Behavioral Insights of Reducing Administrative Burden: Evidence from a Field Experiment on Voting Method Choice

Last registered on September 21, 2026
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Behavioral Insights of Reducing Administrative Burden: Evidence from a Field Experiment on Voting Method Choice
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0019301
Initial registration date
September 12, 2026

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
September 21, 2026, 9:05 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
September 21, 2026, 11:49 AM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

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Primary Investigator

Name
Tommy Morgan
Affiliation
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Michael Kofoed
PI Affiliation
University of Tennessee
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PI Name
Joshua Price
PI Affiliation
Brigham Young University
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2026-06-01
End date
2026-12-31
Keywords
Electoral, Governance
Additional Keywords
voter registration
JEL code(s)
C93, D72, D91
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
During the mid 2010s, counties in Utah began to switch to universal vote by mail. By 2016, 21 out of 29 of Utah’s counties sent all their residents mail in ballots that they could return by mail or via drop box. In 2019, the entire state had moved to universal vote by mail. In 2025, the Utah State Legislature enacted HB300 that required every registered Utah voter to make an active choice of their preferred voter method: by mail or in-person. To make this choice a voter would need to sign into a state website, navigate the voter registration form, and (after re-registering) indicate if they would like to continue to receive a by-mail ballot or stop their by-mail ballot and vote in person. If a voter does not complete the process before the 2028 election, then their in-person ballot will automatically be stopped, and the voter will need to vote in-person.

The legislation also requires that the county clerks provide an informational insert with every ballot to inform voters about the change. The Utah Office of the Lieutenant Governor (LGO), at the request of and in conjunction with individual county clerks, requested that the research team help design the informational insert (for counties who volunteered to participate) to better understand how to use behavioral economics principles to overcome the administrative burden and help voters make an active choice regarding their voter method. The Utah LGO facilitated the clerks' request that the research team contribute to informational inserts distributed by law to voters as part of HB300.

The research team worked with participating county clerks individually to tailor each insert to the county's specific needs. County insert designs followed the same broad template: a common information section followed by the treatment, which was one of a text link, a QR code, or a returnable check box. The insert was delivered to each voter with their mail-in ballot. Complexity in decision-making can deter individuals from making a utility maximizing choice that they even claim they want to make, so we theorized that voters who receive the check box inserts would register their ballot method decision at a higher rate than voters in the other two treatments.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Kofoed, Michael, Tommy Morgan and Joshua Price. 2026. "Behavioral Insights of Reducing Administrative Burden: Evidence from a Field Experiment on Voting Method Choice." AEA RCT Registry. September 21. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.19301-1.1
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
By law, the county clerks need to provide an insert to each voter and will be administering the three potential versions. All three insert designs include information that the voter needed to make an active choice before the 2029 election if they wanted to continue receiving their ballot by mail. The first design included the URL for the state website to logon and indicate their preference. The second design had a QR code that the voter can scan to get to the same voter portal. The third design included a check box that allows the voter to indicate their preference without logging in to the state website. The third option essentially removes the decision friction caused by needing to log in to the state website.
Intervention Start Date
2026-06-01
Intervention End Date
2026-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
1) Probability of making a choice
2) Probability of making a given choice
3) Probability of returning a ballot
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
1) Does eliminating the decision friction (sometimes called sludge) and shifting the administrative burden from the voter to the county clerk increase the probability that a voter makes an active choice about their voting method by any method?
2) Does eliminating the decision friction (sometimes called sludge) and shifting the administrative burden from the voter to the county clerk increase the probability that a voter chooses to keep their by-mail ballot or only voter in-person?
3) Does eliminating the decision friction (sometimes called sludge) and shifting the administrative burden from the voter to the county clerk increase the probability that a voter participates in the election and returns their ballot to the county clerk’s office?

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
All the same outcomes, evaluated for various voter subgroups.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
Do the differing treatment arms affect various voter subgroups differently? For example, voting precincts in more Democratic vs Republican areas, rural vs urban, higher vs lower income, or average voter age of precinct?

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
By law, the county clerks need to provide an insert to each voter and will be administering the three potential versions. All three insert designs include information that the voter needed to make an active choice before the 2029 election if they wanted to continue receiving their ballot by mail. The first design included the URL for the state website to logon and indicate their preference. The second design had a QR code that the voter can scan to get to the same voter portal. The third design included a check box that allows the voter to indicate their preference without logging in to the state website. The third option essentially removes the decision friction caused by needing to log in to the state website.

The county clerks from five counties agreed to randomize receipt of one of the three versions on the voting precinct level. By law, the county clerks need to provide an insert to each voter and will be administering the three potential versions. County clerks provided lists of voting precincts in their counties sorted by active voter count. The research team block randomized voting precincts within counties such that the three most populous districts each receive a different treatment, then the next three most populous, and so on. This randomization was done on a replicable random number generator seed in Stata, and precinct treatment assignments will persist from primary elections to the later general election if counties continue to participate.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Computer (Stata)
Randomization Unit
Randomized within counties at the voting precinct level.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
374 Precincts across 5 Counties
Sample size: planned number of observations
255,544 registered voters
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
127 precincts with a text link
125 precincts with a QR code
122 precincts with a check box
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of Tennessee, Knoxville - Institutional Review Board - Office of Research, Innovation, & Economic Development
IRB Approval Date
2026-07-17
IRB Approval Number
STUDY00000890
Analysis Plan

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