
Non-citizen voting likely changed outcomes of 2008 US elections - caseysoftware
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379414000973
======
conistonwater
The first "recommended article" on the right of the page is _The perils of
cherry picking low frequency events in large sample surveys_
([http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379415...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379415001420)),
with the abstract:

> The advent of large sample surveys, such as the Cooperative Congressional
> Election Study (CCES), has opened the possibility of measuring very low
> frequency events, characteristics, and behaviors in the population. This
> paper documents how low-level measurement error for survey questions
> generally agreed to be highly reliable can lead to large prediction errors
> in large sample surveys, such as the CCES. The example for this analysis is
> Richman et al. (2014), which presents a biased estimate of the rate at which
> non-citizens voted in recent elections. The results, we show, are completely
> accounted for by very low frequency measurement error; further, the likely
> percent of non-citizen voters in recent US elections is 0.

( _Richman et al. (2014)_ is the paper submitted here; also worth noting is
that one of the authors is from YouGov, the company that did the large
internet survey.)

~~~
synparb
Here appears to be the text of that paper:

[http://projects.iq.harvard.edu/cces/news/perils-cherry-
picki...](http://projects.iq.harvard.edu/cces/news/perils-cherry-picking-low-
frequency-events-large-sample-surveys)

And here is a follow-up from the original authors (standard academic back-and-
forth):

[https://fs.wp.odu.edu/jrichman/wp-
content/uploads/sites/760/...](https://fs.wp.odu.edu/jrichman/wp-
content/uploads/sites/760/2015/11/AnsolabehereResponse10-19-2016.pdf)

~~~
synparb
See also this article:

[http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2016/oct/...](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2016/oct/24/donald-trump/donald-trump-wrongly-
says-14-percent-noncitizens-a/)

------
ocschwar
As a naturalized citizen, I am highly skeptical.

I've been a citizen for years, but if any voting record emerges that shows me
voting prior to my naturalization date, the naturalization would be annulled
and I would be deported for it.

This is one of the things you get hammered into your head over and over: do
not vote if you're just a resident.

Now to read the article...

~~~
makomk
It apparently happens: [http://chicagoreporter.com/illegal-voting-case-puts-
familys-...](http://chicagoreporter.com/illegal-voting-case-puts-familys-
future-in-limbo/) Remember, US states are required to be quite aggressive
about getting people to register to vote under motor voter laws. Also, the
people who get caught seem to be the ones who say they voted on their
citizenship applications; I'm not sure how actively policed this is.

~~~
ocschwar
When I lived in Illinois, it was explicitly legal for me as a resident to vote
for the school council.

I still didn't because it was also illegal according to my native country, to
vote in ANY American election.

So if an anecdote of this nature is to emerge, I'm not surprised it's from
Illinois.

------
afinlayson
Let's just remember Obama won the vote by: 69,498,516 to 59,948,323.

It wasn't even close in the EC. As a soon to be Greencard holder, I'm
suspicious. Most people who are living here with Visas are super cautious of
breaking laws.

~~~
yolesaber
Right? The conservative narrative is that undocumented persons can act with
impunity and soak up benefits etc, but all the immigrants friends I have are
scared shitless of getting in trouble or caught by the police outside a
sanctuary city because it puts their whole lives in jeopardy.

------
johnhess
Criticism

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-
cage/wp/2014/10/2...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-
cage/wp/2014/10/28/what-can-we-learn-about-the-electoral-behavior-of-non-
citizens-from-a-survey-designed-to-learn-about-citizens/)

The original authors defended their research in the Washington Post

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-
cage/wp/2014/11/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-
cage/wp/2014/11/02/do-non-citizens-vote-in-u-s-elections-a-reply-to-our-
critics/)

------
afinlayson
If I'm reading this correctly they say there is 8,654,000 illegals living in
NC. I call bullshit.

~~~
burkaman
This is not about "illegals", it's about people with green cards, permanent
residences, student visas, etc.

~~~
dragonwriter
North Carolina total population is under 10 million. It doesn't have more than
8 million non-citizen residents, even when one expands beyond the undocumented
population.

Also, green cards and permanent residence are the same thing, not to different
categories.

------
chrisamiller
Boy, there are an awful lot of assumptions made there. In a senate race
decided by 312 votes, there are dozens of factors that could have swung that
outcome. Traffic, the weather, a bad batch of lettuce keeping some people home
with food poisoning, etc. To chalk that win up to non-citizen voting requires
ignoring an awful lot of other pieces of the puzzle.

~~~
refurb
This study is attempting to isolate the impact of non-citizen voting. Of
course they didn't look at things like traffic and weather.

------
johnhess
Why is this flagged? Yes, there are real criticisms, but this is published,
reviewed research. There is a real intellectual contribution.

I'd much rather see a discussion of flaws (there's already a healthy
discussion here) than burying a study that speaks to important issues.

~~~
yolesaber
I flagged it because:

\- Incredibly clickbait title that is in no way backed up by substantive fact

\- It is old (2014) and not tagged as such

\- The intellectual contribution is nil. Even the body that put out the
dataset used in the study said NOT to use its dataset in this way as it is
misleading

What good is a study that "speaks" to important issues when the samples it has
are flawed, the methodology is faulty, and the conclusions are wrong? Is this
what living in post-truth is like, where as long as something is 'related' or
'speaking' to issues it is counted as genuine material for discourse?

------
jacalata
A study rebutted multiple times and based on data collected by people who say
they think there were significant errors in the citizenship count:
[http://www.politifact.com/north-
carolina/statements/2016/oct...](http://www.politifact.com/north-
carolina/statements/2016/oct/19/donald-trump/trump-wrongfully-says-immigrants-
voting-illegally-/)

------
diogenescynic
Alternative title: how to lie with misleading statistics.

------
ryanobjc
I read/skimmed about half of it, I didn't see much discussion about selection
bias. When I first saw "internet survey" I was instantly skeptical.

Selection bias is massive, the types of people who take these polls tend to be
highly politically active. I'm not sure you can extend the conclusions from
this sample to the general population.

------
dforrestwilson1
If true, this would seem to validate some of the concerns the "alt-right" has
been espousing.

~~~
yolesaber
Except it's flagrantly false and a textbook case of statistical manipulation
and faulty sample taking.
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379415...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379415001420)

~~~
ocschwar
I love how Elsevier makes the clickbait freely available but requires a
subscription for the debunking.

Facebook is not the only problem we're up against.

~~~
yolesaber
Wow I didn't even think about that. Scary.

------
donald123
This is only based on a survey with less than 500 people, plus a lot of
assumptions and estimations.

------
blauditore
From what I see, they didn't consider untruthy answers on _what_ people voted.
Not sure how relevant this is, but considering this year's presidential
election's actual votes compared to surveys might significantly change this
study's results.

------
vowelless
How legit is this study?

~~~
clock_tower
See the second section, "Data", in the linked-to page:

"The data used for this paper is from the 2008 and 2010 Cooperative
Congressional Election Studies, based on the files released by Stephen
Ansolabehere, 2010 and Ansolabehere, 2011. The 2008 and 2010 Cooperative
Congressional Election Studies (CCES) were conducted by YouGov/Polimetrix of
Palo Alto, CA as an internet-based survey using a sample selected to mirror
the demographic characteristics of the U.S. population. In both years survey
data was collected in two waves: pre-election in October, and then post-
election in November. The questionnaire asked more than 100 questions
regarding electoral participation, issue preferences, and candidate choices."

Further down, they point out that some non-citizens had the right to vote in
about half the states around 1900; that non-citizens legally voted in every
presidential election until 1928; and that their sample was dependent on
people's self-reported citizenship status, but the characteristics of self-
reported non-citizens who voted matched those of self-reported non-citizens
who didn't vote.

~~~
ryanobjc
Additionally there is no discussion about selection bias here.

For example, we know that since it's an internet survey, everyone on the
survey has the internet or an ability to use the internet (eg: public library
access?). That rules out a non-trivial portion of the population.

Additionally, not everyone answers or engages in these surveys. So there's an
additional bias.

A lot of immigrants take a low profile, and dont vote, and don't engage
civically, such as surveys. So missing those.

In the end, the paper is assuming the people who self selected into taking
this survey are representative of the entire population, and that might be
true for the more common things, but for less common things, not so true.

A good example is to fill up a jar with white marbles. Then put another 50 red
ones on top. Now take the top 100 marbles as a "sample". You'd conclude from
this that the jar is 50% red, when its actually like 5% red! This is the
classic sampling bias/error. Since the paper doesn't touch this at all, I
assume the authors know their conclusion is bogus and they don't want to go
here because it'd destroy their headline: "NON CITIZENS GAVE OBAMA THE
PRESIDENCY".

So much shit in this paper, yet it masquerades as science.

------
MichaelBurge
Stefan Molyneux had an interesting video on this subject. Not so much about
the statistics of non-citizens voting, but on the incentives encouraging some
politicians to allow it:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN_FOCF3vIQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN_FOCF3vIQ)

I'm not sure how much the federal government can do: A state has a lot of
leeway in how it chooses its electors and Congressmen. It's probably more
effective for people to demand strict voter ID laws in each state, especially
if your state allows citizen referendums.

The article mentions it could be ineffective if your state allows non-citizens
to get ID cards, so there should probably be a stamp or icon or something to
indicate that you can vote, to reduce the risk of the pool worker being
confused.

Normally I'd worry about the privacy risks, but it's so important that I
wonder if it's worth taking photos of the state ids associated with each
ballot, and also requiring people to write their id number on the ballot. That
could be very dangerous if that database gets leaked, though. Are there other
alternatives that don't leak information as easily?

I'm not sure how reliable this particular study is, but it's a common enough
worry that it's worth making the voting systems more robust just to avoid even
the appearance of fraud or tampering.

~~~
yolesaber
>I'm not sure how reliable this particular study is, but it's a common enough
worry that it's worth making the voting systems more robust just to avoid even
the appearance of fraud or tampering.

And thus we witness the power of rhetoric and 'truthiness'. Voter fraud,
especially non-citizen voter fraud, is simply not an issue in the US election
system, but the fears that it is allow restrictive and disenfranchising
legislature to be passed
[http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/brief/misleading-
myth...](http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/brief/misleading-myth-voter-
fraud-american-elections)

~~~
MichaelBurge
I personally am less worried about individual voter fraud, and more worried
about fraud at the county level. Perhaps in a small county with fewer
safeguards, someone could throw out 10% of the paper ballots. Or the voting
machines could have errors that discard votes. It'd be nice to see something
that can be end-to-end validated.

In Oregon, we do vote-by-mail. You have to register ahead of time, and you can
receive an email when your ballot is sent and when it is received. That seems
like enough to protect against people dropping ballots. Invalid ballots are
different, but it might be rare if what you're saying is correct. I don't
trust any other states, but Oregon at least seems to be run fairly well.

Ultimately, it's up to the citizens of each state to decide how stringent they
want their state to be.

