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In examining public evaluations of governing institutions, are job approval and legitimacy related? This question has dominated scholarship on Supreme Court legitimacy for decades. Conventional wisdom suggests that specific support (e.g., job approval) and diffuse support (e.g., legitimacy) are independent. Specific support captures short-term orientations based on policy alignment with the Court. Legitimacy is a long-term perspective reflecting more fundamental support for the Court as a governing institution. We challenge the paradigm that job approval and legitimacy are largely unrelated concepts. Specifically, we employ a variety of statistical techniques and panel data to show that changes in legitimacy are a direct effect of changes in public approval. Salient decisions and Court vacancies directly shape approval and indirectly shape legitimacy through their effects on approval. Longitudinal analysis confirms that changes in job approval precede and predict changes in legitimacy. These results suggest that the Court needs public approval, and its public approval is rooted in outcome-oriented perceptions of its decisions and membership. Further, sustained low levels of approval will eventually erode legitimacy and limit the Court's influence over policy. Thus, like the outwardly political executive and legislative branches, it is important for the Court to build political capital through job approval.

ABSTRACTLegitimacy is a bulwark for courts; even when judges engage in controversial or disagreeable behavior, the public tends to acquiesce. Recent studies identify several threats to the legitimacy of courts, including polarization and attacks by political elites. This article contributes to the scholarly discourse by exploring a previously unconsidered threat: scandal, or allegations of personal misbehavior. We argue that scandals can undermine confidence in judges as virtuous arbiters and erode broad public support for the courts. Using survey experiments, we draw on real-world judicial controversies to evaluate the impact of scandal on specific support for judicial actors and their rulings and diffuse support for the judiciary. We demonstrate that scandals erode individual support but find no evidence that institutional support is diminished. These findings may ease normative concerns that isolated indiscretions by controversial jurists may deplete the vast "reservoir of goodwill" that is foundational to the courts.

ABSTRACTGood education requires student experiences that deliver lessons about practice as well as theory and that encourage students to work for the public good—especially in the operation of democratic institutions (Dewey 1923; Dewy 1938). We report on an evaluation of the pedagogical value of a research project involving 23 colleges and universities across the country. Faculty trained and supervised students who observed polling places in the 2016 General Election. Our findings indicate that this was a valuable learning experience in both the short and long terms. Students found their experiences to be valuable and reported learning generally and specifically related to course material. Postelection, they also felt more knowledgeable about election science topics, voting behavior, and research methods. Students reported interest in participating in similar research in the future, would recommend other students to do so, and expressed interest in more learning and research about the topics central to their experience. Our results suggest that participants appreciated the importance of elections and their study. Collectively, the participating students are engaged and efficacious—essential qualities of citizens in a democracy.

This paper is the result of a nationwide study of polling place dynamics in the 2016 presidential election. Research teams, recruited from local colleges and universities and located in twenty-eight election jurisdictions across the United States, observed and timed voters as they entered the queue at their respective polling places and then voted. We report results about four specific polling place operations and practices: the length of the check-in line, the number of voters leaving the check-in line once they have joined it, the time for a voter to check in to vote (i.e., verify voter's identification and obtain a ballot), and the time to complete a ballot. Long lines, waiting times, and times to vote are closely related to time of day (mornings are busiest for polling places). We found the recent adoption of photographic voter identification (ID) requirements to have a disparate effect on the time to check in among white and nonwhite polling places. In majority-white polling places, scanning a voter's driver's license speeds up the check-in process. In majority nonwhite polling locations, the effect of strict voter ID requirements increases time to check in, albeit modestly.