Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-fqc5m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T23:35:07.070Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Examining the Causal Impact of the Voting Rights Act Language Minority Provisions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2016

Bernard L. Fraga*
Affiliation:
Indiana University
Julie Lee Merseth*
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Bernard L. Fraga, Department of Political Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405. E-mail: bfraga@indiana.edu; and Julie Lee Merseth, Department of Political Science, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208. E-mail: jmerseth@northwestern.edu.
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Bernard L. Fraga, Department of Political Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405. E-mail: bfraga@indiana.edu; and Julie Lee Merseth, Department of Political Science, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208. E-mail: jmerseth@northwestern.edu.
Get access

Abstract

The following study investigates the causal impact of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) language minority provisions, which mandate multilingual election assistance if certain population thresholds are met. While lower rates of Latino and Asian American political participation are often attributed to language barriers, scholars have yet to establish a direct impact of the provisions on electoral behavior. Building off of previous state- and county-level analyses, we leverage an individual-level voter file database to focus on participation by Latino and Asian American citizens in 1,465 counties and municipalities nationwide. Utilizing a regression discontinuity design, we examine rates of voter registration and turnout in the 2012 election, comparing individual participation rates in jurisdictions just above and just below the threshold for coverage. Our analysis attributes a significant increase in Latino voter registration and Asian American turnout to coverage under the VRA.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ansolabehere, Stephen, and Hersh, Eitan. 2012. “Validation: What Big Data Reveal About Survey Misreporting and the Real Electorate.” Political Analysis 20 (4): 437–59.Google Scholar
Barreto, Matt A. 2007. “!Sí Se Puede! Latino Candidates and the Mobilization of Latino Voters.” American Political Science Review 101 (3): 425–41.Google Scholar
Barreto, Matt A. 2010. Ethnic Cues: The Role of Shared Ethnicity in Latino Political Participation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barreto, Matt A., and Muñoz, José. 2003. “Re-examinng the Politics of In-Between: Political Participation among Mexican Immigrants in the United States.” Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 25 (4): 427–47.Google Scholar
Barreto, Matt A., Segura, Gary M., and Woods, Nathan D.. 2004. “The Mobilizing Effect of Majority-Minority Districts on Latino Turnout.” American Political Science Review 98 (1): 6575.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bobo, Lawrence, and Gilliam, Frank D.. 1990. “Race, Sociopolitical Participation, and Black Empowerment.” American Political Science Review 84 (2): 377–93.Google Scholar
Calonico, Sebastian, Cattaneo, Matias, and Titiunik, Rocío. 2014 a. “Robust Nonparametric Confidence Intervals for Regression-Discontinuity Designs.” Econometrica 82 (6): 2295–326.Google Scholar
Calonico, Sebastian, Cattaneo, Matias D., and Titiunik, Rocío. 2014 b. Package ‘rdrobust’. R Package, Version 0.70. http://cran.rproject.org/web/packages/rdrobust (Accessed October 26, 2014).Google Scholar
Caughey, Devin, and Sekhon, Jasjeet S.. 2011. “Elections and the Regression Discontinuity Design: Lessons from Close US House Races, 1942–2008.” Political Analysis 19 (4): 385408.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cho, Wendy K. Tam. 1999. “Naturalization, Socialization, Participation: Immigrants and (Non-) Voting.” Journal of Politics 61 (4): 1140–55.Google Scholar
de la Garza, Rodolfo O., and DeSipio, Louis. 1997. “Save the Baby, Change the Bathwater, and Scrub the Tub: Latino Electoral Participation after Twenty Years of Voting Rights Act Coverage.” In Pursuing Power: Latinos and the Political System, ed. Garcia, F. Chris. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 72126.Google Scholar
Dimmery, Drew. 2013. Package ‘rdd’. R Package, Version 0.56. http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/rdd (Accessed October 10, 2013).Google Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Dunning, Thad. 2012. Natural Experiments in the Social Sciences: A Design-Based Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Eggers, Andrew C., Fowler, Anthony, Hainmueller, Jens, Hall, Andrew B., and Snyder, James M. Jr. 2015. “On The Validity of the Regression Discontinuity Design For Estimating Electoral Effects: New Evidence from Over 40,000 Close Races.” American Journal of Political Science 59 (1): 259–74.Google Scholar
Elliott, Marc N., Fremont, Allen, Morrison, Peter A., Pantoja, Philip, and Lurie, Nicole. 2008. “A New Method for Estimating Race/Ethnicity and Associated Disparities Where Administrative Records Lack Self-Reported Race/Ethnicity.” Health Services Research 43 (5): 1722–36.Google Scholar
Erikson, Robert S. 1981. “Why Do People Vote? Because They Are Registered.” American Politics Research 9 (3): 259–76.Google Scholar
File, Thom. 2013. “The Diversifying Electorate-Voting Rates by Race and Hispanic Origin in 2012 (and Other Recent Elections).” Current Population Survey Reports, P20–569. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau.Google Scholar
Fraga, Bernard L. 2016. “Candidates or Districts? Reevaluating the Role of Race in Voter Turnout.” American Journal of Political Science 60 (1): 97122.Google Scholar
GAO, United States General Accounting Office. 1986. “Bilingual Voting Assistance: Costs of and Use During the November 1984 General Election.” September 15, 1986. Publication No. GGD-86-143BR.Google Scholar
GAO, United States General Accounting Office. 1997. “Bilingual Voting Assistance: Assistance Provided and Costs.” May 9, 1997. Publication No. GGD-97-81.Google Scholar
GAO, United States General Accounting Office. 2008. “Bilingual Voting Assistance: Selected Jurisdictions’ Strategies for Identifying Needs and Providing Assistance.” January 18, 2008. Publication No. GAO-08-182.Google Scholar
Gaouette, Nicole. 2006. “House GOP Group Targets Bilingual Ballots.” Los Angeles Times. May 6, 2006.Google Scholar
García Bedolla, Lisa, and Michelson, Melissa R.. 2012. Mobilizing Inclusion: Transforming the Electorate through Get-Out-the-Vote Campaigns. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Green, Donald P., Leong, Terence Y., Kern, Holger L., Gerber, Alan S., and Larimer, Christopher W.. 2009. “Testing the Accuracy of Regression Discontinuity Analysis Using Experimental Benchmarks.” Political Analysis 17 (4): 400–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henderson, John A., Sekhon, Jasjeet S., and Titiunik, Roco. 2013. “Cause or Effect? Turnout in Hispanic Majority-Minority Districts.” Working Paper, Draft as of May 12, 2013.Google Scholar
Hernandez, Raymond. 2006. “After Challenges, House Approves Renewal of Voting Act.” New York Times. July 14, 2006.Google Scholar
Higgins, Matthew. 2015. “Language Accommodations and Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act: Reporting Requirements as a Potential Solution to the Compliance Gap.” Stanford Law Review 67 (4): 917–60.Google Scholar
Highton, Benjamin, and Burris, Arthur L.. 2002. “New Perspectives on Latino Voter Turnout in the United States.” American Politics Research 30 (3): 285306.Google Scholar
Hopkins, Daniel J. 2011. “Translating into Votes: The Electoral Impacts of Spanish-Language Ballots.” American Journal of Political Science 55 (4): 813–29.Google Scholar
Imbens, Guido and Kalyanaraman, Karthik. 2012. “Optimal Bandwidth Choice for the Regression Discontinuity Estimator.” Review of Economic Studies 79 (3): 1021–52.Google Scholar
Imbens, Guido W., and Lemieux, Thomas. 2008. “Regression Discontinuity Designs: A Guide to Practice.” Journal of Econometrics 142 (2): 615–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones-Correa, Michael. 2005. “Language Provisions Under the Voting Rights Act: How Effective Are They?Social Science Quarterly 86 (3): 549–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones-Correa, Michael, and Ramakrishnan, Karthick. 2004. “Studying the Effects of Language Provisions Under the Voting Rights Act.” Presented at the 2004 Western Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Portland, OR.Google Scholar
Jones-Correa, Michael, and Waismel-Manor, Israel. 2007. “Verifying Implementation of Language Provisions in the Voting Rights Act.” In Voting Rights Act Reauthorization of 2006: Perspectives on Democracy, Participation, and Power, ed. Henderson, Ana. Berkeley, CA: Institute for Governmental Studies Public Policy Press, 161–81.Google Scholar
Joyce, Patrick M., Malec, Donald, Little, Roderick J. A., Gilary, Aaron, Navarro, Alfredo, and Asiala, Mark E.. 2014. “Statistical Modeling Methodology for the Voting Rights Act Section 203 Language Assistance Determinations.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 109 (505): 3647.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, David S. 2008. “Randomized Experiments From Non-Random Selection in U.S. House Elections.” Journal of Econometrics 142 (2): 675–97.Google Scholar
Lee, David S., and Lemieux, Thomas. 2010. “Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics.” Journal of Economic Literature 48 (2): 281355.Google Scholar
Lien, Pei-te. 2001. The Making of Asian America Through Political Participation. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Long, J. Scott, and Ervin, Laurie H.. 2000. “Using Heteroscedasticity Consistent Standard Errors in the Linear Regression Model.” The American Statistician 54 (3): 217–24.Google Scholar
Ludwig, Jens, and Miller, Douglas L.. 2007. “Does Head Start Improve Children's Life Chances? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 122 (1): 159208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCool, Daniel, Olson, Susan M., and Robinson, Jennifer Lynn. 2007. Native Vote: American Indians, the Voting Rights Act, and the Right to Vote. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Niemi, Richard G., and Herrnson, Paul S.. 2003. “Beyond the Butterfly: The Complexity of U.S. Ballots.” Perspectives on Politics 1 (2): 317–26.Google Scholar
Norby, Chris. 2006. “Multilingual Ballot Requirements Need Clarification.” Testimony before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution. May 4, 2006.Google Scholar
Ong, Paul M., and Nakanishi, Don T.. 2003. “Becoming Citizens, Becoming Voters: The Naturalization and Political Participation of Asian Pacific Immigrants.” In Asian American Politics, Law, Participation and Policy, eds. Nakanishi, Don T and Lai, James S.. Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield, 113–33.Google Scholar
Pandya, Chhandasi, McHugh, Margie, and Batalova, Jeanne. 2011. Limited English Proficient Individuals in the United States: Number, Share, Growth, and Linguistic Diversity. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute.Google Scholar
Papay, John P., Willett, John B., and Murnane, Richard J.. 2011. “Extending the Regression-Discontinuity Approach to Multiple Assignment Variables.” Journal of Econometrics 161 (2): 203–7.Google Scholar
Parkin, Michael, and Zlotnick, Frances. 2014. “The Voting Rights Act and Latino Voter Registration: Symbolic Assistance for English-Speaking Latinos.” Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 36 (1): 4863.Google Scholar
Persily, Nathaniel, and Mann, Thomas. 2013. Shelby County v. Holder and the Future of the Voting Rights Act. Washington, DC: Governance Studies at Brookings, The Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Pew Research Center. 2013. The Rise of Asian Americans. Washington, DC. http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2013/04/Asian-Americans-new-full-report-04-2013.pdf (Accessed May 4, 2015).Google Scholar
Ramírez, Ricardo. 2013. Mobilizing Opportunities: The Evolving Latino Electorate and the Future of American Politics. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press.Google Scholar
Riker, William H., and Ordeshook, Peter C.. 1968. “A Theory of the Calculus of Voting.” American Political Science Review 62 (1): 2542.Google Scholar
Schmidt, Ronald. 2000. Language Policy and Identity Politics in the United States. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Schochet, Peter Z. 2009. “Statistical Power for Regression Discontinuity Designs in Education Evaluation.” Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics 34 (2): 238–66.Google Scholar
Thistlethwaite, Donald L., and Campbell, Donald T.. 1960. “Regression-Discontinuity Analysis: An Alternative to the Ex Post Facto Experiment.” Journal of Educational Psychology 51 (6): 309–17.Google Scholar
Tucker, James Thomas. 2012. “The Census Bureau's 2011 Determinations of Coverage under Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act Mandating Bilingual Voting Assistance.” Asian American Law Journal 19 (7): 171–83.Google Scholar
Tucker, James Thomas, and Espino, Rodolfo. 2006. “Minority Language Assistance Practice in Public Elections: Executive Summary.” Arizona State University, March 7, 2006.Google Scholar
Tucker, James Thomas, and Espino, Rodolfo. 2007. “Government Effectiveness and Efficiency? The Minority Language Assistance Provisions of the VRA.” Texas Journal on Civil Liberties and Civil Rights 12 (2): 163232.Google Scholar
White, Halbert. 1980. “A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity.” Econometrica 48 (4): 817–38.Google Scholar
Wolfinger, Raymond E., and Rosenstone, Steven J.. 1980. Who Votes? New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Wong, Vivian C., Steiner, Peter M., and Cook, Thomas D.. 2013. “Analyzing Regression-Discontinuity Designs With Multiple Assignment Variables: A Comparative Study of Four Estimation Methods.” Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics 38 (2): 107–41.Google Scholar