Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T13:54:45.013Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

More Equal than We Thought? Using Vote Validation to Better Understand Participation Inequality in the States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

William W. Franko
William W. Franko*
Affiliation:
Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA
*
William W. Franko, Auburn University, 7080 Haley Center, Auburn, AL 36849, USA. Email: wwf0001@auburn.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Inequality in political participation is a well-known and often studied feature of American politics. An important study examining misreporting of voter turnout in opinion surveys, however, calls into question the true extent of participation inequality. Ansolabehere and Hersh's first-ever 50-state vote validation project shows that those with more political resources are more likely to misreport turnout. That is, those with higher incomes are more likely than others to report that they had voted when in fact they did not. These findings suggest that income disparities in participation are not as large as opinion surveys have led us to believe. Moreover, studies using differences between voters and nonvoters as a key political indicator may also be biased. This article presents the first assessment of whether vote misreporting creates systematic bias in measures of state participation inequality. An index of economic inequality in participation for the 50 states is developed using the Ansolabehere and Hersh validated vote data and compares the measure of political inequality with a similar measure using traditional (i.e., nonvalidated) survey data. These state indices are used to determine the extent of bias produced by misreporting and whether this bias has implications for studies using these measures of participation inequality. The latter is assessed by examining the influence of the self-reported and validated inequality measures on state welfare programs and minimum wage policy.

Keywords

voting behaviorpolitical behaviorpolitical participationpoverty/inequalitypublic policyfederal/statefederalism
Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 91 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, Barbara A., and Silver, Brian D.. 1986. “Measurement and Mismeasurement of the Validity of the Self-Reported Vote.” American Journal of Political Science 30 (4): 771–85..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ansolabehere, Stephen. 2008. Cooperative Congressional Election Study, Common Content [Computer File]. Release 4: July 15, 2011. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University [producer]. http://cces.gov.harvard.edu (accessed December 30, 2014).Google Scholar
Ansolabehere, Stephen, and Hersh, Eitan. 2012. “Validation: What Big Data Reveal about Survey Misreporting and the Real Electorate.” Political Analysis 20 (4): 437–59..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Avery, James M., and Peffley, Mark. 2005. “Voter Registration Requirements, Voter Turnout, and Welfare Eligibility Policy: Class Bias Matters.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 5 (1): 47–67..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartels, Larry M. 2008. Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Belli, Robert F., Traugott, Michael W., and Beckmann, Matthew N.. 2001. “What Leads to Voting Overreports? Contrasts of Overreporters to Validated Voters and Admitted Nonvoters in the American National Election Studies.” Journal of Official Statistics 17 (4): 479–98..Google Scholar
Berinsky, Adam J. 2005. “The Perverse Consequences of Electoral Reform in the United States.” American Politics Research 33 (4): 471–91..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, Robert, Chadha, Anita, and Montjoy, Robert. 2001. “Overreporting Voting: Why It Happens and Why It Matters.” Public Opinion Quarterly 65 (1): 22–44..CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Berry, William D., Ringquist, Evan J., Fording, Richard C., and Hanson, Russell L.. 1998. “Measuring Citizen and Government Ideology in the American States, 1960-93.” American Journal of Political Science 12 (1): 327–48..Google Scholar
Blakely, Tony A., Kennedy, Bruce P., and Kawachi, Ichiro. 2001. “Socioeconomic Inequality in Voting Participation and Self-Rated Health.” American Journal of Public Health 91 (1): 99–104..Google ScholarPubMed
Burnham, Walter Dean. 1987. “The Turnout Problem.” In Elections American Style, ed. Reichley, James. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 97–104.Google Scholar
Card, David, and Krueger, Alan B.. 1995. Myth and Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Dahl, Robert A. 2006. On Political Equality. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Fellowes, Matthew C., and Rowe, Gretchen. 2004. “Politics and the New American Welfare States.” American Journal of Political Science 48 (2): 362–73..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franko, William W. 2013. “Political Inequality and State Policy Adoption: Predatory Lending, Children's Health Care, and Minimum Wage.” Poverty & Public Policy 5 (1): 88–114..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gelman, Andrew, and Hill, Jennifer. 2007. Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Green, Mark. 2004. Selling Out: How Big Corporate Money Buys Elections, Rams through Legislation, and Betrays Our Democracy. New York, NY: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Hill, Kim Quaile, and Hurley, Patricia A.. 1984. “Nonvoters in Voters' Clothing: The Impact of Voting Behavior Misreporting on Voting Behavior Research.” Social Science Quarterly 65 (1): 199–206..Google Scholar
Hill, Kim Quaile, and Leighley, Jan E.. 1992. “The Policy Consequences of Class Bias in State Electorates.” American Journal of Political Science 36 (2): 351–65..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, Kim Quaile, and Leighley, Jan E.. 1994. “Mobilizing Institutions and Class Representation in U.S. State Electorates.” Political Research Quarterly 47 (1): 137–50..Google Scholar
Hill, Kim Quaile, Leighley, Jan E., and Hinton-Andersson, Angela. 1995. “Lower-Class Mobilization and Policy Linkage in the U.S. States.” American Journal of Political Science 39 (1): 75–86..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, Robert A., Brown, Robert D., and Wright, Gerald C.. 1998. “Registration, Turnout, and the Electoral Representativeness of U.S. State Electorates.” American Politics Quarterly 26 (3): 259–87..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katosh, John P., and Traugott, Michael W.. 1981. “The Consequences of Validated and Self-Reported Voting Measures.” Public Opinion Quarterly 45 (4): 519–35..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, David S. 1999. “Wage Inequality in the United States during the 1980s: Rising Dispersion or Falling Minimum Wage?” Quarterly Journal of Economics 114 (3): 977–1023..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leighley, Jan E., and Nagler, Jonathan. 1992. “Socioeconomic Class Bias in Turnout, 1964-1988: The Voters Remain the Same.” American Political Science Review 86 (3): 725–36..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lijphart, Arend. 1997. “Unequal Participation: Democracy's Unresolved Dilemma.” American Political Science Review 91 (1): 1–14..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackenbach, Johan P., and Kunst, Anton E.. 1997. “Measuring the Magnitude of Socio-Economic Inequalities in Health: An Overview of Available Measures Illustrated with Two Examples from Europe.” Social Science & Medicine 44 (6): 757–71..CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morris, Martina, and Western, Bruce. 1999. “Inequality in Earnings at the Close of the Twentieth Century.” Annual Review of Sociology 25 (1): 623–57..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piven, Frances Fox, and Cloward, Richard A.. 1988. Why Americans Don't Vote. New York, NY: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Presser, Stanley, and Traugott, Michael. 1992. “Little White Lies and Social Science Models: Correlated Response Errors in a Panel Study of Voting.” Public Opinion Quarterly 56 (1): 77–86..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richter, Brian Kelleher, Samphantharak, Krislert, and Timmons, Jeffrey F.. 2009. “Lobbying and Taxes.” American Journal of Political Science 53 (4): 893–909..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rigby, Elizabeth, and Springer, Melanie J.. 2011. “Does Electoral Reform Increase (or Decrease) Political Equality?” Political Research Quarterly 64 (2): 420–34..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenstone, Steven J., and Hansen, John Mark. 1993. Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America. New York, NY: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Schattschneider, E. E. 1960. The Semi-Sovereign People: A Realist's View of Democracy in America. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Sigelman, Lee. 1982. “The Nonvoting Voter in Voting Research.” American Journal of Political Science 26 (1): 47–56..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silver, Brian D., Anderson, Barbara A., and Abramson, Paul R.. 1986. “Who Overreports Voting?” American Political Science Review 80 (2): 613–24..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stern, Philip M. 1988. The Best Congress Money Can Buy. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Traugott, Michael W., and Katosh, John P.. 1979. “Response Validity in Surveys of Voting Behavior.” Public Opinion Quarterly 43 (3): 359–77..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Verba, Sidney, Schlozman, Kay Lehman, and Brady, Henry E.. 1995. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wichowsky, Amber. 2012. “Competition, Party Dollars, and Income Bias in Voter Turnout, 1980–2008.” Journal of Politics 74 (2): 446–59..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolfinger, Raymond E., and Rosenstone, Steven J.. 1980. Who Votes? New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar