[Durham INC] Early voting update

[Philip Azar]

>From the last parts of a New York Times Article:

When cities shift to on-cycle elections, Hajnal and his two colleagues
write, the non-Hispanic white share, previously two-thirds of the vote,
“decreases by nearly 10 percentage points” in presidential election years
and “by 5.7 points when they are concurrent with midterm elections.”

The Latino share increases “from about 18 percent in off-cycle elections to
just under 25 percent when these elections are consolidated with
presidential contests.” The Asian American “share of the electorate
increases by 2.3 percentage points when cities move to the same date as
presidential elections,” which may not seem like much “but it’s important
to keep in mind that Asian Americans account for only 7.7 percent of the
electorate in off-cycle elections, so this represents an increase of 30
percent.”

The changed composition of the electorate in on- and off-cycle elections is
equally remarkable for young and old voters. The authors found that older
voters “account for nearly half of off-cycle voters. But the share of older
voters drops almost 22 points in local elections that coincide with
presidential elections and 13 points for midterm elections.” The share cast
by younger voters, in turn, “almost doubles during presidential elections.”

In the case of all these factors — race, ethnicity and age — Hajnal, Kogan
and Markarian conclude that “on-cycle elections produce a more
representative electorate.”

The paper cited in the article goes on:

As a result, we should expect the electorate during high-cost off-cycle
elections to include disproportionately more high-propensity voters like
older, white homeowners who have abundant political resources and for
low-cost on-cycle elections to draw in relatively more low-propensity
voters including younger Americans, racial minorities, and the
disadvantaged.
I commend the paper in particular as it delves into the results of their
studies.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/12/opinion/republicans-democrats-voters-elections.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

and

PSR_2100091 374..383 (archive.org)
<https://web.archive.org/web/20220420060914id_/https:/www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/39CE6B9F0E906228F695248C874C0C36/S0003055421000915a.pdf/div-class-title-who-votes-city-election-timing-and-voter-composition-div.pdf>

On Wed, Oct 4, 2023 at 6:29 PM RICHARD FORD via INC-list <
inc-list at lists.deltaforce.net> wrote:

> How do you feel about  doing away with odd year voting? You could argue
> that it acts as a very effective form of voter suppression!
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Sep 30, 2023, at 6:19 PM, Pat Carstensen <pats1717 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> 
> After 10 days of early voting, 4459 people have cast votes at early
> voting, about 2.5% of the registered voters.  I think this puts us slightly
> ahead of where we were in 2021. Unfortunately it is way less than voting in
> 2022!
>
> More and more people have been voting by mail (how to do it is at
> https://www.dcovotes.com/voters/voting/absentee-voting) so that will help
> the turn-out percentage as well.
>
> The schedule and locations for early voting are at:
> https://www.dcovotes.com/home/showpublisheddocument/39098/638233928770830000
>
> Details on the demographics of the turn-out are at:
> https://www.dconc.gov/home/showdocument?id=39520&t=638310047184110464
>
> Picture ID seems to be going OK -- BoE has a lot of information on it at:
> https://www.dcovotes.com/voters/voter-id
>
> A couple other changes:
>
>    - There are new improved machines to mark ballots for folks who are
>    visually impaired or whose hands don't work as well as they used to.
>    (Please use them so we get more experience with them before next year).
>    - The folks checking you in will ask what year you were born in before
>    they ask your address (they should not ask your full birthday unless that
>    is the only way to find your record in the database).  You don't have to
>    tell them how old you are, but it helps the process since every year there
>    is a mix-up of 2 of members of the same household (dad has voted but Junior
>    is the one marked in records as having voted), and they are hoping this
>    will reduce the errors.  I guess at least some people are more embarrassed
>    at giving their middle name than their birth year anyhow (-:
>    - Current law says your ID needs to "substantially" match in picture
>    and name.  The address only needs to match if you are registering as a new
>    voter.  The birthday doesn't need to match (but we have very occasionally
>    found we have "bad data" and this is a good opportunity to get the
>    information corrected).  If you want to check the name, address and birth
>    year in your record, do a voter look-up at
>    https://vt.ncsbe.gov/RegLkup/.
>    - The "ballot box" (technically the tabulator) where you put your
>    ballot at the end has cool new graphics on its screen.
>
> Regards, pat
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