The 2012 American
Presidential Election was preceded by widespread efforts to promote stronger
voting requirements in states across the nation. In one case, a private,
anonymous foundation purchased advertising spots on billboards in urban Ohio to
communicate that voter fraud is a felony punishable by fines and imprisonment.
This action drew criticism from civil rights groups, who argued that a majority
of the billboards were located in minority census tracts, and that the
advertisements utilized intimidating language and imagery. This article applies
probability theory to the debate in order to determine the likelihood that the
observed patterns of billboards in two cities—Cleveland and Columbus—could have
occurred by chance. First, simulation is employed to compare the observed
allocations of billboards to white and non-white census tracts to patterns
generated under Complete Spatial Randomness (CSR). Second, simulation draws
from probit regression models, in which the dependent variable is the presence
of a billboard within a census tract, are used to generate distributions of
first differences between1) the
expected value of the dependent variable given that the census tract is
majority white and2) the expected
value of the dependent variable given that the census tract is majority
non-white. The results suggest that the billboard locations in Cleveland were
not significantly different from patterns produced under CSR, and that the
probability of a given census tract containing a billboard is not significantly
different for white and non-white majority tracts. The opposite inferences are
made for Columbus.
References
[1]
W. R. Weiser and L. Norden, “Voting Law Changes in 2012,” Brennan Center for Justice, New York, 2012.
[2]
W. R. Weiser and V. Agraharkar, “Ballot Security and Voter Suppression,” Brennan Center for Justice, New York, 2012.
[3]
S. Donaldson, “Washington Group Asks for Clear Channel to Remove Voter Fraud Billboards,” The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Cleveland, 2012.
[4]
M. H. Lopez and P. Taylor, “Dissecting the 2008 Electorate: Most Diverse in U.S. History,” Pew Research Center and Pew Hispanic Center, New York, 2009.
[5]
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAAP), “Defending Democracy: Confronting Modern Barriers to Voting Rights in America,” NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, New York, 2011.
[6]
Voting Rights Institute, “A Reversal in Progress: Restricting Voting Rights for Electoral Gain,” Democratic National Committee, Washington DC, 2011.
[7]
Brennan Center for Justice, “Citizens without Proof: A Survey of Americans’ Possession of Documentary Proof of Citizenship and Photo Identification,” Brennan Center for Justice, New York, 2006.
[8]
M. C. Herron and D. A. Smith, “Souls to the Polls: Early Voting in Florida in the Shadow of House Bill 1355,” Election Law Journal, Vol. 11, No. 3, 2012, pp. 331-347.
[9]
H. A. Von Spakovsky, “The Effect of Identification Requirements on Minority Voter Turnout,” The Journal of the Federalist Society Practice Groups, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2007, pp. 87-95.
[10]
United States Senate Republican Committee, “Putting an End to Voter Fraud,” United States Senate Republican Committee, Washington DC, 2012.
[11]
S. Childress, “Unprecedented Number of Restrictive Voting Laws Being Introduced,” PBS Frontline, 2012.
[12]
S. Donaldson, “Politicians Say Advertisement in Ward 5 Discriminates against Minorities and Felons,” The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Cleveland, 2012.
[13]
United States Census Bureau, “Geographic Terms and Concepts—Census Tract,” United States Census Bureau, Suitland, 2012.
[14]
United States Census Bureau, “TIGER/Line Shapefiles Pre-Joined with Demographic Data,” 2012.
http://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/data/tiger-data.html
[15]
J. E. Burt, G. M. Barber and D. L. Rigby, “Elementary Statistics for Geographers,” 3rd Edition, Guilford Press, New York, 2009.
[16]
D. O’Sullivan and D. Unwin, “Geographic Information Analysis,” John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, 2003.
[17]
G. King, M. Tomz and J. Wittenberg, “Making the Most of Statistical Analyses: Improving Interpretation and Presentation,” American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 44, No. 2, 2000, pp. 347-363. doi:10.2307/2669316
[18]
K. Imai, G. King and O. Lau, “Zelig: Everyone’s Statistical Software,” 2012. http://gking.harvard.edu/zelig
[19]
G. Younge, “This is Shaping up to be the Most Racially Polarized US Election Ever,” The Guardian, London, 2012.
[20]
J. M. Jones, “Americans’ Views of Obama More Polarized as Election Nears,” Gallup, Princeton, 2012.
