Whose Absentee Votes Are Counted?
Absentee voting is becoming more prevalent throughout the United States. While there has been some research focused on who votes by absentee ballot, little research has considered another important question about absentee voting: Which absentee ballots are counted, and which are not? Research follow...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | en_US |
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Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project
2015
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/96563 |
| _version_ | 1811081406790500352 |
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| author | Alvarez, R. Michael Hall, Thad E. Sinclair, Betsy |
| author_facet | Alvarez, R. Michael Hall, Thad E. Sinclair, Betsy |
| author_sort | Alvarez, R. Michael |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Absentee voting is becoming more prevalent throughout the United States. While there has been some research focused on who votes by absentee ballot, little research has considered another important question about absentee voting: Which absentee ballots are counted, and which are not? Research following the 2000 presidential election has studied the problem of uncounted ballots for precinct voters, but not for absentee voters. To study which absentee ballots are counted we use data from Los Angeles County – the nation’s largest and most diverse voting jurisdiction – for the November 2002 general election. We develop three hypotheses regarding the likelihood that various types of ballots will be counted, which we test with our unique absentee voting dataset. We find that uniform service personnel, overseas civilians, and language minority voters have a much higher likelihood that their ballots will not be counted compared with the general absentee voting population. We conclude our paper with a discussion of the implications of our research for the current debates about absentee voting. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T11:46:11Z |
| format | Working Paper |
| id | mit-1721.1/96563 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T11:46:11Z |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publisher | Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/965632019-04-11T01:18:03Z Whose Absentee Votes Are Counted? Alvarez, R. Michael Hall, Thad E. Sinclair, Betsy Absentee voters Residual vote Los Angeles 2002 election Military voters Absentee voting is becoming more prevalent throughout the United States. While there has been some research focused on who votes by absentee ballot, little research has considered another important question about absentee voting: Which absentee ballots are counted, and which are not? Research following the 2000 presidential election has studied the problem of uncounted ballots for precinct voters, but not for absentee voters. To study which absentee ballots are counted we use data from Los Angeles County – the nation’s largest and most diverse voting jurisdiction – for the November 2002 general election. We develop three hypotheses regarding the likelihood that various types of ballots will be counted, which we test with our unique absentee voting dataset. We find that uniform service personnel, overseas civilians, and language minority voters have a much higher likelihood that their ballots will not be counted compared with the general absentee voting population. We conclude our paper with a discussion of the implications of our research for the current debates about absentee voting. Carnegie Corporation of New York; IBM Research 2015-04-14T18:34:44Z 2015-04-14T18:34:44Z 2005-02-01 Working Paper http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/96563 en_US VTP Working Paper Series;26 application/pdf Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project |
| spellingShingle | Absentee voters Residual vote Los Angeles 2002 election Military voters Alvarez, R. Michael Hall, Thad E. Sinclair, Betsy Whose Absentee Votes Are Counted? |
| title | Whose Absentee Votes Are Counted? |
| title_full | Whose Absentee Votes Are Counted? |
| title_fullStr | Whose Absentee Votes Are Counted? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Whose Absentee Votes Are Counted? |
| title_short | Whose Absentee Votes Are Counted? |
| title_sort | whose absentee votes are counted |
| topic | Absentee voters Residual vote Los Angeles 2002 election Military voters |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/96563 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT alvarezrmichael whoseabsenteevotesarecounted AT hallthade whoseabsenteevotesarecounted AT sinclairbetsy whoseabsenteevotesarecounted |