Group II:Improving Voter Registration

Procedures(Allison Horst, Stephen Larson, Alex Tahk)

Do voters in states with statewide registration systems report fewer

problems voting than voters in states without them?

Basic logic

• Find measure of “voter registration problems” and see whether voters in states with statewide voter registration systems report fewer problems– Define “statewide voter registration system”

• Control for confounding effects, because states with statewide registration systems might also have other characteristics that minimize problems

• Individual or aggregate level analysis

What the group did

• Data– Measure of statewide registration systems:

NCSL report– Registration problems: CPS Voting and

Registration Supplement– Demographic data: Census

Table 1: Voters in states with centralized systems vs. voters in

states without

Table 2: State-level multivariate analysis

• Dependent variable: pct. of registered voters with reported registration problems

• Independent variable: laundry list of demographics, state-level characteristics, etc.– Problem: not much works, and there’s collinearity– Solution: drop most variables

• Table 2

Individual results

Comments

• General– Overall strategy a very good one: simple test

to a more complex test– The aggregate analysis is redundant and

unnecessary

• Specific comments– It’s good to have a summary table of variables– Comments on specific tables

Table 1 comments

1.0% 1.0%

Centralized Voter Registration System

No Yes

Pct. with problems 1.0 1.0

N 26793 23729

Question: what is the sample? (All voters? All registered voters?)

Table 3 CommentsWhat was the main reason (you/name) did not

vote?

-9 No Response-3 Refused-2 Don't know-1 Not in universe1 Illness or disability (own or family's)2 Out of town or away from home3 Forgot to vote (or send in absentee ballot)4 Not interested, felt my vote wouldn't make a

difference5 Too busy, conflicting work or school schedule6 Transportation problems7 Didn't like candidates or campaign issues8 Registration problems9 Bad weather conditions10 Inconvenient polling place or hours or lines

too long11 Other

Main thing: What is the dependentVariable measuring?•Denominator (all eligible voters or all non-voters?•Numerator (only reg. problems or all polling place problems?)

Alternate regressionsNumerator: Only registration problems Registration problems or lines

Sample: Eligible Non-voters EligibleNon-

voters

Reg. deadline (days)

0.000053

(0.00048)

0.0076

(0.0046)

0.000074

(0.000057)

0.0012

(0.0006)

Centralized voter reg. (0,1)

0.00039

(0.00041)

-0.0022

(0.0041)

0.00099

(0.00048)

0.0014

(0.0047)

Same-day registration (0,1)

-0.0049

(0.0012)

-0.042

(0.012)

-0.0060

(0.0014)

-0.051

(0.015)

Education (years [if done right])

0.00029

(0.00012)

0.0059

(0.0014)

0.00029

(0.00014)

0.0077

(0.0016)

Log of income ($) -0.00082

(0.00042)

0.0038

(0.0038)

-0.0012

(0.0005)

0.0044

(0.0045)

How many years at curr. Res. (yrs.)

-0.0043

(0.0002)

-0.032

(0.002)

-0.0046

(0.0003)

-0.033

(0.002)

Constant 0.024

(0.005)

-0.062

(0.055)

0.032

(0.006)

-0.12

(0.06)

N 69,837 6,599 69,837 6,599

R2 .006 .05 .005 .04

Mean of dep. Var. .0038 .068 .0053 .095

Table 3 formatting comments

Group like categoriesRace•Asian•Black•Hispanic•Native Amer.

Voting system•CVS•Provisional Ball.•Deadline

Good

Standard errors, please