“Racial and ethnic proportions of early in-person voters in Cuyahoga County, General Election 2008, and implications for 2012”

NE Ohio Voter Advocates has issued this report.  Here is the summary:

 Data from the Cuyahoga BOE giving addresses and voting times  of all voters in the 2008 General Election were used to reconstruct racial voting patterns amongst early in-person (EIP) voters vs. those who voted by mail or on election day (non-EIP) voters.  It was assumed that voting by race or Hispanic ethnicity in any census block was in proportion to the percentage of African Americans or Hispanics in that block

The likelihood that an EIP voter was black was 56.4%, while the probability that an election day or vote-by-mail voter was black was 25.7%. White voters showed the reverse pattern, comprising 40.0% of EIP voters and 69.4% of non-EIP voters.  The likelihood of those voting in 2008 during different EIP time periods to be African American were similar: 59% during the 3-days (+Friday after 6 pm) period just before election day, eliminated by state law; 56% during regular EIP business hours and also during the 4 weekends prior to the last; and 54% during after-hours.  An estimated 15.6% of all votes cast by African Americans were EIP vs. 4.5% of all votes cast by whites.

Mapping of EIP early voting showed a clear visual correlation with the geographic distribution of African-Americans. The proportion of Hispanic voters was only slightly different between EIP and non-EIP voters.  Finally a correlation analysis at the block level showed that the apparent African American predominance during EIP was not due to some special factor prevailing on weekends or after-hours, because there was also high participation by African-Americans during regular business hours. Nearly half of the hours and days of EIP  in which African Americans were a majority may be cut in 2012. We conclude that in Cuyahoga County, and quite probably in other counties with substantial black populations, elimination of ANY EIP voting period clearly disproportionately affects African Americans in an election similar to 2008.

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