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Feral
Post subject: On Election Day, Gays and Lesbians show up  PostPosted: Aug 09, 2007 - 06:45 AM



Joined: Sep 06, 2006
Posts: 1754

On Election Day, Gays and Lesbians show up

Quote:
Don Frederick, who writes at the LA Times blog, Top of the Ticket, reports on a new study that shows gay and lesbians vote in huge numbers -- in much higher percentages than the rest of the population. Again, pretty interesting information coming out the day before the Presidential forum:
...
Quote:
The study this spring by San Francisco-based Community Marketing Inc. found that an eye-popping 92.5% of gay men reported that they voted in the 2004 presidential race, and almost 84% said they cast ballots in the 2006 midterm election. Among lesbians, the results were almost as impressive; nearly 91% said they voted in 2004; for the midterm, the figure was 78%.

By comparison, the Washington-based Committee for the Study of the American Electorate put the turnout for all Americans eligible to vote at about 61% in 2004 and roughly 40% in 2006.

...
These are some very impressive numbers. It shows that our community pays attention and takes their responsibility to participate in the electoral process seriously.


The numbers are nice, I will agree. They do not, however, show that our community pays attention (or anything else in that sentence). These things may or may not be true. What the numbers show is that 92.5% of the Gays asked said they voted in the 2004 election and nearly 91% of Lesbians asked said they voted in the 2004 election. What people say they did and what they did are quite different things. I seem to recall a survey once -- the question was along the lines of "what were you doing the day Kennedy was shot?" Some of the people responding to the survey related activities that were clearly fabrications since the respondents had not yet been born on that particular day.

Still, I'm inclined to accept the figures as reasonably representative of voting patterns. The Gay and Lesbian electorate is estimated to be roughly 7.4% of the vote. Before the Democrats get too over-wrought, keep in mind that around 25% of Gays responding to exit-pollsters say they voted for Republicans. But hey -- 6.75 million votes is 6.75 million votes.

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berto
Post subject: RE: On Election Day, Gays and Lesbians show up  PostPosted: Aug 09, 2007 - 04:07 PM



Joined: Sep 06, 2006
Posts: 1195
Location: Valhalla Mountains, British Columbia, Canada
Quote:
"As a political scientist, the gay turnout story infuriates me, because it ignores everything we know about how people over-report their turnout behavior. In the American National Election Study (the highest quality election survey done in America), over 70% turnout is reported. Considering that Community Marketing is a no-name polling outfit which may have low response rates (and hence nonrandom selection), and that a survey targeting gay respondents has political undertones, it is not surprising that such a high (inflated) turnout rate was gotten. The miniscule margin of error is irrelevant—the survey is subject to much greater errors beyond sampling error including social desirability bias, non-response bias, etc. Based on these concerns, I really doubt that gays turnout at a higher lever than non-gays.


*click*

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Feral
Post subject: RE: On Election Day, Gays and Lesbians show up  PostPosted: Aug 10, 2007 - 06:48 AM



Joined: Sep 06, 2006
Posts: 1754

Quote:
it ignores everything we know about how people over-report their turnout behavior.


*snerk*

Isn't that rather what I said?

Quote:
the survey is subject to much greater errors beyond sampling error including social desirability bias, non-response bias, etc. Based on these concerns, I really doubt that gays turnout at a higher lever than non-gays.


Tut, tut, now... it is customary to point out real, live errors when rejecting a survey on the basis of it's errors. Here I think the author has simply decided that gays couldn't possibly differ from non-gays in any meaningful way. Alas... at least one survey clearly shows that they say that they voted at nearly twice the rate that non-gays say they voted. I think that if one were to go burrowing for data on this subject, one would find more than a few additional inquiries into the voting habits of Gays and Lesbians over the years. Common wisdom is that they do, indeed, have a penchant for voting.

I will concur with the author that it is not reasonable to presume that this particular survey is definitive, or to draw any strongly-held conclusions from it.

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