[EL] 2012 primary turnout tracker

[Michael McDonald]

I'll be tracking turnout in the 2012 presidential nomination contests as the
turnout data become available. The webpage with my 2012 VEP estimates with
spaces ready to fill in for the turnout numbers are here:

http://elections.gmu.edu/Turnout_2012P.html 

My 2000-2010 statistics have also been updated for the 2010 Census, 2010
ACS, and year-end 2010 DOJ incarceration reports. Since I continually update
as new data become available, and since the 2010 census was nearly dead on
the 2010 population estimates, there was no news for me to report: my
national estimates from 2000-2010 are happily the same with the updated
data.

I observe some variation in CVAP at the state level with the 2010 ACS
compared to a 2008 ACS to 2009 ACS extrapolation. The variation could be due
to statistical sampling error, but there are other potential confounds. For
example, the 2006-2010 5-year ACS estimates are weighted to the 2010 census
while the 2005-2009 5-year ACS estimates are weighted to the 2000 census. It
is my understanding that DOJ has requested a special tabulation of the
2006-2010 5-year ACS CVAP by race/ethnicity that will be made publicly
available, a present for those of us engaged in redistricting. It will be
interesting to see what variation this new tabulation reveals at lower
geographic levels.

============
Dr. Michael P. McDonald
Associate Professor, George Mason University 
Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

                             Mailing address:
(o) 703-993-4191             George Mason University
(f) 703-993-1399             Dept. of Public and International Affairs
mmcdon at gmu.edu               4400 University Drive - 3F4
http://elections.gmu.edu     Fairfax, VA 22030-4444