Gender, race, age and voting: A research note

Politics and Governance

Volumn 1, Issue 2, 2013, Pages 132-137

  Ansolabehere, Stephen ^a   Hersh, Eitan ^b  

^a HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b YALE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Big data; Elections; Gender; Race; SES; U.S; Voter registration; Voting

Indexed keywords

EID: 84955266503     PISSN: None     EISSN: 21832463     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.12924/pag2013.01020132     Document Type: Article

References (26)

1. Rosenstone SJ, Hansen JM. Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America. New York, NY, USA: Macmillan; 1993.
2. Sidney V, Schlozman KL, Brady HE. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University Press; 1995.
3. Sidney V, Burns N, Schlozman KL. Knowing and Caring About Politics: Gender and Political Engagement. Journal of Politics. 1997;59(4):1051-1072.
4. Ansolabehere S, Hersh E, Shepsle K. Movers, Stayers, and Registration: Why Age is correlated with Registration in the U.S. Quarterly Journal of Political Science. 2012;7(4):333-363.
5. Ansolabehere S, Hersh E. The Quality of Voter Registration Records: A State-by-State Analysis. Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project Report. Cambridge, MA, USA: Caltech/MIT; 14 July 2010.
6. In a study of election administration quality, Ansolabehere and Hersh [10] find turnout statistics on voter files to be highly accurate.
7. United States Census Bureau. NC-EST2008- alldata: Monthly Population Estimates by Age, Sex, Race and Hispanic Origin for the United States. Suitland, MD, USA: United States Census Bureau; November 2009.
8. American Community Survey. 2008 1-year PUMS File. Suitland, MD, USA: United States Census Bureau; 2008.
9. Silver BD, Anderson BA, Abramson PR. Who overreports Voting? American Political Science Review. 1986;80(2):613-624.
10. Ansolabehere S, Hersh E. Validation: What Big Data Reveal about Survey Misreporting and the Real Electorate. Political Analysis. 2012;20(4):437-459.
11. Comparing actual vote data with CPS data in states in which race is recorded on the registration rolls reveals that the CPS exaggerates the voting rates of Blacks slightly and of Hispanics substantially in these states. This analysis was performed by the authors for 2012.
12. Ansolabehere S, Persily N, Stewart III CH. Race, Religion, and Vote Choice in the 2008 Election: Implications for the Future of the Voting Rights Act. Harvard Law Review. 2009;123(6):1385-1436.
13. See, for example, the analysis offered in [12].
14. Burns N, Schlozman KH, Verba S. The Private Roots of Public Action. Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University Press; 2001.
15. Lien P-T. Does the Gender Gap in Political Attitudes and Behaviors Vary Across Racial Groups? Political Research Quarterly. 1998;51(4):869-894.
16. Seltzer RA, Newman J, Leighton M. Sex as a Political Variable: Women as Candidates and Voters in U.S. Elections. Boulder, CO, USA: Lynne Rienner Publishers; 1997.
17. Hornor LL. Black Americans: A Statistical Sourcebook. Palo Alto, CA, USA: Information Publications; 1999.
18. Montoya LJ, Hardy-Fanta C, Garcia S. Latina Politics: Gender, Participation, and Leadership. PS: Political Science and Politics. 2000;33(3):555-561.
19. Jones-Correa M. Different Paths: Gender, Immigration, and Political Participation. International Migration Review. 1998;32(2):326-349.
20. Miles, TJ. Felon Disenfranchisement and Voter Turnout. Journal of Legal Studies. 2004;33(1):85-129.
21. Miles [20] has currently the most sophisticated analysis of the effect of these laws on turnout, and he finds no effect.
22. Because the data come from public records, we measure socio-economic status with block-group level Census statistics and marriage based on household information in the voter file (e.g. many married voters can be identified by age, gender, and last name of individuals in the household). We generated a block group SES scale using factor analysis that incorporates measures of block group income, college education, single parent rates, public assistance rates, and percent living in poverty rates. These variables all scale onto a single factor. As block group SES increases, the gender gap for Blacks and Hispanics decreases, but it does not disappear or even approach levels as for Whites. For example, among Blacks and Hispanics in the highest SES block groups, the gender participation gap is four percentage points. At the lowest SES level, the gap was seven points for Hispanics and ten points for Blacks. For Whites at all levels of SES, the gender gap is approximately two points. A similar pattern exists in the difference between married and single people across races. Married Blacks have a smaller gender gap than unmarried Blacks, but there is still a substantially larger gender gap for married Blacks (and even high-SES married Blacks) than for comparable Whites.
23. Wiggens DC. Righteous Content. New York, NY, USA: New York University Press; 2005.
24. Lincoln CE, Mamiya L. The black Church in the African American Experience. Durham, NC, USA: Duke University Press; 1990.
25. Greenberg A. Race, Religiosity, and the Women's Vote. Feminist Studies. 2001;22(3):59-82.
26. Atkinson MD, Fowler A. Social Capital and Voter Turnout: Evidence from Saint's Day Fiestas in Mexico. British Journal of Political Science. Forthcoming.