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How Polling Places Can Affect Your Vote
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| Contributor | IndyGeorgia |
| Last Edited | IndyGeorgia Aug 21, 2010 04:36pm |
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| Category | Study |
| Author | Tom Jacobs |
| News Date | Thursday, August 19, 2010 10:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Political pundits seldom pause to ponder polling places. Unless the lines in a given location are so long they discourage voting, the question of where ballots are cast is usually ignored as irrelevant. But wonks — especially those who straddle political science and social psychology — know better. They argue the physical location of the polls not only affects how many people vote; it may also influence last-minute decisions regarding which box to mark or lever to pull.
As the November election approaches, we offer some recent studies that attempt to think outside the ballot box.
Location, location, location: The house-buyer’s maxim also applies to polling places. That’s the conclusion of a 2005 study published in the Journal of Politics, which found that “small differences in distance from the polls can have a significant impact on voter turnout.” Moshe Haspel of Spelman College and H. Gibbs Knotts of Western Carolina University analyzed the 2001 mayoral election in Atlanta. They “geocoded” (now there’s a wonky word) each voter’s address and calculated the shortest distance between home and their assigned polling place.
Their first finding was hardly a shocker: While distance to the polling place did influence the likelihood of voting, the impact was much greater for households in which no one owned a car. But the researchers were surprised by a seemingly counterintuitive statistic: Moving the location of a polling place actually increased voter turnout. The researchers noted that, since the previous election, the number of precincts in the city had increased from 160 to 168, shortening some distances between voters’ homes and the polls. This factor apparently outweighed “any confusion over the location of the polling place,” they concluded. |
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