[EL] Over-reporting of voting

Tue Feb 25 09:56:00 PST 2014

I was able to get a statewide registration list from California SOS a few years ago.  The voter history was indeed inaccurate, but it was, according to the state, a complete list of registrants.  I couldn't dispute that after doing various cross-checks, but it's pretty easy for records to get lost in the wash in a state the size of California.

That said, the availability and quality of data varies tremendously among the states.  Which is a statement that can be applied to a lot more than just registration lists.

Cliff

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Clifford Maceda
Senior Research Coordinator
Election Research & Quality Control

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From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Douglas Johnson
Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 12:38 PM
To: 'Paul Gronke'
Cc: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Over-reporting of voting

True - California still does not yet even have a statewide voter database, much an less accurate list of vote histories in that database.

(The list vendors Larry Levine mentioned in an earlier email gather their data directly from each individual county.)

-          Doug

Douglas Johnson, Fellow
Rose Institute of State and Local Government
at Claremont McKenna College
douglas.johnson at cmc.edu<mailto:douglas.johnson at cmc.edu>
310-200-2058

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Paul Gronke
Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 9:28 AM
Cc: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>
Subject: Re: [EL] Over-reporting of voting

John

One would assume all states are in compliance with NVRA.  And one would assume among the set of states that are in compliance with NVRA, that such data are reasonably priced.

My past experience writing a report for Pew four years ago was that neither is true.

BUT even if it were available, the reason that some want to use survey data is that it provides a far richer set of correlates to help us understand the determinants of turnout, candidate choice, and a whole host of other things.  The state of the art is to "validate" survey reports using state and county files, but that can be extremely expensive.
---
Paul Gronke  Ph:   503-517-7393
                        Fax: 503-661-0601

Professor, Reed College
Director, Early Voting Information Center
3203 SE Woodstock Blvd
Portland OR 97202

On Feb 25, 2014, at 7:10 AM, John Tanner <john.k.tanner at gmail.com<mailto:john.k.tanner at gmail.com>> wrote:

The NVRA requires each state to maintain a record of who has voted in recent federal elections - at least for states that have voter registration.  I don't see why the summary data would not be available.

On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 12:42 PM, Larry Levine <larrylevine at earthlink.net<mailto:larrylevine at earthlink.net>> wrote:
Here in California every registrar of voters provides a tape of voter turnout after each election. Data services store this information and aggregate it for use in campaigns and other research. So we don't need to rely on the voter to tell us if he or she voted. This is a huge benefit when selecting a universe for polling or for targeting campaign activities.
Larry

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu>] On Behalf Of Lorraine Minnite
Sent: Monday, February 24, 2014 9:04 AM
To: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>
Subject: [EL] Over-reporting of voting

I applaud the effort to improve the quality of voting survey data.  It looks like prompting respondents with a kind of warning about the ability of the survey researcher to check up on what the respondent says can cause the respondent to think more carefully about his or her answer.  What most of these efforts and the commentary on them neglect is the fact that 1) many people attempt to vote and are thwarted for one reason or another - they go to the polls and confront a line they don't have the time to wait in, or they cast a provisional ballot that isn't counted, for example.  This can lead to a false presumption or even memory that the respondent actually voted when there is no recorded vote for the person.  So research that aims to improve the accuracy of voting data should operate both ways - in reducing what many (but not me) call "lying" by survey respondents, and (and this is much more difficult to operationalize in relevant detail) in accounting for and measuring the votes "lost" to problems we can fix with better designed and de-politicized election administration.  Given what we actually do know about the voting experience and what we should incorporate into our analysis regarding the predictability of human error, all of the error in the mismatch between what respondents recall from memory and election records can not possibly be due to respondent misreporting alone.

Lori Minnite

"New Pew Dispatch Examines Research on Over-Reporting of Turnout in Surveys"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=58972>
Posted on February 24, 2014 7:22 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=58972> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

A ChapinBlog.<http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cspg/electionacademy/2014/02/new_pew_dispatch_examines_new.php>
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>

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