Nathan Caplan
Abstract:
In New York City, voter disenfranchisement is a very real issue for NYCHA residents. Not only do they encounter the struggles all voters feel, such as commuting to poll sites, but also experience unique set backs. Just as recently as this past primary election, it was reported that residents had to be present for lead paint inspections on election day. I intend to look at a potential barriers that may influence whether NYCHA residents are less inclined to vote, such as living in subsidized housing and distance to polling sites. This will be done by looking at voter turnout data, NYCHA housing locations, and polling sites locations across NYC. Data processing required calculating the distance to the nearest poll site, separating election districts with and without NYCHA housing, and cleaning said datasets. Statistical analyses included comparison of means, distributions and creating a simple OLS model to describe the variance between distance to poll sites and turnout for election districts with NYCHA housing. Evidently, there is no relationship between them, though the distributions do not appear to come from the same parent distribution, though they do. It becomes clear the distances to poll sites are relatively small that turnout is more likely affected by other variables than distance.
Introduction:
Voting is one of the easiest ways one can be engaged in civic procedure. It happens about twice a year for most, so there is not that great of a commitment needed. And yet, turnout tends to be consistently low across the United States. One particular reason is distance from the poll sites (Dyck & Gimple, 2005). In 2018, an entire Kansas town did not have a single poll site, and voters had to go to great lengths (in effort and distance) to vote in the next town over(Fox4KC, 2018). This can be the same for NYC residents. In the fast paced city and limited voting times, it may be difficult to find time and go to your precinct to vote, especially if one’s precinct is further than wished. One population that may be even more so affected by this distance metric are New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) residents. There was an article released after the 2018 primary election where it was reported that NYCHA residents were required to be present for lead inspections, causing some residents to miss their opportunity to vote (Roberts, 2018). Between working and dealing with bureaucratic efforts on election day, a far polling site may persuade one to not vote. The goal of this experiment to find and analyze average turnout among districts with and without NYCHA housing lots present, and whether distance to the nearest polling site has an effect on turnout.
This hyperlink will show the IPYNB where I collected, cleaned and processed data as well as performed statistical analyses.