[Durham INC] Early voting update

Wed Oct 4 20:22:06 EDT 2023

Philip, this is fascinating. Thank you for sharing it.

On Wed, Oct 4, 2023 at 7:12 PM Philip Azar <philip917azar at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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-- 
Mimi Kessler
919-599-2892
"Democracy is not a spectator sport" - John Deen
Please vote every chance you get.
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