And keeping up with the scientific literature was particularly onerous for a conservative. One knew that the summary and conclusions of any given article would always be "spun" as supporting a Leftist viewpoint. So one had to go to the "Results" section of the article and plough through a lot of statistics in order to find out what really happened in the research concerned. That did of course take a lot of time but was often very instructive. I have seen results that could not have been more destructive of a Leftist theory presented as if they supported the Leftist theory. I offer a small appendix below in which I give an example of that.
After about 20 years of that, however, I gave up. There was so little wheat among the chaff that I just ceased to take the whole body of social science literature seriously. What was reported was usually very poorly done (Leftists corrupt anything they touch) and anything that was openly supportive of a conservative view would almost never get published anyway. So one was reading bigotry rather than science.
So it is only now that an article published last January has come to my attention. And even now I cannot justify a long look at it but I thought that I might make a few comments. The article claims that asking for ID from voters is a BAD THING. I reproduce a summary of it below and I will then go on to point to some of its weaknesses.
A new Brown University study reports that U.S. states that require voters to present identification before casting ballots have lower levels of political participation. The research also indicates that voter I.D. policies discourage legal immigrants from becoming citizens, particularly for blacks and Hispanics, reducing odds of naturalization by more than 15 percent.
Since 2000, and stimulated by new security concerns after 9/11, there has been an upsurge in state requirements for voter identification. By 2004, a total of 19 states required some form of documentation of a voter's identity, sometimes in the form of photo I.D. Proponents of such requirements believe identification is a necessary tool to prevent voting fraud, such as voting by noncitizens or people who are otherwise ineligible to register. Others argue that whatever its intention, I.D. policies have the effect of suppressing electoral participation, particularly among minorities.
The report, co-authored by S4 Director John Logan and graduate student Jennifer Darrah, concludes that voter I.D. is one of many factors that negatively influence civic participation in the United States. The report states, "At a time when many public officials express regret that immigrants seem to lag in their participation in mainstream society, even small suppressive effects on naturalization - the formal step to becoming an American citizen - work in the wrong direction and should be taken into account as people evaluate the benefits and costs of more stringent identification requirements."
The new study extends previous research on I.D. requirements by analyzing not only voter turnout, but also voter registration and - "the key prior step for immigrants" - the decision to become a citizen, across racial and ethnic groups. Key findings include:
* in states with a voter I.D. policy in 2000, the odds of naturalization for foreign-born residents of the United States were reduced by more than 5 percent, with the strongest impact on Hispanics;
* in election years from 1996-2004, the odds of being a registered voter among citizens aged 18 and older were higher for whites by about 15 percent in states with voter I.D. requirements. But this effect was more than counterbalanced by a reduction in white voter turnout. In 2004 alone the net effect was to reduce white turnout in these states by about 400,000 votes;
* in this same period, voter I.D. policies reduced Asians' registration and diminished voter turnout by blacks and Hispanics, by about 14 percent and 20 percent respectively. The net reduction in minority voting in these states in 2004 was more than 400,000 votes;
* the suppressive effect of voter I.D. disproportionately affected not only minorities, but also persons with less than a high school education and less than $15,000 income, tenants, and recent movers. While persons with these characteristics are substantially less likely to participate in civic affairs regardless of their state of residence, they experience an additional significant reduction in participation relative to others in voter I.D. states.
"It is incredibly clear how voter I.D. requirements disproportionately affect and suppress minorities," said Logan, professor of sociology. "This data shows that if voter I.D. policies had not been in place in 2004, voter turnout would have increased by more than 1.6 million. That is a strong argument in itself for change."
Source
Those "incredibly clear" results are not so clear if one looks at them with the skeptical eye that is proper in science, however. For a start, how did they equate States with and without voter ID laws? As a broad generalization, I would expect that it would be the more conservative States that have such laws. So are observed differences between the States caused by the greater conservatism of those States or are they caused just by the voter ID laws? It could be either one of those -- and any attribution of the interstate differences to the voter ID laws is nothing more than speculation.
There are of course statistical means (analysis of covariance etc.) for holding one influence steady while examining the effect of the other influence but that requires a good measure of both influences. And how does one quantify the degree to which a State is conservative? Does one use percentage voting for the GOP in the previous Presidential election? Maybe. But as many conservatives will tell you with some vehemence right at this moment, even a GOP Presidential candidate may not be very conservative so a vote for him could be a long way from an expression of conservatism. So statistical control founders on such objections.
In essence, then, the research above is essentially epidemiological -- and therefore heir to the big limitation of all such research, the limitation that correlation is not proof of causation.
And there are in the results themselves indications that the guesses about causation are poor. How do we explain that voter ID allegedly increased white voter registration but reduced white voter turnout? The two effects seem contradictory. Surely registration should INCREASE turnout and surely ID requirements should REDUCE voter registration? Yet the opposite happened in both cases. One can of course come up with ad hoc explanations for both effects but once again we are forced into speculation rather than having clear evidence of anything.
And one should finally note that a reduction in voter turnout is precisely what the voter ID laws aimed at. If you prevent ineligible people from voting, that must (ceteris paribus) lead to a reduction in the numbers who vote. So if the research above proves anything, it proves that voter ID laws had the intended effect. The fact that the reduction seems to have been particularly marked among Hispanics (many of whom suffer from a sad lack of "documents") supports that interpretation.
APPENDIX
An article on racism by Gough & Bradley (1993) is an example of how a respected author in the field concerned can reverse the plain implication of his research results. The article started out well. Gough & Bradley were unusual in that they used a properly constructed multi-item scale to measure rated racist behavior. They correlated it with a form of the California "F" scale (usually described as measuring authoritarianism but perhaps more informatively referred to as measuring a type of old-fashioned thinking). They found a correlation between the attitude and behavior measures of essentially zero (.08). A clearer disconfirmation of their theory would be hard to imagine.
So did they say: "We were wrong"? Far from it. They then decomposed their attiutude and behaviour indices into the individual items making up those indices and looked for correlations in the large matrix of correlations between the individual items. And there were some non-negligible correlations there. But there would be by chance alone! If you take 5% probability as your criterion for significance (which is conventional) and you have 100 correlations, 5% of them will (ceteris paribus) be identified as significant! What Gough and his friend did was then exactly what you are warned against doing in Statistics 101. And on the basis of that fraudulent procedure they claimed to have produced evidence in support of their theory
Reference: Gough, H. & Bradley, P. (1993) Personal attributes of people described by others as intolerant. In P.M. Sniderman, P.E. Tetlock & E.G. Carmines (Eds.) Prejudice, politics and the American dilemma (pp. 60-85) Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
2 comments:
You offer some cogent points for inquiry (they are not criticisms since you do not demonstrate that the study actually exhibits the flaws you mention - only that the short excerpt you quote does not rule them out). Your reliability is essentially negated by ideological nonsense like "Leftists corrupt everything they touch" and "bigotry, not science" - in fact, your words seem to convict you of the very crimes you attribute to others. But on their face, your few substantive remarks are not unreasonable.
However, this is wrong:
And one should finally note that a reduction in voter turnout is precisely what the voter ID laws aimed at. If you prevent ineligible people from voting, that must (ceteris paribus) lead to a reduction in the numbers who vote. So if the research above proves anything, it proves that voter ID laws had the intended effect. The fact that the reduction seems to have been particularly marked among Hispanics (many of whom suffer from a sad lack of "documents") supports that interpretation.
First, there is no reason to think that even a fair and well-conducted voter ID program will significantly reduce turnout by illegal voters. There is no evidence that fraudulent or ineligible voters have voted in any recent elections in any significant numbers. So-called evidence to that effect invariably consists of one of two things: hoary stories, rumors, anecdotes, and jokes ("he's got just as much right to vote as anyone in this cemetery") that can't be verified, and superficial and incompetent analysis of voter rolls (usually predicated upon finding the same name in two places - a statistical certainty in a country this large). Attempts to verify actual double-voting or illegal voting always reveal that most of the supposed "evidence" of the phenomenon is false (and one is more than justified in presuming it to be deliberately false; two words: Kathleen Harris), and that the actual incidence of such events is negligible.
For instance:
There have been a handful of substantiated cases of individual ineligible voters attempting to defraud the
election system. But by any measure, voter fraud is extraordinarily rare.
In part, this is because fraud by individual voters is a singularly foolish and ineffective way to attempt to win an election. Each act of voter fraud in connection with a federal election risks five years in prison and a $10,000 fine, in addition to any state penalties.18 In return, it yields at most one incremental vote. That single extra vote is simply not worth the price.
Instead, much evidence that purports to reveal voter fraud can be traced to causes far more logical than fraud by voters. . . .
• In Missouri in 2000 and 2002, hundreds of voters were alleged to have voted twice, either within the state or once in Kansas and once in Missouri. The same analysis acknowledged that the “computer files contain many errors that show people voting who did not actually vote.”71 Of 18 Kansas City cases that reporters followed up, 13 were affirmatively shown to result from clerical errors.72 We are aware of public sources substantiating only four cases (amounting to six votes within the state), yielding an overall documented fraud rate of 0.0003%.73
• In New Hampshire in 2004, citizens were alleged to have voted twice. In fact, on further investigation, many of the voters who were allegedly listed multiple times on the rolls actually represented different people with identical names; others were listed with multiple registrations, but voted only once. We are not aware of any public materials substantiating the claims of double voting.74
• In New Jersey in 2004, 4,397 voters were alleged to have voted twice within the state, and 6,572 voters were alleged to have voted once in New Jersey and once elsewhere.75 Many of these alleged double votes were actually flawed matches of names and/or birthdates on voter rolls.76 Only eight cases were actually documented through signatures on poll books; at least five signatures appear to match.77 Even if all eight proved to reveal fraud, however, that would amount to an overall double voting rate of 0.0002%.78
• In New York in 2002 and 2004, between 400 and 1,000 voters were alleged to have voted once in New York and once in Florida. These allegations were also prompted by a flawed attempt to match names and birthdates.79 We are aware of public sources substantiating only two cases, yielding an overall documented fraud rate of 0.000009%.80 . . .
Similar results obtain for cases of supposedly dead voters, incorrect addresses, and so forth.
And those terrifying non-citizen voters?
• In Washington in 2005, an individual asked county offices to investigate the citizenship status of 1,668 registered voters based on their “foreign-sounding names.” There are no reports of which we are aware that any individual on the submitted list was actually a noncitizen.133
• In Washington in 2004, documentation appears to show that two votes were cast in King County by noncitizens. There are no reports of which we are aware that either of these noncitizens knowingly voted illegally, although one did ask to rescind his vote shortly after the election. Given these votes, the rate of documented noncitizen votes — without proof of fraud — in King County was 0.0002%.134
• In Milwaukee in 2001, journalists analyzed 370,000 voting records from 1992 to 2000, and found four instances in which voters’ names matched a list of naturalized city residents, but appeared to have voted before their naturalization dates; there is no indication of which we are aware that any of these four knowingly voted illegally. Even if all four of the matched records accurately represented noncitizen votes, the rate of noncitizen voting among the city records examined would have been 0.001%.135
• In Hawaii in 2000, 553 apparent noncitizens were alleged to have registered to vote. On further investigation, 144 documented that they had become citizens. At least 61 individuals affirmatively asked to cancel their registration; the others were stopped at the polls and specifically asked about their citizenship before voting. There are no reports of which we are aware that any noncitizen actually voted. To the extent that noncitizens were actually represented on the rolls, officials attributed the registrations to mistake rather than fraud.136
• In Hawaii in 1998, four years after an INS investigation into more than 10,000 names identified fewer than twelve noncitizens whose names matched those on the voter rolls, the INS again investigated claims of extensive noncitizen voting. The agency examined 1,200 noncitizens suspected of voting, but found no evidence that any had voted. A separate proceeding uncovered three noncitizens who had indeed voted in 1998, and three others who were reported to be under further investigation. There are no reports of which we are aware that any noncitizens voted knowing that they were ineligible. But even if all six had voted, the overall noncitizen voting rate would have been 0.001%.137
• In California in 1996, 924 noncitizens allegedly voted in Orange and Los Angeles Counties, including 624 allegedly ineligible voters identified by the Task Force of the U.S. House of Representatives investigating the Dornan/Sanchez election. The allegations were based largely on attempts to match immigration lists to voter rolls, but only 71 voters matched name, date of birth, and signature; other matches were less reliable. Most of the identified voters were processed by one nonprofit group registering individuals proceeding through the naturalization process; many were registered immediately after passing an INS citizenship interview, and after receiving a letter indicating that they had become naturalized. At least 372 of the voters were apparently officially sworn in before Election Day. There are no reports of which we are aware that any noncitizens registered or voted knowing that they were ineligible. Even assuming there were no matching errors, and leaving aside the critical question of intent, if all 552 remaining individuals were in fact noncitizens
when they cast their votes, the overall noncitizen voting rate would have been 0.017%.138
. . . et cetera . . .
Further, your comment is nonsensical on its face: the impact of voter ID laws cannot be analyzed "ceteris paribus", precisely because the entire point (actual, or supposed) of the laws is to effect changes in voter behavior. The real intent, of course, is to bar or frighten away legal voters who either cannot easily comply with registration requirements or who fear contact with law enforcement owing to the ongoing history of harassment and abuse - voters who are largely elderly or minority and tend to vote Democratic. But even assuming the voter ID laws were honestly intended only to deter illegal voters, their actual impact is as described above. Once voter ID has been enacted, there is no aspect of the system that can be compared ceteris paribus with the previous situation.
It is very likely that the net effect of such laws, given the virtually negligible rate of fraudulent voting and the documented rate of voter suppression that you note, is to depress legal voting by a factor hundreds of times larger than that of illegal voting - an outcome that your dismissive "ceteris paribus" simply waves away. At the very least, on logical grounds alone it must be said that the mere fact of turnout depression in no way supports the claim of voter fraud, because, on logical grounds, there is another possible explanation for the reduced turnout (suppression of legal voters). Given the evidence noted above (negligible documented fraud and considerable reduction in turnout), the latter explanation is in fact not only logically possible but almost undoubtedly correct.
You are likely correct, of course, that reduced turnout in the face of near-zero levels of fraudulent voting indeed shows that "voter ID laws had the intended effect". But that is an indictment of those laws and their dishonest motivation - not a form of evidence in favor of unproven claims of fraud.
You are not alone in your analysis, however. Incompetence with logic and facts seems to be universal among those favoring vote suppression. Yours is ironic in the face of your implied claim to have once been the only real and informed social scientist in America - either you have fallen very far, or your characterization of the academy is as reliable as your characterization of voting dynamics - but it is not unusual. Perhaps that will be of some comfort.
KTK: U R NUTS.
AS WHEN U WRITE:
"First, there is no reason to think that even a fair and well-conducted voter ID program will significantly reduce turnout by illegal voters. There is no evidence that fraudulent or ineligible voters have voted in any recent elections in any significant numbers."
THESE STATEMENTS ARE LOONY/FALSE.
WAKE UP.
LOOK AT THIS:
Though few in the establishsed media have been covering it, we have been actively following the Milwaukee voter fraud story. Here is the latest:
A task force looking into potential voter fraud on Election Day [2004] said Tuesday that it found more than 200 felons voted illegally and more than 100 instances of people voting twice or using fake names and addresses.
The investigators found hundreds of fraudulent votes in all and counted 4,600 more ballots than registered voters in Milwaukee - but did not uncover any proof of a plot to alter the outcome of the hotly contested presidential race in Wisconsin's largest city. They also found ballots cast using the names of dead people.
(emphasis added)
That's right, Milwaukee had more votes cast than it had registered voters, and no one seems to care enough to make this a front page story.
http://www.dummocrats.com/archives/000927.php
GO TO GATEWAYPUNDIT AND BLOG-SEARCH FRAUD AND ACORN.
OR DON'T RESEARCH IT AND REMAIN A WILLFUL IDIOT/DUPE.
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