Scholars protest limits on access to polling data
They say major research is being delayed by lack of information
Associated Press    23 October 2004

LANSING, MICH. - After nearly 50,000 Michigan Democrats cast ballots over the Internet in February, academics eagerly sought election data that would help them determine what types of people voted online.

But scholars around the country complain that they haven't been able to get statistics from the Feb. 7 caucus.

The delay could stall important research, they say, on voting technologies and on boosting participation in U.S. elections.

Researchers and civil rights experts say Michigan's Democratic Party is merely one of a number of organizations that are stingy with voting data — even though computerized balloting systems and registration databases make such information relatively easy to share.

Data not sufficient
"The quantity and quality of data we get on elections is highly variable and highly inconsistent, and it makes it very difficult for us as social scientists to study what happened," said R. Michael Alvarez, a political science professor at the California Institute of Technology. "It also makes it difficult for the public to have confidence in the integrity of the numbers."

The dearth of data has thwarted independent analyses of issues ranging from disenfranchisement by ZIP code to whether the layout of a ballot influences the way people vote, academics say.

Some registrars are quick to send CD-ROMs, spreadsheet files and other data to universities, they say, while others won't return researchers' phone calls.

Organizations that retain voting data — counties, states, political parties and the companies that build the hardware and software for voting machines — say they're not trying to stymie academics or keep the public in the dark. They say they're simply so overrun with requests that they can't keep up.

Older voters a surprise

Michigan Democratic Party Executive Chairman Mark Brewer says he's eager to have someone analyze the February caucus, the country's biggest experiment to date with online voting.

A preliminary report of the five-week voting period showed more older voters than expected. Web-based ballots also seemed to help Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry more than Howard Dean, who was initially expected to get more Internet votes because his supporters tended to be young, well-educated and cyber-savvy.

But as the head of a major political party dealing with a presidential election in a battleground state, Brewer says he simply hasn't had time to organize the data for academics. The party, which ran the caucuses and paid for them, owns the information.

"No one's trying to hide anything," Brewer said at his state party headquarters. "We want it studied. And the DNC (Democratic National Committee) wants it studied, too. ... The data's not going away."

The delay aggravates Michael Traugott, professor of political science at the University of Michigan, who says he tried to approach Brewer about a larger research project involving the data even before the caucuses were held but couldn't get Brewer to call back.

"They've been promising this data for a long time, and they haven't produced it," said Traugott, who has a grant from the National Science Foundation to study election administration reform and the impact of new voter technology.

Agency to fund research

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission, a federal agency created to oversee election reform nationwide, acknowledges that a lack of data is one of the biggest obstacles to making U.S. elections more accurate and efficient.

The EAC has announced plans to spend at least $5 million on basic voting research from the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, compiled by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.