full record

ArticleScience advances2026

Can a public information campaign increase trust in American elections?

Thad Kousser, Seth J Hill, Neil Malhotra, Robert M Stein

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Science advances, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
0citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

0 citing papers in PubMed.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Thad KousserDepartment of Political Science, UC San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-5489-5837
Seth J HillDepartment of Political Science, UC San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-3785-1533
Neil MalhotraDepartment of Political Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-4477-6049
Robert M SteinDepartment of Political Science, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, USA.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Confidence in the conduct and results of American elections has declined and polarized along party lines in recent years. Can a nonpartisan public information campaign featuring election officials enhance trust in elections when delivered to skeptical voters during a contentious political contest? We analyze a preregistered, randomized field experiment conducted during the 2024 US presidential election in which conservative voters were randomly assigned to a control condition or to receive a multimodal messaging campaign designed by political professionals explaining protections on election integrity. In contrast to the large positive effects of informational messages found in recent survey experiments, we observed primarily null effects with respect to turnout (

Indexed as

PoliticsTrustVotingHumansPublic OpinionUnited States

Identifiers

PMID42696568
PMCPMC13544222

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.