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ABSTRACT Accurate information on who is eligible to vote—and who is registered—is essential to voting rights enforcement, election reporting, and scholarship on political participation. Yet, the data used to measure eligibility and registration vary in important ways based on how the data were collected and for what purpose. This article compares three federal data sources on citizenship and voter registration, alongside state voter roll data aggregated by a private vendor (L2). We assess their strengths and limitations, helping researchers make informed choices. We review existing research on how individual preferences, policies, and politics shape registration rates across geography and demographic groups. We also explain why some uncertainty in counts of eligible and registered voters is unavoidable. Our side‐by‐side comparison reveals striking inconsistencies. The American Community Survey overstates the citizen voting‐age population. The Current Population Survey and L2 voter file counts of registered voters show a very weak correlation across states. Counts for small geographic areas vary widely. Because we are largely unable to disentangle the source of differences we observe, we recommend using multiple data sources. We also call for more attention to how voter rolls are maintained at the local level—key to reducing uncertainty.
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The Geography of Racially Polarized Voting: Calibrating Surveys at the District Level
Debates over racial voting, and over policies to combat vote dilution, turn on the extent to which groups’ voting preferences differ and vary across geography. We present the first study of racial voting patterns in every congressional district (CD) in the United States. Using large-sample surveys combined with aggregate demographic and election data, we find that national-level differences across racial groups explain 60% of the variation in district-level voting patterns, whereas geography explains 30%. Black voters consistently choose Democratic candidates across districts, whereas Hispanic and white voters’ preferences vary considerably across geography. Districts with the highest racial polarization are concentrated in the parts of the South and Midwest. Importantly, multiracial coalitions have become the norm: in most CDs, the winning majority requires support from non-white voters. In arriving at these conclusions, we make methodological innovations that improve the precision and accuracy when modeling sparse survey data.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2148907
- PAR ID:
- 10497821
- Publisher / Repository:
- Cambridge University Press
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- American Political Science Review
- ISSN:
- 0003-0554
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 18
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055423000436
