Electoral Accountability and Bureaucratic Discretion: Evidence from County Coroners and the COVID-19 Pandemic

More than one million Americans are reported to have died from COVID-19. However, many measures of COVID-19 deaths rely on data created and reported by public health professionals, such as county coroners or medical examiners. Because many of these positions are elected, and COVID-19 quickly became a politically salient and polarized issue in the 2020 general election and beyond, some public health officials may have under-reported COVID-19 deaths. We compare data on reported COVID-19 deaths with estimates of surplus deaths to create county-level estimates of under- or over-reported COVID-19 deaths and then explore the relationship between under-reporting, local-level partisanship, and the selection method of the local coroner or medical examiner. Our results have important implications for understanding the relationship between public health and partisan politics.