Raising barriers to voting, with predictable consequences

What happens to the electorate when you tighten up rules for voting? Does everyone have a harder time voting, or are some groups of voters affected more than others?

We got some evidence on this question in Colorado recently. For several election cycles, Colorado has provided mail-in ballots automatically to those who have registered as requesting mail-in ballots in previous cycles. In late 2011, Secretary of State Scott Gessler announced that the state's mail-in ballots would henceforth only be sent out automatically to those who were "active" voters, meaning they had voted in the last general election. This led to a dispute between Gessler's office and the counties of Denver and Pueblo, with the Brennan Center and Colorado Common Cause getting involved. I was brought in as an expert witness to help determine the effect that the change would have on the electorate, specifically with regards to race.

With the help of University of Denver geographer Paul Sutton, I compared voting precincts in Denver, Pueblo, and throughout the state based on their racial breakdowns and on the percent of voters listed as IFTV ("Inactive - failed to vote," meaning they did not vote in the last general election). Below is a scatterplot showing the percent of residents who are Latino compared to the percent who are IFTV status, by precinct within Denver:

That's a very strong relationship, suggesting that the rule change would have a disproportionate impact on Latinos, making it less likely that they'll receive a mail-in ballot. Basically the same trend was found among African American residents:

I found these same patterns within Pueblo County and across the state as a whole.

Sutton then made these maps for Denver County, showing roughly the same trends geographically (click to expand):

Again, the trend is quite consistent: the higher concentration of a racial minority group within a precinct, the more people in that precinct who did not vote in the previous general election, and the more people who would be deprived of an automatic mail-in ballot.

Now, there is an ecological inference issue here: I'm making individual-level interpretations using precinct-level data. To try to get around this, I employed the ecological inference program Eco to make some approximations of the individual-level behavior. The results estimated that roughly 10 percent of eligible white voters were IFTV status, but roughly a third of Latinos and African Americans were IFTV status. The change in the rule on mail-in ballots would have meant racial minorities having a harder time voting by mail than whites.

Based partially on this analysis, the judge in the case ruled against Gessler, and the change in mail-in voter policy is not being implemented. But given partisan voting patterns among different racial groups, it's not hard to imagine how this would have played out electorally had it been enforced.

(Cross-posted from Mischiefs of Faction)

Looking presidential

Sullivan's been very good to me, but I've got to disagree with him here when he decides that Chris Christie's weight may be a disqualifying factor:

Presidents in the modern age are increasingly required to look presidential. No baldies or beards, for example, since Eisenhower and some dude in the nineteenth century. Perry and Romney are almost made in a presidential Ken factory - and both presumably dye their hair (as, obviously, did Reagan). Looks, in other words, matter on an unconscious level in a president. We respond to these signals before our frontal cortexes kick in.

As John Sides reminds us, this is empirically wrong on the specific area of girth: overweight male candidates are evaluated somewhat more positively than thin ones (although overweight female candidates suffer a penalty). Besides, we've actually had overweight presidents. Taft was enormous (this was hardly a secret even before television), and Clinton struggled with his weight before heart troubles forced him onto a strict low-fat diet. (Does he look more presidential now that's he's gaunt?) So to say that overweight men don't look presidential seems a bit odd when we've had overweight presidents.

More generally, though, the idea that candidates have to "look presidential" is highly problematic, giving sanction to all sorts of bigotry. It's hard to separate "looking presidential" from "looking like the presidents we've already had," which leads to some uncomfortable areas. It wasn't too long ago that a sizable chunk of Americans wouldn't have found an African American "presidential" looking. No doubt many feel that way about women today. And Jews. And short people. And people with disabilities. Would that ultimately affect many people's votes? My guess is that it would be hard to find a measurable "presidential-looking" effect that moves votes beyond the major influences we can detect (economic growth/recession, war/peace, extremism/moderation). But maybe there is such an effect. Should we cater to it?

Do parties consciously nominate slim candidates, concerned that voters will be turned off by heavy ones? I really don't know. But if so, this sounds like bigotry, plain and simple. It's no different from Spencer Tracy in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" opposing his daughter's marriage to a black man, not because he had any problem with blacks, but because he was concerned that other people did. Any way you slice it, you're disqualifying someone based on physical appearance.

Don't vote

Wow.  I really don't recall seeing an ad like this before, although this is reminiscent of the Colorado Springs Gazette urging uninformed people to stay home in 2008.



(via ColoradoPols)

Dems doing well in early voting

As of today, over 700,000 Americans have already voted in the 2010 congressional midterm elections. Michael McDonald is once again reporting on early voting statistics as they come in.  Interestingly, some states provide the party affiliation of early voters, which allows us to make a halfway decent guess as to how they actually voted.  It turns out that the Democrats are doing reasonably well so far.  In Iowa, for example, the breakdown of early voters is 42% Democrats, 29% Republicans, and 29% independents.

Doesn't this violate everything we've heard so far about the likely makeup of the 2010 electorate and the enthusiasm gap?  Well, to the extent this trend holds up, it suggests an interesting divergence in party strategies.  Republicans seem to be focusing on winning the air war, while Democrats are apparently pushing mobilization.  I say this extremely tentatively, but this may just be one of those situations where everyone thinks the Obama folks are losing because they're not winning the daily skirmishes, but they're actually husbanding their resources for when it actually counts.

The growth in early voting is really an interesting and under-developed area for campaign scholars.  Researchers have noted, for example, that when someone of the president's stature comes to down town for a rally, it can give him or some other candidate a short-term boost in the polls.  That boost will soon disappear, so it doesn't matter too much.  But if the visit gets thousands of people to walk over to an early polling station and vote, it can matter quite a bit.