[EL] Uh oh, Rick...
Justin Levitt
levittj at lls.edu
Tue Oct 28 11:01:17 PDT 2014
As long as we're discussing incentives, I've got an additional
question. I'm under the impression that it's a routine part of the
naturalization process for immigration officials to check a would be
prospective citizen's voter record; finding a vote has the strong
potential to lead not only to a rejection of the naturalization
application, but also (depending on the statute of limitations and
available evidence of intent) to criminal prosecution and removal. If
true, that would seem a fairly hefty deterrent (and more than just an
"honor system"). Do any of the list members know whether this practice
is memorialized anywhere (or have documentation that the practice is
actually not standard)?
--
Justin Levitt
Professor of Law
Loyola Law School | Los Angeles
919 Albany St.
Los Angeles, CA 90015
213-736-7417
justin.levitt at lls.edu
ssrn.com/author=698321
On 10/28/2014 8:30 AM, Richman, Jesse T. wrote:
> Michael,
>
> Thank you for this comment. I agree with you that Michael Tesler's
> idea of using the 2010-2012 panel to generate measures of test-rest
> reliability for the non-citizen voting response is a very very good
> one. I wish this panel had been available to us when we were working
> on the paper -- it clearly provides a range of opportunities for
> additional analyses.
>
> Tesler's piece is part of the process of refining the measurements
> with additional data and analyses. Clearly there is measurement error
> in the non-citizen measure. Tesler finds fairly good but imperfect
> reliability for the non-citizen self-report: 80.9 percent of self
> reported non-citizens in 2012 had indicated there were non-citizens in
> 2010.
>
> I think it is also important to think about the incentives to lie
> about citizenship status on the survey. Tesler notes: "The table goes
> on to show that 71 percent of respondents, who said that they were
> both 2012 non-citizens and 2010 voters, had previously reported being
> citizens of the United States in the 2010 CCES."
> As we as a field wrestle with appropriate adjustments to the
> non-citizen and voting measures in the CCES, we should probably keep
> in mind the likelihood that non-citizens who are voters have strong
> incentives to lie about their citizenship status and claim to be
> citizens. After all, claiming to be both a non-citizen and a voter is
> rather close to confessing to vote fraud. Given this potential
> substantial cost, I can readily imagine that a non-citizen voter might
> want to claim to be a citizen on the survey, and/or might lie about
> voting. This raises the possibility that our estimates for 2010 may
> be biased downward.
>
> Do you have data on when election officials in various states
> starting matching on SAVE? If enough states had started by 2008 or
> 2010, it might be interesting to see whether there is any observable
> relationship between SAVE matching and the number of non-citizens who
> are registered. Another possibility is that if as some on the right
> argue, there are particular incentives for undocumented immigrants to
> register to vote (in order to get a kind of government ID) then it
> could be that undocumented immigrants are more prevalent than
> documented immigrants on the voting rolls. But obviously that's an
> empirical question we don't currently have the data to address.
>
> I don't fully agree with is Tesler's conclusion that because the CCES
> measure of non-citizen voting has 80 percent test-retest reliability
> (with some evidence that reliability is potentially biased downward by
> incentives to misreport citizenship status among non-citizen voters)
> the CCES is "is probably not an appropriate data source for testing
> such claims."
>
> Although the CCES measures are imperfect (as to varying degrees is
> nearly all data), it is far and away the best data that we as a field
> currently have with which to evaluate the degree to which non-citizens
> vote. And an 80 percent match suggests that much of the
> self-reporting is accurate, even in the face of incentives for voters
> to misstate their citizenship status.
>
> Further Tessler does find votes being cast by non-citizens who
> consistently stated their non-citizen status. If I'm reading the
> tables correctly, then ten out of the 85 who consistently stated their
> status as non-citizens in both 2010 and 2012 reported voting in 2012.
> That's a turnout estimate which is rather high compared with our
> turnout estimates in the paper: just over 11.7 percent. No wonder
> Tessler also concludes by noting that his analysis "does not at all
> disprove Richman et al's conclusion that a large enough number of
> non-citizens are voting in elections to tip the balance for Democrats
> in very close races." If anything his estimates strengthen the case:
> for the most reliably self-reporting non-citizens, his estimates
> actually appear to come in rather high compared to ours.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Jesse
>
> _________________
> Jesse Richman
> Associate Professor of Political Science
> Old Dominion University
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
> [law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] on behalf of Michael
> McDonald [dr.michael.p.mcdonald at gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Tuesday, October 28, 2014 9:30 AM
> *To:* Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> *Subject:* Re: [EL] Uh oh, Rick...
>
> I'm glad Jesse has made his replication data and code available. The
> first step in verifying research is being able to replicate it.
>
> The main point that I make, and others like Michael Tesler are making:
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/10/27/methodological-challenges-affect-study-of-non-citizens-voting/
>
> isthe there is a lack of deep thought by Jesse and David about the
> reliability of the survey data and matching algorithm. Survey
> misreports are well-known, yet none of the extensive literature on,
> say vote over-report bias, is discussed as how it may affect the
> analysis. Survey respondents over-report their voting rates, and this
> at the least affects the upward bound on the number of non-citizen
> self-reported voters. Vote validation is challenged by matching and
> database reliability issues, but generally because respondents
> over-report their vote, validated vote is preferred to self-reports
> only. The most reliable measure is a person who both self-reports and
> has a validated vote, or 5 non-citizen voters (granting no issues in
> vote validation). Yet, Jesse and David ignore these issues and analyze
> both anyone who self-reports or has a validated vote, even if they did
> not report voting. As I stated before, this is logically inconsistent.
> Either you trust the validation or the self-reports, you don't get to
> trust them both. If you believe a noncitizen who self-reported they
> did not vote but is validated as voting is misreporting, to be
> logically consistent you have to believe that a noncitizen who reports
> they did vote but is validated as not voting is also misreporting.
>
> Also neglected in the manuscript is any discussion of the extensive
> matching of voter registration files against the SAVE database and
> follow-up contacts that election officials have done to verify if
> non-citizens are on the registration rolls, and if non-citizens have
> voted. This is important as Jesse and David note at one point they
> believe the CCES non-citizen voters are predominantly in the country
> legally. They would be in the SAVE database. If there was noncitizen
> voting on the massive scale found in the study, we would have
> indication of it through election officials' efforts. Not to say that
> there is no noncitizen voting - we know of a handful of documented
> cases - it's just several orders of magnitude less than what Jesse and
> David find.
>
> Michael Tesler questions self-reported citizenship, finding in the
> panel design of the survey:
>
> "41 percent of self-reported non-citizen voters in the 2012 CCES
> reported being citizens back in 2010."
>
> Somehow a good number of people who reported being citizens in 2010
> reported not being citizens in 2012. That doesn't make much sense, and
> again speaks to the limits of the survey data to understand this issue
> since respondents are obviously misreporting their citizenship status.
>
> ============
>
> Dr. Michael P. McDonald
>
> Associate Professor
>
> University of Florida
>
> Department of Political Science
>
> 234 Anderson Hall
>
> P.O. Box 117325
>
> Gainesville, FL 32611
>
> phone:352-273-2371 (office)
>
> e-mail:dr.michael.p.mcdonald at gmail.com
>
> web:www.ElectProject.org <http://www.electproject.org/>
>
> twitter: @ElectProject
>
> *From:*law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
> [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] *On Behalf Of
> *Paul Gronke
> *Sent:* Tuesday, October 28, 2014 8:31 AM
> *To:* Richman, Jesse T.
> *Cc:* Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> *Subject:* Re: [EL] Uh oh, Rick...
>
> The ANES sample, 2000-3000, is far too small to be able to make any
> sort of inferences about what everyone agrees is a very small
> proportion of the population. It would be good to have the
> information on the CPS but without the validation step, once again
> there is little that could be done.
>
> I admire you for responding to the list, Jesse, but I think the title
> of your Electoral Studies article was overly provocative, and to
> follow up with the Monkey Cage posting fanned the flames.
>
> You've put a bullseye on your research. Perhaps that was your
> intention, it has certainly brought attention. We will see what the
> inevitable replications and retests show.
>
> ---
>
> Paul Gronke Ph: 503-517-7393
>
> Reed College and Early Voting
>
> Information Center
>
> http://earlyvoting.net
>
>
> On Oct 28, 2014, at 2:15 AM, Richman, Jesse T. <JRichman at odu.edu
> <mailto:JRichman at odu.edu>> wrote:
>
> Rick,
>
> As you aptly framed it, one of the key empirical challenges is quantifying the level of non-citizen voting. There are examples that you and others have previously identified so we know it happens. The challenge is to identify how often.
>
> I wonder if perhaps the gap between estimates based on identified instances of non-citizens voting and the survey estimates my coauthors and I presented in our Electoral Studies piece is similar to the large gap between survey based estimates of the number of sex crimes committed on college campuses, and the number of such crimes that are prosecuted. In part this gap may reflect measurement error in the survey instruments used, and in part it seems to reflect the substantial difference between true incidence on campus and limitations in the capacity and willingness to identify and prosecute such incidents. The same pattern occurs for a variety of other crimes, with some going unreported. Non-citizen voting is nearly always victimless (and our estimates show that only a very small number of races have plausibly been shifted by non-citizen participation), so that's probably especially likely in this case.
>
> While I believe the CCES provides useful data with which to approach this topic, I hope that the attention the Electoral Studies piece has received will motivate other major electoral surveys beyond the CCES to ask non-citizens about voting. If both CPS and ANES with their very different methodologies could be included in the analysis we would surely have more and better data to work with.
>
> I look forward to talking about these issues more with you in the future.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Jesse Richman
>
> Associate Professor of Political Science
>
> Old Dominion University
>
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 4:57 PM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu <http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election>> wrote:
>
>
>
> >/ I linked to the the story Drudge links to earlier today on my blog. (See/
>
> >/ the end of this message). I have always said (and say in my book) that/
>
> >/ non-citizen voting is a real, though relatively small, problem (unlike/
>
> >/ impersonation fraud, which is essentially a blip). For this reason I have/
>
> >/ supported efforts to remove non-citizens from voting rolls, though not in/
>
> >/ the period right before an election when errors are more likely to/
>
> >/ disenfranchise voters./
>
> >/ /
>
> >/ The new study appears to find a much higher incidence of non-citizen/
>
> >/ voting than I've previously seen, and I look forward to hearing whether/
>
> >/ people think the methodology in this paper is sound. But even if it is/
>
> >/ sound, this would not justify the hysteria and nonsense (and in some cases/
>
> >/ outright dissembling) coming from some of the people you have listed below./
>
> >/ /
>
> >/ Rick/
>
> >/ /
>
> >/ /
>
> >/ /
>
> >/ /
>
> >/ "Could non-citizens decide the November election?"/
>
> >/ <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=67408>/
>
> >/ /
>
> >/ Posted on October 24, 2014 12:27 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=67408>/
>
> >/ by Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>/
>
> >/ /
>
> >/ Jesse Richman and David Earnes/
>
> >/ <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/10/24/could-non-citizens-decide-the-november-election/>t/
>
> >/ at the Monkey Cage with some provocative findings on the extent of/
>
> >/ non-citizen voting. I will be very interested to hear what others think of/
>
> >/ the methodology in this forthcoming article/
>
> >/ <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379414000973> in/
>
> >/ Electoral Studies./
>
> >/ [image: Share]/
>
> >/ <https://www.addtoany.com/share_save#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D67408&title=%E2%80%9CCould%20non-citizens%20decide%20the%20November%20election%3F%E2%80%9D&description=>/
>
> >/ Posted in election administration <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, The/
>
> >/ Voting Wars <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>/
>
> >/ /
>
> >/ /
>
> >/ On 10/24/14, 1:51 PM, Steve Hoersting wrote:/
>
> >/ /
>
> >/ It's getting tougher and tougher to dismiss and discredit John Fund, Hans/
>
> >/ van Spakovsky, James O'Keefe, J. Christian Adams, Catherine Engelbrecht and/
>
> >/ Rush Limbaugh:/
>
> >/ /
>
> >/ http://drudgereport.com//
>
> >/ /
>
> >/ --/
>
> >/ Stephen M. Hoersting/
>
> >/ /
>
> >/ /
>
> >/ _______________________________________________/
>
> >/ Law-election mailinglistLaw-election at department-lists.uci.eduhttp <http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election>://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election <http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election>/
>
> >/ /
>
> >/ /
>
> >/ --/
>
> >/ Rick Hasen/
>
> >/ Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science/
>
> >/ UC Irvine School of Law/
>
> >/ 401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000/
>
> >/ Irvine, CA 92697-8000949.824.3072 - office949.824.0495 -faxrhasen at law.uci.eduhttp <http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election>://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/ <http://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/>http://electionlawblog.org <http://electionlawblog.org/>/
>
> >/ /
>
> >/ /
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Stephen M. Hoersting
>
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