Quite honored to have early voting research cited in Rep. John Lewis’ amicus brief in Shelby County v. Holder

Here’s a pdf of the Racial Justice Project’s amicus brief on behalf of Congressman John Lewis. My research with Prof. Michael Herron is cited on pp. 32-33, clipped below.

For the 2012 general election, only thirty-two of Florida’s sixty-seven counties, including the five counties covered by Section 5, offered the maximum ninety-six hours of early voting hours permitted under the new law. Minority voters again took advantage of the extra time to cast their votes. While African Americans made up less than 14% of Florida’s registered voters in 2012, they made up more than 22% of the early voter electorate on each day of the 2012 early voting period. Herron & Smith, at 11. However, because there was a reduction in the total number of early voting hours and days in 2012, including the elimination of the Sunday immediately before Election Day, there were fewer opportunities for minorities to vote early. In Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, voters stood in line to cast early votes for more than five hours during the weekend before Election Day. Id. at 20. In those two counties, African Americans made up only 16.7% of registered voters, but accounted for 43.8% of the early voters on Sunday, November 4, 2012. Id. at 21. The data tell the story. There is simply no question that without Section 5, a disproportionate number of minority voters in Florida would have been deterred from exercising their right to vote in 2012.

Some Thoughts on Differential Racial/Ethnic Rejection Rates of Absentee Ballots in Florida

My collaborator, Michael Herron at Dartmouth, and I have been crunching the numbers, drilling down into the Florida voter file to get a better sense of who is more likely to cast ballots that are later rejected by county canvassing boards.

Doing so has generated considerable publicity and even has raised the possibility of reform, with Governor Scott changing his tune on the deleterious effects of HB1355, though the cynic in me remains to be convinced…I’ll reserve judgment until May, when the legislative session wraps up.

In particular, there’s been a lot of attention focusing on our report that documents the higher rejection rate of absentee ballots cast by minority voters and how these rejection rates are not consistent across the state’s 67 counties.

Due to the long lines during the truncated eight-day early voting period and the expected long lines on Election Day, many minorities–who historically vote early in disproportionately higher rates than whites in Florida–decided instead to request and cast absentee ballots.

As we write in our report, not only did the percentage of African Americans casting absentee ballots go up in 2012, the rejection rate of absentee ballots cast by blacks was nearly twice that of absentee ballots cast by white voters.

Quite possibly due to well‐founded fears of long lines at early voting and Election Day polling sites resulting from HB 1355, absentee ballots—a much less reliable form of voting a valid ballot—increased in 2012. Over 28 percent of all ballots cast in 2012 were absentee ballots, nearly six percentage points higher than in 2008. Almost one percent of these ballots were “rejected as illegal” in 2012 by county canvassing boards, and the African American absentee ballot rejection rate was nearly twice the absentee ballot rejection rate of white voters.

This, of course, raises the question of ‘who should be blamed?’–voters or election administrators–for the significantly higher rejection rate of absentee ballots cast by African Americans.

To answer this question, I think it’s important to first establish some baselines for comparison.  The statewide rejection rate of absentee ballots cast in 2012 was 0.97%. The statewide rejection rate of absentee ballots cast by African Americans was 1.47%.  And the statewide rejection rate of absentee ballots cast by whites was 0.81%.

But there were considerable differences in rejection rates across the state’s 67 counties.

Our findings for Collier County reveal, as reported in the Naples News, that more than 6% of the absentee ballots cast by 580 African Americans in the county were ‘rejected as illegal’ by the county canvassing board, a rejection rate nearly 5x greater than that for white voters casting absentee ballots. It should be noted that Collier County is one of the five counties in Florida covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

It’s curious, then, why the rejection rate of the absentee ballots cast by 2,522 blacks in neighboring Lee County was 0%. Or that only 1.65% of absentee ballots cast by blacks in neighboring Miami-Dade County were ‘rejected as illegal.’

For anyone who has observed county canvassing boards interpreting the validity of signatures on the back of absentee ballots, they’ll likely attest that there’s a considerable amount of discretion in determining whether the signature on an absentee ballot envelope should be accepted or rejected.

According to the Florida Statutes, “The canvassing board shall, if the supervisor has not already done so, compare the signature of the elector on the voter’s certificate with the signature of the elector in the registration books to see that the elector is duly registered in the county and to determine the legality of that absentee ballot….An absentee ballot shall be considered illegal if it does not include the signature of the elector, as shown by the registration records.”

Thus, we shouldn’t be surprised with the fairly high rate of absentee ballots that are rejected, compared to those cast in person during the early voting period or on Election Day.  As I told the Miami-Herald last year, “Absentee ballots are processed and verified using different standards than regular ballots and as such, are routinely rejected at a higher rate by county supervisors than ballots cast during the early voting period or on Election Day.”

Of course, the rejection rate for absentee ballots may be attributed to the ignorance of voters, as some neglect to sign the back of the envelope properly, or sign in a way that does not match their signature on file with the election supervisor’s office.

But then what accounts for the inter-county variation in rejection rates for African Americans?  Are blacks living in Lee County more educated, or more civic-minded and engaged, than those living just south of them in Collier County? Color me dubious….

Perhaps it’s attributable to fraud–that the absentee ballots requested for African American voters in Collier were being filled out by other individuals, thus increasing the likelihood that the signature of the imposter wouldn’t match that on the voter file. Or perhaps elderly or crippled African Americans were more likely to have help filling out their ballots than similar white voters casting absentee ballot voters.

Hmmmmm….  So, both of these possible forms of fraud seemingly only occurred in Collier County, and only among African American absentee voters, but not in other counties.  Again, it doesn’t seem very plausible to me.

What about the role of election administrators and the canvassing boards charged with determining whether an absentee ballot is valid. It’s true that there is no overt information about a voter’s race or ethnicity on the envelope containing an absentee ballot.

But that does not mean that those charged with determining the veracity of a voter’s signature are ignorant of the race/ethnicity of an absentee voter.  Not only do many given and surnames often have a racial/ethnic identity, but so too do the return addresses on absentee ballot envelopes. Given the high racial/ethnic geographic segregation in most of Florida counties, it doesn’t take much local knowledge to have a pretty good guess of the racial/ethnic identity of a voter living on a particular street or in a given neighborhood.

In no way am I suggesting that there is overt racism by local supervisors or their canvassing boards when judging whether a signature should be ‘rejected as illegal’ or not.

And I’m not willing to absolve the culpability of individual voters casting absentee ballots that are deemed to be invalid.

Still, I have yet to hear a good reason for why there’s such a gap across Florida’s 67 counties when it comes to the rejection rates of absentee ballots cast by minority voters across the state.

But such a gap does exist, and because some of these counties–such as Collier County–still fall under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act because of past racial discrimination, it seems pretty important for the US Justice Department and state and federal policy makers to acknowledge these differences and begin to drill down, like we’re trying to do, to understand why they seem to persist.

Some Ruminations on African American early and absentee voting in Miami-Dade

In the 2008 General Election, roughly 876k total ballots were cast in Miami-Dade County.  Roughly 20% of all ballots cast in the election were absentee ballots, and of the the 175k absentee ballots cast, approximately 1% were rejected.  Only 10% of African Americans voted absentee in 2008 in Miami-Dade, and only 1.2% of those ballots were rejected.

A majority of African Americans in the county, some 56%, voted early during the 14 day early voting period in 2008 (which included the final Sunday before Election Day). Very few problems with long lines were reported, despite the fact that more than 325k voters cast their ballots in-person at early voting sites.

Fast-forward to 2012.

We all know of the unacceptably long lines at early voting sites in Miami-Dade in 2012 (some lasting more than 6 hours).  Not surprisingly, voter participation during the truncated eight-day period dropped in the county, as it did statewide (by more than 200k voters). In 2012, only 235k voters in Miami-Dade cast their ballots early, a drop of roughly 90,000 voters.  The steep drop in early voting by African Americans is particularly striking, given the propensity of blacks to vote early.  Fewer than 75k African Americans, just 42%, voted early in Miami-Dade in 2012, a drop of 14 percentage points from the nearly 56% early voting rate in 2008.

Many African Americans, seeing the long lines, out of necessity became absentee ballot voters in 2012.   Over 33k blacks in the county voted by absentee ballot in the county.  But over 500 of those ballots were rejected by the county canvassing board, a rejection rate of 1.65%, which was far higher than the overall statewide rejection rate of .97%, and higher than the rejection rate of absentee ballots cast by blacks in Miami-Dade in 2008.

Just some food for thought for Marc Caputo to contemplate…

 

 

 

 

Exclusive: New Research on Florida’s 2012 General Election by Herron and Smith

Michael C. Herron and Daniel A. Smith, “Florida’s 2012 General Election under HB 1355: Early Voting, Provisional Ballots, and Absentee Ballots“

Executive Summary
The 2012 General Election was the first major election in Florida held after the passage of House Bill 1355, a controversial election law that among other things reduced the early voting period in Florida and altered the requirements for casting provisional ballots.

By cutting early voting from 14 to eight days and eliminating early voting on the Sunday before the 2012 election, HB 1355 likely contributed to longer early voting lines at the polls, causing in‐person early voting turnout to drop by more than 225,000 voters compared to 2008.

The reduction in opportunities to vote early under HB 1355 disproportionately affected African American voters, insofar as nearly half of all blacks who voted in 2012 cast in‐person early ballots. Although blacks made up less than 14 percent of the Florida electorate as of November/December 2012, they cast 22 percent of all the early votes in 2012, roughly the same percentage as in 2008.

African Americans and Hispanic voters were more likely than white voters to cast provisional ballots and nearly twice as likely to have their provisional ballots rejected.

Quite possibly due to well‐founded fears of long lines at early voting and Election Day polling sites resulting from HB 1355, absentee ballots—a much less reliable form of voting a valid ballot—increased in 2012. Over 28 percent of all ballots cast in 2012 were absentee ballots, nearly six percentage points higher than in 2008. Almost one percent of these ballots were “rejected as illegal” in 2012 by county canvassing boards, and the African American absentee ballot rejection rate was nearly twice the absentee ballot rejection rate of white voters.

Who Waits? Exclusive research by Herron and Smith on Early Voting in Florida

In our paper, available here, we examine the long lines in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach Counties which stretched from Saturday, November 3, into the final Sunday before the election of early voting in Florida. Not surprising, African Americans were disproportionately more likely to be negatively affected.

Here’s the key table and figure (pages 13-14):

Miami-Dade & Palm Beach County Early Voters, Sunday November 4, 2012

EXCLUSIVE Research: Racial/Ethnic and Partisan Breakdown of Florida’s Early Voters

Dartmouth College’s Dr. Michael Herron and I have posted this paper analyzing the racial/ethnic and partisan composition of the early voters in Florida prior to the 2012 General Election.

In addition, we provide details about the voters who were forced to wait in line due to delays Saturday night in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, and who ended up casting their ballots after midnight, on Sunday, November 4, 2012.

 

Early Voting in Florida, 2012

Michael C. Herron & Daniel A. Smith
November 6, 2012

Abstract

In this paper we examine early voting patterns in the days preceding the 2012 General Election.
Drawing on the Florida statewide voter registration database (as of October 1, 2012) and 67
county-level early voting files made public by the Florida Department of State, we disaggregate
by party and by racial and ethnic group the 2.4 million votes cast in person before November 6,
2012. We find that early voting was heaviest on the final Saturday of early voting and that racial
and ethnic minorities, as well as individuals registered as Democrats and individuals registered
as “No Party Affiliation,” were disproportionately more likely than whites and Republicans,
respectively, to cast ballots on both the first Sunday and the final Saturday of early voting.
We also find that votes cast during the very early morning hours of Sunday, November 4, in
Miami-Dade and Palm Beach Counties—locations that suffered from exceedingly long lines
on Saturday, November 3—were disproportionately cast by black voters. Insofar as the longest
early voting lines appear to have occurred on the day in which minority voter turnout was the
greatest, it appears that minority voters, and in particular black voters, have borne heavily the
burden of House Bill 1355, a piece of election-reform legislation passed by the Florida state
legislature in 2011, which among other things reduced the early voting period in Florida from
14 to eight days and eliminated early voting on the final Sunday before a Tuesday election.

“You want your country back?!” CNN’s “Who Counts”

Watch the preview of CNN’s upcoming documentary, “Who Counts,” featuring my research with Michael Herron on Early Voting in Florida.

 

My affidavit in Brown v. Detzner challenging reduction in early voting days

Available here: Smith Declaration

EXCLUSIVE: The Effects of Florida’s HB1355 Early Voting Law on Turnout

As was reported widely in the press, if not entirely accurately, last Thursday night a Washington, DC, panel of federal judges handed down a unanimous ruling that restrictions placed on early voting in Florida should continue not to be implemented in the five counties covered by Section 5 of the 1975 amendments to the 1965 Voting Rights Act.  Florida, said the panel, “has failed to satisfy its burden of proving that those changes will not have a retrogressive effect on minority voters.”

With respect to early voting, House Bill 1355–which was passed on party line votes by the Florida legislature and signed into law by Republican Governor Rick Scott in May 2011–is likely to have a differential impact on racial and ethnic minority voters in the 2012 general election.  In addition to my testimony before the US Senate on the topic, I’ve co-authored with Professor Michael Herron of Dartmouth College a soon-to-be published article in Election Law Journal that reveals the heavy reliance of early voting by minorities in the 2008 general election.  We found that in the 10 Florida counties that offered voting on the final Sunday of early voting in 2008, there was a surge in turnout among minority voters, especially African Americans.  That final Sunday of voting was eliminated under HB1355.

Since then, Florida voters have participated in two statewide primary elections in 2012 under a dual system of elections, which very well may violate state law.

Because the Secretary of State decided to enforce HB 1355 in 62 of the state’s 67 counties, despite the fact that the US Justice Department refused to preclear the enforcement of HB 1355 for Florida’s  five covered counties (Collier, Hardee, Hendry, Hillsborough, and Monroe) under Section 5 of the VRA, those five continued to offer two weeks of early voting, (Monday through Saturday, and again, Monday through Saturday) for a total of 96 hours. (Incidentally, both prior to and after the enforcement of HB 1355, the elections supervisors of each of the five counties opted not to offer voting on either of the two Sundays, instead allotting the required eight-hours of weekend early voting all on the two Saturdays).

In contrast, the state’s other 62 counties were required by HB 1355 to cut back on the total number of days of early voting (from a maximum of 14 days, Monday through Sunday, and again, Monday through the final Sunday before the election; to a maximum of eight days, Saturday through Saturday).  Under the new early voting restrictions contained in HB 1355, which apparently eluded both Governor Scott as well the Chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, Supervisors of Elections and could offer as few as 48 total hours (but no more than 96 hours over the truncated period).

As I noted back in March following Florida’s (Republican) Presidential Preference Primary (PPP), under Florida’s dual election system the percentage of early voters casting a ballot averaged across the five Section 5 counties was higher than the average use of early voting in the state’s other 62 counties, with the reduced days and hours of early voting.  As I wrote then, “a greater percentage of registered Republicans opted to vote early in-person in the five Section 5 counties than registered Republicans in neighboring counties. Some 11.8% of registered Republicans voted early in the five VRA Section 5 counties, compared to 9.3% of registered Republicans who voted in the other 62 counties.  More significantly, early in-person voting in the five counties with the extended voting window accounted for a greater percentage of the total turnout in the Presidential Preference Primary, on average, compared with turnout in the other 62 counties.  Nearly one in three votes cast in the GOP primary election in the five Section 5 counties were ballots cast early in-person by voters, compared to less than 22% of all ballots cast in the other 62 counties. Florida 2012 Presidential Preference Primary Section 5 VRA Counties Early Voters Graph

The same was true in the recent August 14 statewide primary with Republicans, Democrats, third party, and nonpartisan voters coming to the polls, as Dr. Herron and I found by merging the 67 county early voter files (which we downloaded three days after election day) with the state’s (yet to be official) turnout figures from the 67 counties.  Of the roughly 183k registered voters who turned out to vote in the five Section 5 counties (Collier, Hardee, Hendry, Hillsborough, and Monroe), 18.96% came to the polls in person over the two-week early voting period (Monday-Saturday, Monday-Saturday). (As I mentioned above, each of the Section 5 counties still operate under the old law, and in addition to offering eight hours a day Monday through Friday, have opted to offer eight hours on the two Saturdays, for a total of 96 hours of early voting).

In contrast, of the nearly 2.16 million registered voters who turned out to vote in the state’s other 62 counties, which had a total of only eight days of early voting (Saturday through Saturday) and averaged considerably less than 96 total hours over the week, only 15.39% voted early, nearly 3.6 percentage points less than the five Section 5 counties.

This certainly seems to provide further evidence that the DC federal court last week was correct in striking down Governor Scott’s effort to curtail early voting.  Having a longer time-frame, with more available hours to cast an early ballot, only enhances a citizen’s likelihood of getting to the polls–including African Americans living in the protected counties (although we need to conduct further analysis to verify this possibility).  But of course, that’s why most Republican lawmakers supported HB1355–and Governor Scott quickly signed it into law–because they’re not terribly interested in trying to expand Florida’s electorate.

And early voting may very expand the electorate, notwithstanding the conventional wisdom (expressed even by those who opposed the cut-back of early voting, including Reed College Professor Paul Gronke, who served as an expert opposing the shortening of early voting in the DC litigation) that early voting may simple redistribute the timing of those citizens who already plan to cast a ballot vote.

Florida’s quasi-natural experiment, which Dr. Herron and I are investigating for a series of papers (including one we’re presenting next week at what promises to be a fantastic panel on the strategic mobilization of minorities at APSA, with Dr. Matt Barreto serving as our discussant), provides some leverage into the question of whether HB 1355 may have a depressing effect on overall turnout.

What we’re seeing in Florida (due to the state’s dual election system), is that having early voting spread over two weeks appears to give a wider range of voters more opportunities to turn out to vote.  When faced with fewer days and shortened hours of early voting, registered voters who have become habituated to vote early may decide to stay home.

This is particularly an important point when thinking about the five Florida counties covered by Section 5 of the VRA.  Average turnout is historically lower in these five counties than the statewide average. This, of course, is one of the reasons why the five counties were added in 1975 to those counties protected by the Justice Department under Section 5 VRA.

Average turnout of the five Section 5 counties compared to the state’s other 62 counties over the five statewide elections immediately prior to the implementation of HB 1355 (2008 PPP, 2008 primary, 2008 general election, 2010 primary, and 2010 general election) was 4.61 percentage points less, 40.81% to 45.42%.

And average turnout of the five Section 5 counties over the two statewide primary elections held in 2008 (the January PPP and the August primary) was only 30.13%, compared to an average of 35.79% in the state’s other 62 counties, an even greater difference of 5.66 percentage points.

But when comparing turnout numbers for the two primaries (the January PPP and the August primary) held in 2012 under Florida’s dual election system–with more early voting opportunities for registered voters living in the five section 5 counties compared to those residing in the other 62 counties–the turnout gap narrowed considerably, on average.  Turnout in the five Section 5 counties was 32.97%, compared to 36.20%, a difference of only 3.23 percentage points.

So, what are we to make of this? Admittedly, the turnout gap between the five Section 5 and the other 62 counties is not huge, but it is indicative that HB 1355 may be depressing turnout in those counties that must comply with the new, more restrictive law.  And, it is certainly arguable that since registered voters in the five Section 5 counties have historically relied more heavily on early voting in past elections, and if early voting days and hours are reduced in those counties if HB 1355 is eventually upheld, their comparatively lower turnout levels might take even more of a hit.

Unfortunately, we will not have a more definitive answer to this possibility until after the 2012 election.  But with what we’ve seen so far, it seems pretty clear that reducing the number of days and hours of early voting in Florida has had a negative effect on voter turnout.

Stay tuned. Much more from Dr. Herron and me on this later…

Digging Deeper into Florida’s Failed Voter Purge

Here’s some more information about the 41 (out of the  2,625 people  flagged by the FL Secretary of State as  being “potential noncitizens”) who ended up being purged from the voter rolls.

Again, that’s 41 registered voters the FL SOS was able to  identify and purge as “potential noncitizens,” out of some 11.2 million eligible citizens on Florida’s voter rolls.

So, who are the 41 registered voters who were purged by the FL SOS (out of its list of 2,625 “potential noncitizens”). Of the 41 who were purged, the SOS had no record of 31 of them ever voting.   Six 6  were registered in 2008 and 6  were registered in 2010 & 2011.  Another 27 were registered to vote  between 1990 & 2007.  In fact, the FL SOS provided no information on the date when two of the suspected “noncitizens” it identified and subsequently purged where even registered to vote, much less ever voted, in the Sunshine State.

Of the 41 purged “potential noncitizens” identified by the FL SOS, 21 are at least 45 years old, 13 are women, and 21 are from Miami-Dade and Broward counties in south Florida.

Let’s take a closer look at the racial/ethic breakdown of the 1,599 “potential noncitizens” residing in Miami-Dade who were among the 2,625 people targeted by FL SOS.  Of those tagged as being a “potential noncitizen,” 1,214 are Hispanic, 152 are black, 75 are white, and 27 are Asian.

In all, the FL SOS purged just 15 of the 2,625 “potential noncitizens” it identified as living in Miami-Dade county.  That’s 15 wrongly registered voters out of more than 1.2 million citizens who are registered to vote in the county.

Of the 75 whites & 27 Asians identified  as “potential noncitizens” by FL SOS, none were purged from the rolls.  Of the 15 who were purged, 2 are African American & 11 are Hispanic.

With respect to the partisanship of the FL SOS’s flawed purge, the Miami-Dade list of “potential noncitizens” included 590 Democrats, 641 NPAs, and 354 Republicans.  Five of each were purged from the rolls by the FL SOS for being “potential noncitizens.”

Seems to me that’s an awful lot of false positives — citizens who were wrongly targeted and harassed by the Florida Secretary of State as being “potential noncitizens.”

The illegal purging of Florida’s registered voters must come to an end.