Verifying Voter Registration Records

• Author: Michael D. Martinez,Daniel A. Smith,Enrijeta Shino,Michael P. McDonald
• DOI: 10.1177/1532673X20920261
• Published date: 01 November 2020
• Date: 01 November 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X20920261

American Politics Research

2020, Vol. 48(6) 677 –681

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X20920261

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Article

State and local election officials maintain voter registration

files that contain a wealth of information, including regis-

trants’ names, birthdates, current addresses, and past vote

histories. These data, which are critical to the administration

of elections, are also extensively used by political campaigns

to target messages and mobilize supporters. In addition,

scholars use these data as sampling frames in voter persua-

sion and mobilization experiments (e.g., Gerber & Green,

2000), making inferences about the effects of registration

laws on who registers and votes (e.g., Fraga et al., 2018;

Holbein & Hillygus, 2016; Shino & Smith, 2018), and vali-

dating survey respondents’ self-reports (e.g., Ansolabehere

& Hersh, 2012; Silver et al., 1986), among other uses.

Importantly, voter registration lists determine who may cast

ballots in an election, which means registration errors could

either permit votes by those who are ineligible or, more

likely, complicate or prevent voting by people with mis-

matches between their registration record and the identifica-

tion they provide at the polls (Ansolabehere & Hersh, 2014).

Thus, the accuracy of these data is important for the effi-

ciency and fairness in election administration, measurement

validity, and the ability of individuals to exercise their funda-

mental right to vote.

Despite the importance of these records for election

administration, campaigns, research, and voters, some have

cautioned their reliability. After the American National

Election Studies (ANES) discontinued its valiant, though

frustrating and costly, efforts to validate respondents’ self-

reports of turnout in the 1980s by checking official records,

Traugott et al. (1992) warned that “ . . . administrative records

should be treated with some care” (p. 13). The 2002 Help

America Vote Act’s requirement that states maintain and

regularly update centralized electronic voting files has

reduced the costs of voter validation efforts but has not com-

pletely eliminated concerns about their reliability (Berent

et al., 2016; Burden, 2014; McDonald, 2007).

Here, we explore the reliability of information found in

Florida’s voter registration file. Our insight is that a voter reg-

istration application is similar to a survey questionnaire, or

even a ballot (Kimball & Kropf, 2005). We explore voter reg-

istration errors employing the total survey error (TSE) frame-

work (Groves & Lyberg, 2010; Weisberg, 2005) by employing

a test/retest methodology (Guttman, 1945) where we ask a

sample of registered voters to verify their voter registration

record. This approach mitigates potential false negative and

positive matches in prior vote survey validation efforts that

may arise from record linkage methodologies (Elmagrmid

et al., 2007). Unlike a prior test/retest mail-back study

(Ansolabehere et al., 2010), we employ an adaptive phone

survey design to probe causal explanations as to why indi-

viduals may provide a survey response inconsistent with their

administrative record. We find 17.7% of respondents fail to

verify at least one field included in the publicly available

Florida voter file, including name, address, birthdate, sex, or

race. These inconsistencies create election administration and

920261APRXXX10.1177/1532673X20920261American Politics ResearchShino et al.

research-article2020

1University of North Florida, Jacksonville, USA

2University of Florida, Gainesville, USA

Corresponding Author:

Enrijeta Shino, University of North Florida, 1 UNF Drive, Jacksonville, FL

32224, USA.

Email: e.shino@unf.edu

Verifying Voter Registration Records

Part of Special Symposium on Election Sciences

Enrijeta Shino1, Michael D. Martinez2,

Michael P. McDonald2, and Daniel A. Smith2

Abstract

This study investigates the reliability of Florida’s voter registration files through a phone survey, asking respondents to verify

their records. We find 17.7% of registrants fail to verify at least one identifying piece of information. Applying the total survey

error (TSE) framework, we classify these errors as due to coverage error, measurement error, or processing error. These

inconsistencies create election administration and campaign inefficiencies, which lead to poorer voter experiences, and

challenge the validity of some research based on these data. Furthermore, if registration records do not accurately capture

the members of protected groups, the data are less helpful in both government monitoring and enforcement. We suggest

voter registration forms should be treated like survey questionnaires so as to improve data quality with better form design,

and that some vote overreport bias is attributable to limitations of voter file data, not to respondents’ vote misreporting.

Keywords

voter registration, voter file, validation, survey