This quantitative research initiative provides detailed surname and age voter registration and voter turnout data tables on an Excel spreadsheet for Harris County November Elections from 2010 to 2020. The idea behind the tables is to gage voter participation by surname and age group for municipal, midterms and presidential elections in the last decade.
The range of elections provided (2010 -2020) make sure three midterm elections and three presidential elections are included. The odd number year elections are also included. The idea behind including all these elections is to get an understanding of how voter participation fluctuates among age groups and how voter participation among ages groups impact election outcomes.
In Harris County, in the 2010 and 2014 elections, Republican Party affiliated candidates won all contests for countywide public offIces on the ballot. In the 2012, 2016, 2018 and 2020 Elections, Democratic Party affiliated candidates won all contests for countywide public offices on the ballot.
Preliminary findings indicate that the difference in the voter turnout percentages for each age group on the provided tables are more severe when comparing odd numbered year elections with presidential elections. When viewing odd-numbered year elections alone, midterm even-numbered year elections alone or presidential even-numbered year elections alone, the voter turnout differences from year to year are more gradual. However, the numbers within the numbers which show a voter turnout disparity between age groups in the same election suggest that the issue of voter participation in a post Jim Crow era cannot be easily explained by voter suppression and voter fraud tropes promulgated in the public domain by political partisans. For example, age group voter participation data shows that turnout for 18-year olds has been as low as two-percent (2017) and as high as seventy-six percent (2020).
Only by conducting this type of research can one fully obtain an understanding of voter participation and answer this question: if the voting infrastructures available to citizens is the same, why is the level of participation for one age group higher in a presidential election than in any another election?
NOTE: The voter turnout for Harris County is always slightly higher on the official cumulative report posted on Election Office website than the actual voter turnout. Why? To meet state and federal laws that require the mailing of postal ballots to military and overseas voters 45 days before Election Day, the voting system for an election is tested and setup when the ballot is completed, about four weeks before the deadline to registered to vote for an election. So the County’s tally system calculates voter turnout using the number of registered voters on the voter roll approximately 55 days before Election Day.
The estimated voter turnout percentages that appear on the provided tables in this analysis are based on the actual number of eligible registered voters for each election.
Methodology:
1. For each November election, the voter registration data by BIRTHYEAR was extracted from Harris County’s official voter registration lists using ACCESS. For election years, the Excel pivot table tool was used to sort and sum the totals.
2. For each November election, voting data by BIRTHYEAR from Harris County’s official voter lists was extracted for each election using ACCESS. For election years, the Excel pivot table tool was used to sort and sum the totals.
3. Once, the voter registration and voting data by BIRTHYEAR were completed, the Excel subtraction formula was used to group data for each election by AGE (=BIRTHYEAR − Election Year). For election years, the Excel pivot table tool was used to sort and sum the totals.
The Excel =VLOOKUP formula was use to match age group totals for each election year.
By following these steps, voter registration totals by age group and voting totals by age group for each November election were created. Once the these tables were created, the percentage tables were created for each election year using the Excel division formula.
Questions about this presentation can be addressed to hectordeleon@hectordeleon.com.
The author is available for appearances for gatherings of any size.
-hdl
