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On the Overreport Bias of the National Election Study Turnout Rate

   

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On the Over-Report Bias of the National Election Study Turnout Rate

On-line notes for Michael P. McDonald. 2003. "On the Over-Report Bias of the National Election Study." Political Analysis 11(2): 180-186.

by Michael P. McDonald
George Mason University
http://elections.gmu.edu
mmcdon@gmu.edu

This table provides data referenced in Michael McDonald (2003) "On the Over-Report Bias of the National Election Study Turnout Rate."  As the authors of The American Voter (1960) and subsequent researchers of the National Election Study (NES) have noted, more NES respondents claim to have voted than actual voting statistics would suggest.  Data presented here are a good-faith effort to reconcile the NES sample with the turnout rate of the population it is drawn from.  These data show no on-going, increasing bias in the NES presidential turnout rate, as claimed by Barry Burden (2000).  I further challenge Burden's claim that the over-report bias is related to the NES response rates, which are also provided below.  In multivariate analysis of competing theories to explain the turnout rate, I find modest support for a theory that relates the over-report bias to the turnout rate itself (when fewer voters vote, there are more opportunities for voters to misreport their vote), but any inference is seriously crippled by the small number of observations.  Resources for this paper and turnout rates in general may be found at http://elections.gmu.edu/voter_turnout.htm

References

Burden, Barry C.  2000.  �Voter Turnout and the National Election Studies.�  Political Analysis 8(4): 389-398.  �Voter Turnout and the National Election Studies.�  Political Analysis 8(4): 389-398.

Campbell, Angus, Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller, and Donald E. Stokes.  1960.  The American Voter.  University of Chicago Press: Chicago.

Luevano, Patricia.  1994.  �Response Rates in the National Election Studies, 1948-1992.� ICSPR Technical Report #44.  Ann Arbor, MI.

McDonald, Michael P. and Samuel Popkin.  2001.  �The Myth of the Vanishing Voter.� American Political Science Review 95(4): 963-974.

McDonald, Michael P.  2003.  �On the Over-Report Bias of the National Election Study Turnout Rate.� Political Analysis, forthcoming.

Sapiro, Virginia, Steven J. Rosenstone, and the National Elections Studies.  AMERICAN NATIONAL ELECTION CUMULATIVE DATA FILE, 1948-2000 [Computer file].  11th ICPSR version.  Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, Center for Political Studies [producer], 2002.  Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2002.

Variable Description

Turnout Rate, NES: From the 1948-2000 Cumulative Data File (Sapiro, Rosenstone, and NES 2002).  Calculated using variable VCF0702 and weight variable VCF0009A, no response coded as missing data.

Vote for Highest Office: From McDonald and Popkin (2001).  Vote for President in presidential election years, in non-presidential election years, the highest vote total for a statewide office.  If no statewide office, sum of the congressional elections.

Voting-Age Population: Estimates drawn from the Census Bureau of persons of voting age living in the United States.

Turnout Rate, VAP: Vote for Highest Office divided by Voting Age Population.

Non-Citizens: Non-citizens as a percent of voting-age population, drawn from Current Population Survey, Voter Supplement File and  various Census of the Population.  See McDonald and Popkin (2001) for full explanation.

Prisoners: Department of Justice statistics on number of felony prisoners.  See McDonald and Popkin (2001) for full explanation.

Overseas Voters: Estimate of number of ballots cast by overseas voters.  See McDonald (2003) and McDonald and Popkin (2001) for full explanation.

Turnout Rate, Reconciled VAP: Estimate of turnout rate among NES sample population.  Calculated by subtracting Overseas Voters from Vote for Highest Office and subtracting Non-Citizens and Prisoners from Voting-Age Population.  First resulting number is divided through by the second.

NES-VAP Turnout Gap: Turnout Rate, NES - Turnout Rate, VAP.

NES-Reconciled VAP Turnout Gap: Turnout Rate, NES - Turnout Rate, Reconciled VAP.

NES Response Rates:  For non-presidential elections, NES conducts one a post-election survey.  The response rates for these years are simply the response rates to the post-election survey.  For most presidential elections, NES conducts pre- and post-election surveys.  The voting question is asked on the post-election survey.  The post-election response rate is then the pre-election response rate multiplied by the re-interview rate.  Data from Luevano (1994) and subsequent NES codebooks.  Where blank, no data available.

Table of Data (Electronic version in Excel format)

Year

Turnout Rate

NES

Vote for Highest Office

(1000�s)

Voting-Age Population

(1000�s)

Turnout Rate

VAP (%)

Non-Citizens

(1000�s)

Prisoners

 

(1000�s)

Overseas Voters

(1000�s)

Turnout Rate

Reconciled VAP (%)

NES-VAP


Turnout Rate

NES-ReconciledVAP

Turnout Rate

NES

Pre-Election Response Rate

NES

Re-Interview Rate

NES

Post-Election Response Rate

1948

63.9

48833

95573

51.1

2198

156

230

52.1

12.8

11.8

83.9

94.6

79.4

1950

 

41984

98134

42.8

1880

166

170

43.5

 

 

 

 

 

1952

73.0

61552

99929

61.6

1899

168

705

62.2

11.4

10.8

77.2

90.3

69.7

1954

 

43854

102075

43.0

1939

183

429

43.4

 

 

 

 

 

1956

72.9

62027

104515

59.3

1986

190

591

60.0

13.6

12.9

85.0

90.9

77.3

1958

57.6

47203

106447

44.3

2129

206

428

44.9

13.2

12.7

 

 

78.1

1960

79.0

68838

109672

62.8

2193

213

582

63.6

16.2

15.4

 

93.9

 

1962

60.4

53141

112952

47.0

2259

219

531

47.6

13.4

12.8

 

 

 

1964

77.7

70645

114090

61.9

2282

214

761

62.6

15.7

15.0

80.6

92.7

74.7

1966

62.3

56188

116638

48.2

2363

200

789

48.6

14.1

13.7

 

 

77.1

1968

75.8

73213

120285

60.9

2766

187

1141

61.4

15.0

14.4

77.4

86.6

67.0

1970

59.4

58014

124498

46.6

3148

196

835

47.2

12.8

12.2

 

 

76.6

1972

72.8

77719

140777

55.2

3640

196

889

56.1

17.6

16.7

75.0

84.4

63.3

1974

52.5

55944

146338

38.2

4148

218

590

39.0

14.3

13.6

 

 

70.0

1976

71.6

81556

152308

53.5

4558

263

858

54.7

18.0

16.9

70.4

84.9

59.8

1978

54.5

58918

158369

37.2

5780

284

673

38.2

17.3

16.3

 

 

68.9

1980

71.4

86515

163945

52.8

6827

330

986

54.6

18.6

16.8

71.8

87.4

62.8

1982

60.4

67616

169643

39.9

10554

414

838

42.1

20.5

18.3

 

 

72.3

1984

73.6

92653

173995

53.3

13252

462

1350

57.0

20.4

16.6

72.1

88.6

63.9

1986

52.5

64991

177922

36.5

12223

545

864

38.8

16.0

13.7

 

 

67.7

1988

69.7

91595

181956

50.3

13942

628

1370

53.9

19.3

15.8

70.5

87

61.3

1990

46.6

67859

185888

36.5

16297

774

1058

39.6

10.1

7.1

 

 

70.6

1992

75.1

104405

189687

55.0

17826

884

1465

60.2

20.1

14.9

74.0

89.3

66.1

1994

55.7

75106

193163

38.9

13205

1055

932

41.5

16.8

14.2

 

 

74.1

1996

72.9

96263

196928

48.9

13948

1180

1317

52.2

24.0

20.6

71.0

90.0

63.9

1998

52.1

72537

200929

36.1

15070

1222

1148

38.7

16.0

13.4

 

 

63.9

2000

72.7

105326

205813

51.2

16500

1386

1672

55.2

21.5

17.5

61.2

86.0

52.6

Stata (v 6.0) Output

rec_gap = NES-Reconciled VAP Turnout Gap
rec_rate = Turnout Rate, Reconciled VAP
response = NES Post-Election Response Rate

reg rec_gap rec_rate response if(election==1&year~=48&year~=96)

  Source | SS df MS Number of obs =11
---------+------------------------------
           F( 2, 8) = 6.64
   Model | 25.3305851 2 12.6652925 Prob > F = 0.0200
Residual | 15.2675152 8 1.9084394
---------+------------------------------
       R-squared = 0.6239
   Adj R-squared = 0.5299
   Total | 40.5981003 10 4.05981003 Root MSE = 1.3815
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 rec_gap | Coef.     Std. Err.  t    P>|t| [95% Conf.Interval]
---------+------------------------------------------------------------------
rec_rate | -.3042361 .2066325 -1.472 0.179  -.7807314, .1722593
response | -.0969068 .1002358 -0.967 0.362  -.3280509, .1342373
   _cons | 39.27846  8.066552  4.869 0.001   20.67696, 57.87996
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Dr. Michael McDonald
Department of Public and International Affairs
George Mason University
4400 University Drive - 3F4
Fairfax, VA 22030-4444

Office: 703-993-4191
Fax: 703-993-1399
Email: mmcdon@gmu.edu

This Article

  1. doi: 10.1093/pan/mpg006 Political Analysis May 1, 2003 vol. 11 no. 2 180-186

Impact Factor: 4.655

5-Yr impact factor: 4.659

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