Research about Elections and Voting
I am interested in exploring how electors in Canada engage with electoral democracy, with a special interest in how political identities and group politics shape elections in Canada. I was a co-PI for the 2019, 2021 and 2025 Canadian Election Studies. I also co-direct (with Laura Stephenson) the Consortium on Electoral Democracy (C-Dem) which has overseen not only the CES studies for the past three election cycles, but also a provincial election study for each province in Canada as well as yearly Democracy Checkup surveys. These surveys are all publicly available through the C-Dem page at Harvard’s dataverse.
To learn more about my work in this area, here is some of my published work on this theme.
2025 Baowen Liang & Allison Harell. Understanding the Electoral Participation Gap: A Study of Racialized Minorities in Canada. Politics and Governance. Politics and Governance, 13, Article 9377. https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.9377
2025 Allison Harell & Philippe Duguay. Les élections au Québec et Canada. Félix Mathieu, Paul May et Alain-G. Gagnon. (eds.) Politique canadienne et québécoise, 3e édition, Presses de l’Université du Québec, pp. 447-470.
2025 Christian Schimpf, Laura B. Stephenson & Allison Harell. Studying Voting Behaviour in Elections: Theory and Explanation. Tamara Small and Royce Koop (eds.) Elections in Canada: Peoples, Players and Processes, University of Toronto Press, pp. 189-202.
2023 Matt Polacko & Allison Harell. Racial Discrimination at the Polls? The Canadian Case of Jagmeet Singh” Politics, Groups and Identities. 12(4): 876–895. https://doi.org/10.1080/21565503.2023.2251651
2023 Holly Ann Garnett, Jean-Nicolas Bordeleau, Laura B. Stephenson & Allison Harell Contagious Elections: The Influence of COVID-19 on Comfort in Voting in Canadian Provincial Elections. Election Law Journal. 22(2). https://doi.org/10.1089/elj.2022.0062
2023 Laura French Bourgeois, Allison Harell, Laura Stephenson, Philippe Guay & Martin Lysy. Always a Bridesmaid: A Machine Learning Approach to Minor Party Identity in Multi- Party Systems. Statistics, Politics and Policy. 14(1) https://doi.org/10.1515/spp-2022-0009
2023 Laura B. Stephenson & Allison Harell. Blame, Hope, or Gratitude? Voting Decisions during the Pandemic. Regional and Federal Studies. 33(4): 441-461. https://doi.org/10.1080/13597566.2023.2189241
2023 Amber H. Lee, Allison Harell, Laura Stephenson, Daniel Rubenson & Peter Loewen. Motivated to Forgive? Partisan Scandals and Party Supporters. Political Psychology. 44(4): 729-747. http://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12882
2021 Laura Stephenson, Allison Harell, Daniel Rubenson & Peter Loewen. Measuring Preferences and Behaviours in the 2019 Canadian Election Study. Canadian Journal of Political Science. 54(1): 118-124.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008423920001006
2020 Allison Harell, Dietlind Stolle, Philippe Duguay & Valérie-Anne Mahéo. Young People: Politics and Digital Technologies. Tamara Small and Harold Jansen (eds.) Digital Politics in Canada. University of Toronto Press, pp. 202-222.
2020 Allison Harell, Laura Stephenson & Lyne Deschatelêts. Public Opinion and Political Cleavages in Canada. Alain-G. Gagnon and James Bickerton (eds.) Canadian Politics, 7th Edition. University of Toronto Press. pp. 237-252.
2018 Philippe Duguay & Allison Harell. La communication interpersonnelle et la socialisation politique : L’école de Columbia à l’ère de Facebook. Anne-Marie Gingras (ed.) Histoire de la communication politique. Montréal, Presses de l’Université du Québec à Montréal, pp. 277-298.
2017 Allison Harell & Philippe Duguay. Les élections au Québec et au Canada. Alain-G. Gagnon and David Sanschagrin (eds). La politique québecoise et canadienne : une approche pluraliste, Édition 2, pp. 395-417.
2015 Allison Harell & Tania Gosselin. The Youth Vote in the 2015 Election. Canadian Election Analysis: Communication, Strategy and Democracy. Alex Marland and Thierry Giasson (eds.). UBC Press. pp. 118-119.
2015 Patrick Fournier, François Gélineau & Allison Harell. Les Systèmes d’Aide au Vote peuvent-ils être utiles pour l’étude des élections? Revue internationale de la politique comparée. 22(2): 117-146. https://doi.org/10.3917/ripc.222.0269
2014 Allison Harell & Lyne Deschatelêts. Political Culture(s) in Canada : Orientations to Politics in a Pluralist, Multicultural Federation. James Bickerton and Alain-G. Gagnon (eds.). Canadian Politics, 6th Edition. Toronto : University of Toronto Press, pp. 229-248.
2013 Allison Harell & Dimitrios Panagos. Locating the Aboriginal Gender Gap: The Political Preferences and Participation of Aboriginal Women in Canada. Politics and Gender. 9(4): 414-438. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X1300038X
2013 Dietlind Stolle, Eva Falk Pederson, Allison Harell & Pascale Dufour. Le « printemps érable » et l’élection québécoise de 2012. Frédérick Bastien, Éric Bélanger et François Gélineau (eds.) Les Québécois aux urnes: Les partis, les médias et les citoyens en campagne. Presses de l’Université de Montréal, pp. 267-280.
2012 Allison Harell. Revising the Ethnic Vote: Liberal Allegiance and Vote Choice among Racialized Minorities. A. Bittner and R. Koop (eds.) Change and Continuity in Canadian Parties and Elections. Vancouver: UBC Press, pp. 140-160.
2012 Allison Harell. L’Administration de la démocratie representative. Pierre Tremblay (ed.), L’administration contemporaine de l’État: une perspective canadienne et québécoise, Montréal: Les Presses de l’Université du Québec, pp. 333-350.
2011 Ellen Quintelier, Dietlind Stolle & Allison Harell. Politics in Peer Groups: Exploring the Causal Relationship Between Network Diversity and Political Participation. Political Research Quarterly 65(4): 868-881. https://doi.org/10.1177/106591291141109
2011 Allison Harell, Dimitrios Panagos & J. Scott Matthews. Explaining Aboriginal Turnout in Federal Elections: Evidence from Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. J. White, J.R. Peters, D. Beavon and P. Dinsdale (eds.) Aboriginal Policy Research : Voting, Governance and Research Methodology. Toronto:Thompson Educational Publishing, pp. 3-24.
