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Title: Local Officials as Partisan Operatives: An Examination of Early Voting Sites in Texas Counties

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2016

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Abstract: We explore whether county commissioners follow their partisan allegiances when selecting voting sites. Because low-turnout elections are said to benefit Republicans and high-turnout elections to benefit Democrats, we expect Republican-dominated commissions to create fewer early voting sites than Democrat-dominated commissions. Similarly, because demographics are good predictors of citizen partisanship, we expect to find Republican commissions select early voting sites that disenfranchise minority voters, while Democratic commissions select voting locations more proximate to minority areas. Using an originally collected dataset, we assess the party identification of county judges and commissioners and geo-code early voting locations in Texas from the November 2014 election. First, we assess whether Republican commissions create fewer sites in their counties than Democratic commissions. Second, we assess whether early voting locations are equitably sited using spatial analyses in ArcMap. Third, we examine if the county commissioners courts partisan composition affects where the early voting sites are placed. Our results provide some support for our theory that partisan county commissioners strategically create early voting sites to benefit their partys electoral fortunes; specifically, Republican commissions employ fewer early voting locations than Democratic commissions. Yet, these locations do appear to be equitably sited. We discuss substantial and statistical explanations for these results as well as their implications.

Url: http://www.utdallas.edu/sppc/pdf/EckelmanMcBrayerWilliams.pdf

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Authors: Eckelman, Andrea; McBrayer, Markie; Williams, R. Lucas

Publisher: University of Houston

Data Collections: IPUMS NHGIS

Topics: Other

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