New Orleans voter turnout: the numbers nobody had put together

[Cos]

I just finished a personal research project and posted it on MyDD.

It started earlier this week, when I began writing this post for johnbonifaz.com. I wanted to put in a comment about how low the voter turnout was among displaced Katrina victims in the recent election, so I went looking for that number... and couldn't find it! Nobody had compiled the data to determine how voter turnout differred between those back in the city and those still displaced. So I started digging.

About 15-20 hours of research later, spread out over four days, I finally had an answer, and it surprised me. I was expecting to find that voter turnout in the city was somewhere in the 40s, and probably under 30% for those displaced. 45% and 25%, perhaps. Instead, I think the real answer is a lot closer to 65% and 8%!

I had to do a lot of estimating, and work with a lot of margins of error. The real spread may differ significantly. But even with the most extreme fudging in the direction of a smaller spread, it's still at least 50%-15%, more or less. Anyway, look at my data and reasoning and judge for yourself.

P.S. And of course, please visit John Bonifaz's site and comment on my post! :)

[BOSSHOG]

1. If you continue to research

you will find that during the last mayoral election the turnout was less than 50%. So if more than 50% didn't vote when they lived in the city why the big uproar when they are displaced and may never come back to the city and didn't vote this time. The State of Louisiana spent 4 million dollars helping citizens throughout the country to vote in the election. I've watched New Orleans news since the hurricane and it was not that difficult for people to vote, if they watned to.

[Cos]

2. read the post, it's all in there

I included not just the last election, but the last four. I found that voter turnout fluctuates, probably depending on how interesting and important the election seems to be. So I included what was probably the most motivating pre-Katrina election, the 1991 Governors race (David Duke vs. Edwards) - that turnout out over 70% of registered voters at the time. Later down the post, where I put together the population estimates with the turnout numbers, I found that voter turnout in the city this time around was probably about the same as it had been in the 1991 election, meaning this one was just as motivating and interesting to voters. In light of that, the paltry displaced voter turnout suggests obstacles to voting had a lot more to do with it than lack of interest.

[Cos]

3. Frontpaged on MyDD

My post got frontpaged on MyDD! Woohoo! :)

[VelmaD]

4. kickin' it for Cos...

'cause this stuff is interesting and more people should go read it all. :kick:

[paineinthearse]

5. Thanks, Cos

Great work. It will take more than a catastrophy from keeping the displaced citizens from voting.

[paineinthearse]

6. morning

:kick:

Although this has 12 "greatest" nominations, many people don't access posts through that portal.

[Cos]

7. curious

Do we actually know which links people tend to read through? Do the site admins post stats?

I find I click on specific forums more often than Greatest, myself - but on the other hand, if something is in General, and also on the Greatest page, I'm probably much more likely to see it through the Greatest page.

[OnTheOtherHand]

8. great stuff

65% and 8% does seem a bit much, but you've convinced me that the right answer -- whatever it is -- is pretty extreme.

You are too restrained to overextrapolate the likely political implications, and so am I, but, yeesh. Wouldn't it be great to have a few elections that don't require autopsies?

Well, money talks, so I just sent $100 to John Bonifaz in your honor. Also in his -- John was great in college 20 years ago, but he keeps getting better.

[Cos]

9. Thank you for supporting John Bonifaz!!!

Thank you so much.

Technically, the New Orleans research was my personal effort, not part of my part time blogging job for the campaign. Informally, I hope that through doing this kind of work I can entice enough people to send him money that it will entirely cover what he's paying me, and hence support my being able to continue to spend time on serious election reform blogging all year. Because I really want to.

P.S. It would really help my efforts if you post a comment on John's blog too. I'm trying to build up an audience for his web site, and seeing comments on blog posts is one thing that draws an audience. You'd be enticing more visitors to come back to the site repeatedly (if they see a new comment now, it means there might be more new comments another day), which will help promote John's campaign - the more regular readers we have, the more we can get our message out. My hope is that through frequent, interesting content on the blog, we'll draw readers. And comments count as interesting content.

[OnTheOtherHand]

10. OK, as soon as I work up to being "interesting"

NOLA just depresses the hell out of me -- if I start a post right now, two hours from now I will be still staring at the screen, shaking my head.