Does anyone know of a good source of easy-to-read voting stats from the Deep South?

[intheflow]

Looking for breakdowns by race, income, and geography, if possible. (By geography I mean both by state and also by population density.) I'll take what ever info people can direct me to, but it would sure help me if it's not heavy on "statistics language", and either was written in more prose form or was just straigh percentages.

Thanks! :hi:

Edited b/c I forgot to add... this is for the 2008 presidential election. :blush:

[imdjh]

1. Just out of curiosity, what are you trying to prove?

[intheflow]

2. This is actually work-related.

My boss is an African American historian whose next project will examine the historical import of Obama's election interms of African American participation in the democratic process. (I love it when my job allows me to play on DU! lol) Other racial demographics would be helpful, too, as civil/voting rights is not limited to AAs (obviously). I've been looking everywhere, but for all the hype about AA projecteed turnout pre-election, I can't find anything particularly useful that reflects how AAs actually voted.

[imdjh]

4. I don't know the specific site,

But Florida's election results are available precinct by precinct. What this allows you to do, with some local knowledge, is see that a precinct that is almost 100% black, 100% white, or mixed voted x% for this or that.

It was this precinct by precinct results that showed that while black voters as a group may have voted in the majority for the anti-gay amendment, the true break down was not race but economics. Poor blacks (those also least educated and most likely to belong to the more fundamentalist churches) voted for the amendment while better educated middle class blacks voted against it. Interestingly, white precincts at the top and bottom of the economic scale were most likely to vote for the amendment, while those in the middle, the genteel poor (hippies), and well off but not gated voted against it.

[intheflow]

6. Interesting, but probably not what I'm lookin gfor.

Just because the time needed to compile each precinct by race and economics. Overall state statistics will be enough for what my boss has in mind, and I'd be willing to put the legwork in to compile county results, but broken down by precincts for just one state is too much. But it was a good thought, and I really appreciate your feedback. :hi:

[OnTheOtherHand]

10. hmm, wait

For vote shares, I see two approaches. One is ecological inference as at low a level as possible, as suggested by the other poster. (The mapping-the-South link does it at the county level -- that last plot -- although there isn't any formal inference there.) The other is relying on exit polls.

However, if your boss is interested in turnout, things are different, because many southern states (and some other places) report turnout by race and a few other demographics under the Voting Rights Act. Someone probably has written that conference paper already, but I haven't seen it. I would ask Mike McDonald at George Mason, who is sort of Mr. Turnout. Here's one of his pages (which doesn't address what you're looking for), for contact info and some idea of what he does. I don't think it would be hard to do this state-by-state on your own, but if he knows who has done it already, there ya go.

[intheflow]

12. Thank you!

Very good lead! :hi:

[Glorfindel]

3. This is an interesting site

At least I found it so:

http://www.1984produkts.com/donkeyhottie/2008/11/18/mapping-the-south-for-obama/

[intheflow]

5. Wow, that *is* intersting!

Thanks for the lead! :hi:

[EC]

7. an almanac... n/t

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. Ask Rove's people. They were the experts on this.

[dixiegrrrrl]

9. In all seriousness now, I just found this search engine which compares any 2 factors.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/

Making the world's knowledge computable

Today's Wolfram|Alpha is the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all
systematic knowledge immediately computable
by anyone. Enter your question or calculation,
and Wolfram|Alpha uses its built-in algorithms
and a growing collection of data to compute the
answer

Looks like a very very cool site.

[intheflow]

11. Thanks for this.

Unfortunately, the ancient POS in my office that passes for a computer has a browser that doesn't play nicely with your interactive link. :grr: I'll try it later at home and see what I can plum from the site. :hi: