Women and gender-nonconforming people were more likely than men to fear violence and harassment while voting in the 2024 election, and those who expressed concerns about safety were more likely not to vote at all, new research shows. 

The study, released Monday and shared first with The 19th, was conducted by States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan organization focused on promoting fair and secure elections and upholding the rule of law, in partnership with Pivotal Ventures, a fund focused on social impact backed by Melinda French Gates. Pivotal Ventures is also a funder of The 19th. 

“Tens of millions of Americans ultimately cast their ballots in 2024 without incident,” the report said. “But voting was not straightforward and safe for all Americans. Many were harassed, and a limited number were subjected to physical violence.”

The study found that the 2024 election was, as a whole, safe, fair and securely conducted, with voters overwhelmingly reporting feeling safe at the polls and confident in the safety and security of the election. But rising incidents of political violence, heightened political polarization and gender-based harassment had a measurable impact on how women and gender-noncomforming people especially viewed the safety of voting in the 2024 election — and whether they turned out to vote at all, the study says.

Researchers surveyed voters before and after the 2024 election in partnership with research data and analytics group YouGov and held a series of seven focus groups before the election — with three groups of White women, three groups of women of color and one made up of gender-nonconforming participants. They also fielded surveys of state lawmakers, election administrators and law enforcement officials in partnership with the nonprofit CivicPulse. The study is also one of the first of its kind to study the voting experiences of gender-nonconforming voters, who are subject to gender-based discrimination and harassment at the polls. 

Women, people of color and gender-nonconforming people were more likely to have perceived the election environment as being unsafe, reported experiencing higher rates of voting-related harassment and were more likely to take precautionary measures when going to the polls. The study also compared pre-election survey responses to voting records and found that higher expectations of experiencing violence or harassment at the polls was correlated with lower voting rates.  

“Concerns about violence or harassment depressed turnout, likely turning millions of voters into non-voters,” the report said. 

The pre-election survey, conducted September 23 to 30, 2024, surveyed 4,016 American adults with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.7 points. The post-election survey, conducted November 7 to 19, surveyed a separate group of 4,017 registered voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.6 points. The researchers asked a series of questions to identify gender-nonconforming respondents in its surveys with YouGov, resulting in a sample of 81 gender-nonconforming voters in the pre-election survey and 103 in the post-election survey.  

To measure fears of harassment and violence, researchers asked respondents how likely they thought it was to experience events ranging from verbal or written harassment to property damage and acts of physical violence. While all gender groups provided average responses of “somewhat unlikely” across all five, gender-nonconforming respondents had a higher expected likelihood of harassment or violence. 

Overall, 91 percent of men, 89 percent of women and 73 percent of gender-nonconforming respondents said in the post-election survey that they felt safe voting. But respondents’ perceptions and feelings of safety varied by race among women and gender-nonconforming people. In the post-election survey, 92 percent of White respondents said they felt completely or mostly safe voting, compared with 85 percent of Black voters and 84 percent of Hispanic voters.

In pre-election surveys, women and voters of color were more likely than men and White respondents to view voting as unsafe and to say they were taking precautions as a result. Among women, the most common safety precaution respondents said they were likely to take was not bringing their children to the polls (32 percent), while the most common safety precaution for gender-nonconforming people was not interacting with others at the polls (46 percent). About a quarter of women and gender-nonconforming respondents said they were likely to vote by mail.   

Several women voters in focus groups cited the potential of gun violence as a concern. 

“I don’t go to the polls, because you never know what you will encounter there,” said a White independent woman voter who participated in one of the focus groups. “It seems like everybody in Arizona has a gun. We vote by mail, because it’s safer. Everybody has an opinion; you get in line, and you hear it all. You never know, if they don’t agree with you, they’ll shoot you. People are crazy.”

Others spoke to the heightened political climate and general political tensions around the election as a reason they feared threats, harassment and even heated conversations in line. 

“I go early, or late, when I won’t run into anybody I know, and there won’t be any conversation,” said a Black Republican woman focus group participant. “I don’t want to deal with the emotional, ‘Who did you vote for?’ And me saying, ‘I don’t want to discuss it.’ So there are no issues, fighting, cussing, yelling. Save my peace of mind.” 

People who feared violence and harassment at higher levels were less likely to vote, researchers found by comparing survey responses to verified voting records. When controlling for turnout differences based on demographic considerations, the study still found an average three percentage point decline in the likelihood of voting. 

“For context, differences in voter behavior based on education level, one of the strongest predictors of turnout, are only half as large as differences explained by expectations of violence or harassment,” the report said. “Put another way, generalizing our results to the nationwide electorate, roughly 6 million Americans may have decided not to vote in 2024 because of concerns about violence or harassment.”

Gender-nonconforming voters face particularly unique challenges and barriers when it comes to voting. 

A rise in anti-transgender political rhetoric from the right has been accompanied by a slew of laws targeting transgender people in Republican-controlled states. Some of these laws have sought to create strict definitions of gender and bar transgender individuals from changing the sex listed on their official identification to align with their gender identity. In states that require voters to show photo identification at the polls, that could open up transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals to scrutiny and potential harassment. In the pre-election survey, a third of gender-nonconforming voters said they were likely to dress differently at the polls.

“I’ve been a registered voter for decades. When I attempted to vote last time, they had a hard time ‘finding’ my registration,” said a gender-nonconforming Black independent who participated in a focus group. “I could tell I was being judged. The attitude of the person looking at your information to give you the voting packet can be intimidating. My documents have been submitted, I have my ID, what’s the problem? I felt there was judgment as far as was my information correct or was it fraudulent.”

In the post-election survey, over half of gender-nonconforming respondents said they took at least one safety precaution when voting, compared with about a third of men and women who said they took at least one precaution. Thirteen percent of gender-nonconforming respondents reported experiencing verbal harassment, intimidation and threats compared to 5.2 percent of men and 4.8 percent of women. In all, 18 percent of gender-nonconforming voters reported experiencing violence or harassment during the 2024 election season. 

“I am obviously queer when you look at me, and I’ve been harassed for it,” said another focus group participant, an Asian-American Democratic voter. “Depending on how I do my hair or what I wear [on election] day, it’s a higher chance I’ll get harassed. If I was girly, I would be afraid someone could see through that and do me harm.”