Voter Suppression and the Ecological Fallacy: A Colorado Case Study Dr. Paul C. Sutton Department of Geography & the Environment University of Denver Association of American Geographers Tampa, Florida April 9th, 2012

The Political Game Raising Barriers to Voting with Predictable Consequences In late 2011, the republican secretary of state for Colorado announced that the state’s mail-in ballots would henceforth only be sent out automatically to those who were ‘active’ voters, meaning they had voted in the last general election. The county clerks of Denver and Pueblo counties were concerned this would have a discriminatory impact on Black and Hispanic voters in their counties.

The Team Denver and Pueblo counties worked with the Brennan Center for Justice and Colorado Common Cause to fight Gessler’s new mandate. Seth Masket (DU Poly Sci professor) and I were consulted for the spatio-demographic analysis of the consequences of this mandate were it to be implemented.

The Data: Voter Registration Precincts

The Modifiable Areal Unit Problem Merging Census & Voter Registration Data Census Block Group Data with Aggregrate Demographic Info Counts of Black Counts of Hispanic Counts of White Are in RED Voting Precinct Data with Aggregate voter Info Counts of IFTV Counts of Voters Are in BLACK Assume homogeneity within Census block group polygons.

The Null Hypotheses #1) The proportion of ‘Inactive Failed to Vote’ designations in the voting precincts is unrelated to the proportion of African American persons in those precincts. #2) The proportion of ‘Inactive Failed to Vote’ designations in the voting precincts is unrelated to the proportion of Hispanic persons in those precincts. #3) The proportion of ‘Inactive Failed to Vote’ designations in the voting precincts is unrelated to the proportion of White persons in those precincts.

Statistical Analysis #1 % IFTV and % White The Higher the proportion of Inactive Failed to Vote (IFTV) The Lower the percentage of Population that is White. Statistically Significant

Statistical Analysis #2 % IFTV and % Hispanic The Higher the proportion of Inactive Failed to Vote (IFTV) The Higher the percentage of Population that is Hispanic. Statistically Significant

Statistical Analysis #3 % IFTV and % Black The Higher the proportion of Inactive Failed to Vote (IFTV) The Higher the percentage of Population that is Black. Statistically Significant

The Conclusions #1) The proportion of ‘Inactive Failed to Vote’ designations in the voting precincts is unrelated to the proportion of African American persons in those precincts. REJECTED #2) The proportion of ‘Inactive Failed to Vote’ designations in the voting precincts is unrelated to the proportion of Hispanic persons in those precincts. #3) The proportion of ‘Inactive Failed to Vote’ designations in the voting precincts is unrelated to the proportion of White persons in those precincts.

The Caveats We have two problems 1) The Modifiable Areal Unit Problem (MAUP) with the merging of Voting Precinct data with Census Block Group Data. 2) The Ecological Fallacy In this case high % IFTV and high % Black correlate. Our conclusion would be wrong if the whites (or non-blacks) in high % black voting precincts were extremely more likely to have been IFTV (same with precincts with high % Hispanic) There is NO evidence to support this. The numbers are so extreme that some voter suppression would have been inevitable.

The Maps % IFTV, % Black, %Hispanic, and % White in Denver

Summary of Court Findings The Court emphasized that Colorado law prohibited “any elector’s registration record from being canceled solely for failure to vote” but that the Secretary's interpretation of the law would have required some voters who had missed a single election to “re-register” to vote, “effectively penaliz[ing]” citizens “for not voting.” This would have “impeded the voting of some 4,000 – 6,000 IFTV electors in Denver in November 2011 … and tens-of-thousands of citizens statewide.”

Questions and/or Comments? Some URLs that may be of interest on this topic: Seth Masket’s blog http://mischiefsoffaction.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/raising-barriers-to-voting-with.html UCSB summary http://geog.ucsb.edu/mobile/events/department-news/1180/alumnus-paul-sutton-maps-voter-suppression-in-colorado/ Brennan Center for Justice Summary http://www.brennancenter.org/press-release/colorado-victory-judge-rules-voting-rights