Alien Abduction and Voter Impersonation in the 2012 U.S. General Election: Evidence from a Survey List Experiment

AhlquistJohn, S; MayerKenneth, R; JackmanSimon,

doi:10.1089/elj.2013.0231

Cited by 34 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…In the end, few scholars have been able to effectively counter the 2. Research has uncovered little documented evidence of significant voter fraud (Ahlquist et al 2014; but see Richman et al 2014).…”

Section: Evaluating Voter Id Lawsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Voter Identification Laws and the Suppression of Minority Votes

Hajnal

Lajevardi

Nielson

2017

The Journal of Politics

224

111

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The proliferation of increasingly strict voter identification laws around the country has raised concerns about voter suppression. Although there are many reasons to suspect that these laws could harm groups like racial minorities and the poor, existing studies have been limited, with most occurring before states enacted strict identification requirements, and they have uncovered few effects. By using validated voting data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study for several recent elections, we are able to offer a more definitive test. The analysis shows that strict identification laws have a differentially negative impact on the turnout of racial and ethnic minorities in primaries and general elections. We also find that voter ID laws skew democracy toward those on the political right. V oting is the bedrock of democracy. Through the vote, citizens choose leaders, sway policy, and generally influence democracy. By contrast, citizens who do not vote can be ignored. It is thus not surprising to see that the laws that shape turnout and determine who can and who cannot vote generate enormous attention and controversy. The latest front in this debate concerns voter identification laws. Voter identification laws have been a topic of discussion since 1950, when South Carolina became the first state to request some form of identification at the polls (NCSL 2015). Since then, more and more states have instituted some form of voter ID law. But it is only within the past decade that the strictest forms of voter ID have proliferated and that voter ID laws have received widespread attention. Today these voter ID laws take several distinct forms. Strict voter ID laws require identification in order to cast a regular ballot. Other more lenient laws request, but do not require, voters to show some kind of identification document at the polls. These laws can also be distinguished by whether or not they allow or consider nonphoto identification. All told, 34 states currently enforce some form of a voter identification law (NCSL 2015). Of these, 11 are strict ID law states that require a person to show identification in order to vote. 1 More states appear to be waiting in the wings. New Mexico, Nevada, Iowa, and others are all considering new stricter voter identification laws (NCSL 2015). The consequences of all of this could be enormous. Given that more than half of the nation's population is currently subject to these laws, that stricter laws are being considered in multiple states, and that the courts are actively evaluating the merits of these laws in a series of landmark cases, there is a compelling need to know exactly what the true impact of these laws is. There is no shortage of opinions about these laws. On one side, the proliferation of these laws raises real concerns for critics who believe that they are unnecessary and ultimately detrimental to democracy. Activist groups, like the Brennan Center for Justice, claim that voter ID laws serve as effective barriers that limit the legitimate participation of racia...

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Section: Evaluating Voter Id Lawsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Voter Identification Laws and the Suppression of Minority Votes

Hajnal

Lajevardi

Nielson

2017

The Journal of Politics

224

111

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“…The proportion of respondents selecting the most extreme value is stable across survey waves and questions. Source: Ahlquist et al (2014). proportion of people answering the maximum is remarkably stable, around 2-3%, even for sensitive behaviors that are far more common in the population (texting while driving).…”

Section: An Examplementioning

confidence: 99%

List Experiment Design, Non-Strategic Respondent Error, and Item Count Technique Estimators

Ahlquist¹

2017

Polit. Anal.

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The item count technique (ICT-MLE) regression model for survey list experiments depends on assumptions about responses at the extremes (choosing no or all items on the list). Existing list experiment best practices aim to minimize strategic misrepresentation in ways that virtually guarantee that a tiny number of respondents appear in the extrema. Under such conditions both the “no liars” identification assumption and the computational strategy used to estimate the ICT-MLE become difficult to sustain. I report the results of Monte Carlo experiments examining the sensitivity of the ICT-MLE and simple difference-in-means estimators to survey design choices and small amounts of non-strategic respondent error. I show that, compared to the difference in means, the performance of the ICT-MLE depends on list design. Both estimators are sensitive to measurement error, but the problems are more severe for the ICT-MLE as a direct consequence of the no liars assumption. These problems become extreme as the number of treatment-group respondents choosing all the items on the list decreases. I document that such problems can arise in real-world applications, provide guidance for applied work, and suggest directions for further research.

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“…For the field experiment, this meant sending out real applications for real job openings. For the survey experiments, we drew our samples from the YouGov panel as this panel is used extensively in survey experimental research (e.g., Ahlquist et al, ; Nyhan and Reifler, ; Olsen, ).…”

Section: Methods and Experiments Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are Survey Experiments as Valid as Field Experiments in Management Research? An Empirical Comparison Using the Case of Ethnic Employment Discrimination

Wulff¹,

Villadsen²

2019

European Management Review

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Field experiments have long been the gold standard in studies of organizational topics such as ethnic discrimination in recruitment. The recent use of survey experiments, also known as experimental vignettes, suggests that some researchers believe that survey experiments could be used as an alternative to field experiments. In this study we put this notion to the test. We perform a field experiment followed by two survey experiments on ethnic discrimination in recruitment. While the results of our field experiment are consistent with previous evidence on discrimination, one survey experiment concludes no difference between native and immigrant employees while another concludes positive discrimination. These results should invoke caution in researchers wanting to investigate organizational topics using survey experiments.We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting that the mentioned design difference might confound our results. Field and survey experiments

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Alien Abduction and Voter Impersonation in the 2012 U.S. General Election: Evidence from a Survey List Experiment

Cited by 34 publications

References 17 publications

Voter Identification Laws and the Suppression of Minority Votes

Voter Identification Laws and the Suppression of Minority Votes

List Experiment Design, Non-Strategic Respondent Error, and Item Count Technique Estimators

Are Survey Experiments as Valid as Field Experiments in Management Research? An Empirical Comparison Using the Case of Ethnic Employment Discrimination

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