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On the Over-Report Bias of the National Election Study Turnout Rate On-line notes for Michael P. McDonald. 2003. "On the Over-Report Bias of the National Election Study." Political Analysis 11(2): 180-186. by Michael P. McDonald This table provides data referenced in Michael McDonald (2003) "On the Over-Report Bias of the National Election Study Turnout Rate." As the authors of The American Voter (1960) and subsequent researchers of the National Election Study (NES) have noted, more NES respondents claim to have voted than actual voting statistics would suggest. Data presented here are a good-faith effort to reconcile the NES sample with the turnout rate of the population it is drawn from. These data show no on-going, increasing bias in the NES presidential turnout rate, as claimed by Barry Burden (2000). I further challenge Burden's claim that the over-report bias is related to the NES response rates, which are also provided below. In multivariate analysis of competing theories to explain the turnout rate, I find modest support for a theory that relates the over-report bias to the turnout rate itself (when fewer voters vote, there are more opportunities for voters to misreport their vote), but any inference is seriously crippled by the small number of observations. Resources for this paper and turnout rates in general may be found at http://elections.gmu.edu/voter_turnout.htm. References Burden, Barry C. 2000. “Voter Turnout and the National Election Studies.” Political Analysis 8(4): 389-398. “Voter Turnout and the National Election Studies.” Political Analysis 8(4): 389-398. Campbell, Angus, Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller, and Donald E. Stokes. 1960. The American Voter. University of Chicago Press: Chicago. Luevano, Patricia. 1994. “Response Rates in the National Election Studies, 1948-1992.” ICSPR Technical Report #44. Ann Arbor, MI. McDonald, Michael P. and Samuel Popkin. 2001. “The Myth of the Vanishing Voter.” American Political Science Review 95(4): 963-974. McDonald, Michael P. 2003. “On the Over-Report Bias of the National Election Study Turnout Rate.” Political Analysis, forthcoming. Sapiro, Virginia, Steven J. Rosenstone, and the National Elections Studies. AMERICAN NATIONAL ELECTION CUMULATIVE DATA FILE, 1948-2000 [Computer file]. 11th ICPSR version. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, Center for Political Studies [producer], 2002. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2002. Variable Description Turnout Rate, NES: From the 1948-2000 Cumulative Data File (Sapiro, Rosenstone, and NES 2002). Calculated using variable VCF0702 and weight variable VCF0009A, no response coded as missing data. Vote for Highest Office: From McDonald and Popkin (2001). Vote for President in presidential election years, in non-presidential election years, the highest vote total for a statewide office. If no statewide office, sum of the congressional elections. Voting-Age Population: Estimates drawn from the Census Bureau of persons of voting age living in the United States. Turnout Rate, VAP: Vote for Highest Office divided by Voting Age Population. Non-Citizens: Non-citizens as a percent of voting-age population, drawn from Current Population Survey, Voter Supplement File and various Census of the Population. See McDonald and Popkin (2001) for full explanation. Prisoners: Department of Justice statistics on number of felony prisoners. See McDonald and Popkin (2001) for full explanation. Overseas Voters: Estimate of number of ballots cast by overseas voters. See McDonald (2003) and McDonald and Popkin (2001) for full explanation. Turnout Rate, Reconciled VAP: Estimate of turnout rate among NES sample population. Calculated by subtracting Overseas Voters from Vote for Highest Office and subtracting Non-Citizens and Prisoners from Voting-Age Population. First resulting number is divided through by the second. NES-VAP Turnout Gap: Turnout Rate, NES - Turnout Rate, VAP. NES-Reconciled VAP Turnout Gap: Turnout Rate, NES - Turnout Rate, Reconciled VAP. NES Response Rates: For non-presidential elections, NES conducts one a post-election survey. The response rates for these years are simply the response rates to the post-election survey. For most presidential elections, NES conducts pre- and post-election surveys. The voting question is asked on the post-election survey. The post-election response rate is then the pre-election response rate multiplied by the re-interview rate. Data from Luevano (1994) and subsequent NES codebooks. Where blank, no data available. Table of Data (Electronic version in Excel format)
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