[EL] Uh oh, Rick...

[Richman, Jesse T.]

Bernard, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts!  They help advance this discussion.



I think you are right that the citizenship question is asked in the pre-election survey, but I think we might disagree about whether this means it came before the decision to register or vote.  It seems to me that the pre survey could well not have come before the decision to register to vote which carries potential legal costs for non-citizens.  I believe the pre survey did ask about voter registration status.



In the Voter Registration Application would-be registrants have to sign that "I have reviewed my state's instructions and I swear/affirm that:

I am a United States citizen

I meet the eligibility requirements of my state and subscribe to any oath required.

The information I have provided is true to the best of my knowledge under penalty of perjury. If I have provided false information, I may be fined, imprisoned, or (if not a U.S. citizen) deported from or refused entry to the United States."  The emphasis added is mine.



In addition, the pre-survey has questions about intention to vote, which might be seen as stating an intention to commit voter fraud if one is not eligible to vote.   Furthermore since there are in some instances opportunities for early voting, vote-by-mail and absentee ballots, some individuals had already voted at the time they answered the pre survey.  For example in 2008 there were four individuals who said they had already voted in the non-citizen sub population.



Its location might well have been randomized, or very early in the survey, but if the 2008 SPSS file is any guide, the citizen question came near the very end of the pre survey.  If it was late in the pre survey then it probably would have come after individuals had been asked what candidates they intended to support, whether they were registered to vote, and whether they planned to vote.



I continue to think it is possible that some immigrants (particularly the undocumented) might sometimes assert that they had a stronger legal status (e.g. even citizenship) for a variety of reasons including potentially the desire to avoid drawing attention to their status in order to minimize the risk of problems like deportation.  Such a self-protective strategy might well be triggered by a long survey in which they are being asked questions about behaviors (registration and voting) that could be illegal for them to do because of non-citizenship.



And now to the point about turnout: Since Tesler is examining self-reported turnout, you are right that this is the relevant comparison for other survey years.  I have calculated those values for the 2008 survey below so that we can compare apples to apples more-or-less.  (It's only more-or-less because for 2008 we don't have Tesler's nice test-retest reliability non-citizen status measure.)   I continue to think his percentages for the test-retest-reliable non-citizens are on the high end of what we saw in the self-reports for other years.



I don't know if he's weighting the data, so I've included three different frequency estimates below for self-reported voting in 2008: with unweighted data, data weighted using CCES case weights, and data weighted using our adjusted weights (we adjusted the non-citizen case weights to better match census bureau estimates of the racial characteristics of the non-citizen population.)



Unweighted:

Saidvoted



Frequency

Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

Valid

.00

300

88.5

88.5

88.5

1.00

39

11.5

11.5

100.0

Total

339

100.0

100.0





With CCES Case Weights (the N is different here because non-citizens tend to come from demographic categories that are relatively under-represented in the CCES sample):



Saidvoted



Frequency

Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

Valid

.00

444

90.9

90.9

90.9

1.00

44

9.1

9.1

100.0

Total

488

100.0

100.0







With our adjusted case weights:



Saidvoted



Frequency

Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

Valid

.00

311

92.0

92.0

92.0

1.00

27

8.0

8.0

100.0

Total

338

100.0

100.0







As you can see, 11.7 percent is at least a bit higher than any of these numbers, which was my point when I said "That's a turnout estimate which is rather high compared with our turnout estimates in the paper: just over 11.7 percent."



Best Regards,



Jesse




Jesse Richman
Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies
Director, Social Science Research Center
Old Dominion University
BAL 7028
Norfolk VA 23529
757-683-3853
www.odu.edu/~jrichman<http://www.odu.edu/~jrichman>










-----Original Message-----
From: Fraga, Bernard L. [mailto:bfraga at indiana.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2014 12:02 PM
To: Richman, Jesse T.
Cc: Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Uh oh, Rick...



Just so we're clear, the citizenship question is asked on the pre-election survey, while the turnout question is in the post. I don't think it is plausible (and certainly not likely) "that our estimates for 2010 may be biased downward" due to non-citizens lying about their citizenship status in order to claim that they voted.



Also, Tessler is describing self-reported turnout in his tables, not validated turnout. That likely explains why his estimates for 2012 are higher than the 2010 results in the paper.



- Bernard



-----------------------

Bernard L. Fraga

Assistant Professor

Department of Political Science

Indiana University

E: bfraga at indiana.edu<mailto:bfraga at indiana.edu>

P: (812) 856-0132

W: bernardfraga.com

-----------------------



> On Oct 28, 2014, at 11:30 AM, Richman, Jesse T. <JRichman at ODU.EDU<mailto:JRichman at ODU.EDU>> 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<mailto: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<mailto: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 MichaelTesler are making:

>

>

> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/10/27/methodol

> ogical-challenges-affect-study-of-non-citizens-voting/

>

>

> is the 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 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 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<mailto: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>

> [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<mailto: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 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 theinevitable 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> 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 mailing listLaw-election at

> > department-lists.uci.eduhttp://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/list

> > info/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://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/http://ele

> > ctionlawblog.org

> >

> >

>

>

> --

> Stephen M. Hoersting

> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was

> scrubbed...

> URL:

> <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20

> 141024/220b7671/attachment.html>

> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was

> scrubbed...

> Name: share_save_171_16.png

> Type: image/png

> Size: 1504 bytes

> Desc: not available

> URL:

> <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20

> 141024/220b7671/attachment.png>

> _______________________________________________

> Law-election mailing list

> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>

> http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election

>

> NOTE: This message was trained as non-spam. If this is wrong, please correct the training as soon as possible.

> Spam

> Not spam

> Forget previous vote

> _______________________________________________

> Law-election mailing list

> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>

> http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election







--

BEGIN-ANTISPAM-VOTING-LINKS

------------------------------------------------------





Teach CanIt if this mail (ID 03N8E2P2P) is spam:



Spam:        https://www.spamtrap.odu.edu/canit/b.php?i=03N8E2P2P&m=3bf728e72017&t=20141028&c=s



Not spam:    https://www.spamtrap.odu.edu/canit/b.php?i=03N8E2P2P&m=3bf728e72017&t=20141028&c=n



Forget vote: https://www.spamtrap.odu.edu/canit/b.php?i=03N8E2P2P&m=3bf728e72017&t=20141028&c=f

------------------------------------------------------

END-ANTISPAM-VOTING-LINKS


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20141028/82222d3e/attachment.html>