Journal Article

Obstacles to Estimating Voter ID Laws’ Effect on Turnout

Meredith, Marc, Nall, Clayton, Grimmer, Justin, Mummolo, Jonathan, Hersh, Eitan

2018

Overview

Widespread concern that voter identification laws suppress turnout among racial and ethnic minorities has made empirical evaluations of these laws crucial. But problems with administrative records and survey data impede such evaluations. We replicate and extend Hajnal, Lajevardi, and Nielson’s 2017 article, which concludes that voter ID laws decrease turnout among minorities, using validated turnout data from five national surveys conducted between 2006 and 2014. We show that the results of their article are a product of data inaccuracies, the presented evidence does not support the stated conclusion, and alternative model specifications produce highly variable results. When errors are corrected, one can recover positive, negative, or null estimates of the effect of voter ID laws on turnout, precluding firm conclusions. We highlight more general problems with available data for research on election administration, and we identify more appropriate data sources for research on state voting laws’ effects.

• Publisher: University of Chicago on behalf of the Southern Political Science Association,University of Chicago Press
• Subject: Alternative approaches / Data / Elections / Errors / Ethnic groups / Identification / Law / Minority & ethnic groups / Minority groups / Political behavior / Polls & surveys / SCHOLARLY DIALOGUE / Voter behavior / Voter turnout / Voters / Voting