[EL] do long lines occur more in black precincts?

[Doug Spencer]

 Michael --

To my knowledge there is currently no good measure of voter elasticity for
waiting in line, but there are some good papers that look at ballot length
and voting machine allocation and find correlations to voter turnout (with
the assumption that the mechanism for decreased turnout is long lines and
tired voters). See, for example, see papers by Ben
Highton<http://faculty.psdomain.ucdavis.edu/bhighton/copenhagen2012/readings/Highton_lines_ps_2006.pdf>and
Allen
& Bernshteyn<http://www.amstat.org/publications/chance/2006/CHANCE%2019_4.pdf>(in
addition to the ones Lori cites to above).

With regard to racial statistics, Charles is correct that independent
observers can reliably collect this information -- we did in 2008 in
California's Bay Area (I am one of the authors of the Berkeley study). We
did not see significantly different line lengths in Black or Latino
precincts, but I should note that we did not see very long lines in
*any*precinct so our findings are not particularly instructive on this
point.

However, as we point out in our paper, three things contribute to the
formation of polling station lines: (1) rate of arrival, (2) interaction
with poll worker, and (3) casting the ballot. Any one of these factors can
lead to long lines independent of the others, and to the extent that we
really want to diagnose the problem and solve it, we need to look at
correlations between each of these factors and other relevant statistics
(e.g., race). This is obviously outside the scope of the SPAE and CCES, but
very important for understanding not just when/where lines form, but also
why.

Doug

-----
Douglas M. Spencer
Jurisprudence and Social Policy Ph.D. Program
University of California, Berkeley, School of Law
2240 Piedmont Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94720-2150
(415) 335-9698

URL: http://www.dougspencer.org


On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 9:09 AM, Rausch, Dave <jrausch at mail.wtamu.edu>wrote:

>  A student paper from the University of California Berkeley looks at
> waiting times during the 2008 presidential primary election in California:
> ****
>
> ** **
>
>
> http://www.vote.caltech.edu/sites/default/files/Lines%20at%20Polling%20Stations.pdf
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> Dave Rausch****
>
> ** **
>
> Dave Rausch, Ph.D.****
>
> Teel Bivins Professor of Political Science****
>
> Faculty Athletics Representative****
>
> Dept. of Political Science and Criminal Justice****
>
> West Texas A&M University****
>
> Canyon, TX 79016-0001****
>
> (806) 651-2423    Fax: (806) 651-3610****
>
> ** **
>
> My webpage:****
>
>                 http://www.wtamu.edu/~jrausch****
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:
> law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] *On Behalf Of *Michael
> Peshkin
> *Sent:* Monday, October 22, 2012 10:38 AM
>
> *To:* law-election at uci.edu
> *Subject:* [EL] do long lines occur more in black precincts?****
>
> ** **
>
> Back in '08 I published a study suggesting that long lines at polling
> places may especially afflict black voters.   ****
>
>
> Rick asked on this list "I'd be interested to hear from others if the
> methodology of this study is sound (especially in its reliance on news
> reports of long lines)."   After which I got pilloried.****
>
> ** **
>
> Now we're again about to see news footage of those determined black voters
> in Ohio waiting in line for hours -- and nothing about the ones who went
> home to feed the kids.****
>
> ** **
>
> Is it even possible to measure the wait time - vs - race statistics?   Are
> there practical yet methodologically sound sampling techniques?      ****
>
> ** **
>
> Has anyone ever done it?   What do you guess they would find?    ****
>
> ** **
>
> And would it matter?   Is the elasticity known, for turnout - vs - wait
> time?****
>
> ** **
>
> --****
>
> ** **
>
> Article:
> http://inthesetimes.com/article/4068/are_long_lines_the_new_poll_tax/****
>
> ** **
>
> Graph:
> http://peshkin.mech.northwestern.edu/longlines/longlines-vs-black.pdf****
>
> ** **
>
> Discussion on this list:
> http://mailman.lls.edu/pipermail/election-law/2008-December/date.html****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
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