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Thessalia Merivaki

Assistant Professor in American Politics, Mississippi State University
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(352) 871-5260
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About Thessalia

Merivaki's research agenda is situated within the growing field of Election Sciences, which includes the study of election reforms, election administration, voter education, as well as election data transparency and accessibility. She is a member of The Carter Center's U.S. Elections Expert Study Team since September 2020.

Contributions | No Jargon Podcast | In the News | Publications

Contributions

What Provisional Ballots Tell Us about the Remaining Challenges in America's Local Voting Systems

Key Findings Brief,

No Jargon Podcast

Episode 227:
Elections Rule

In the News

"Building Civic Engagement Capacity From The Ground: Voter Registration On College Campuses," Thessalia Merivaki, Civic Nation BrandVoice, Forbes, November 4, 2019.
Thessalia Merivaki's research on provisional ballots discussed by Matt Vasilogambros, "Provisional Ballots Protect Voting Rights — When They Are Counted," Huffington Post, November 16, 2018.
"Mississippi State is All-In: A Community-Engaged Learning Approach to Student Civic Engagement," Thessalia Merivaki, Urban Affairs Forum, October 24, 2018.
"Managing Voter Registration Lists the Hybrid Way: The Case of Mississippi," Thessalia Merivaki (with Sean Conner), MIT Election Data and Science Lab, July 26, 2018.
"Who Votes Provisionally and Why? A Look at North Carolina’s 2016 General Election," Thessalia Merivaki (with Daniel A. Smith), MIT Election Data and Science Lab, May 2, 2018.
"The Big Cost of Using Big Data in Elections," Thessalia Merivaki (with Michael McDonald and Peter Licari), The Washington Post, October 18, 2015.

Publications

"Access Denied? Assessing Voter Registration Rejections in Florida" State Politics and Policy Quarterly (2018).

Investigates the rejection rates of voter registration applications submitted in Florida during the 2012 election cycle. Analyzing monthly voter registration statistics across Florida’s 67 counties, this study finds that institutional and seasonal factors affect the successful processing of voter registration applications

"Initiative, Referendum, and Recall" in American Governance, Volume 3, edited by Stephen L. Schechter (Macmillan, 2016), 71-76.

Depicts ideas that are core to the U.S. system of governance. 

"Casting and Verifying Provisional Ballots in Florida" (with Daniel A. Smith). Social Science Quarterly 97, no. 3 (2016).

Suggests that voter registration maintenance issues in a county affect the number of provisional ballots cast and rejected. Finds that counties with greater numbers of voters who register after the registration cutoff date prior to a general election (and who are thus ineligible to vote) tend to have greater numbers of provisional ballots cast and rejected.

"Rigged? Assessing Election Administration in Florida's 2016 General Election" (with Daniel A. Smith, Brian Amos, Carl Klarner, Daniel Maxwell, and Tyler Richards), in The 2016 Presidential Election in Florida: Ground Zero for America's New Political Revolution, edited by Matthew Corrigan and Mike Binder (University Press of Florida, forthcoming).

Describes the 2016 general election in Florida.

"Voter Turnout in Presidential Nominating Contests" (with Michael P. McDonald). The Forum 13, no. 4 (2015): 597-622.

Examines the 2008 American National Election Panel Study and finds that primary voters are more ideologically extreme than general election voters, but there is little difference between voters in closed and open primary states. Suggests primary type has little effect on the ideological composition of the electorate because modern nomination contests are low turnout elections that draw only the most politically interested.