A Ballot-Level Study of Intentional and Unintentional Abstention in Presidential Election Voting

一次选举的残票率是指投票中不包含有效选票的部分，在当代关于未计数选票、选民被剥夺选举权和选举改革的文献中，残票率被认为是衡量选举管理的晴雨表。然而，残差投票率的一个限制是，它们聚集了许多类型的无效投票。选民错误、投票机问题和故意弃权都会产生残票，这些残票在观察上对选举总体残票率的影响是相同的。这是有问题的，因为研究技术相关残差投票的研究人员和那些关注少数族裔选民被剥夺选举权的研究人员更关心无意残差投票，而不是有意残差投票，即故意弃权。该项目将剩余投票率分解为无意率和有意率。这需要生成一组选票图像并对其进行编码。将没有总统选举但包括所有其他竞争对手的有效选票的大选选票与试图选举包括总统在内的所有职位的选票进行对比。前一张选票可能包含有意的总统残差票，而后者可能包含无意的残差票。区分这些非选票，即区分由选民错误、技术和弃权引起的剩余选票，需要选票图像。由于佛罗里达州在2000年大选后进行了重新计票，佛罗里达州档案馆现在保存着该州在这次竞选期间的所有选票。美国各地没有可比的选票档案。佛罗里达州档案中的选票由按选区分类的纸张组成，选票没有任何编码。因此，该研究项目的第一步是制作佛罗里达州一组具有代表性的县的选票的电子图像，然后对图像进行编码。对于这样考虑的每个国家，将对其所有具有无效总统选票的选票以及随机选择的一组具有有效总统选票的选票进行图像处理。该项目的第二步是应用病例控制统计技术来估计有意残票率、无意残票率和与技术限制相关的残票率。该项目最后在一个网站上公布选票图像和相关编码，以使研究选举改革、投票违规和选举参与的学者受益。这将产生前所未有的关于未计数选票的资源，这也将引起研究劈票现象的研究人员的兴趣。劈票现象发生在个人在同一次选举中投票给一个政党的总统候选人和另一个政党的国会候选人时。选票分割率是不可观察的，只能用选票图像可靠地估计。选举影响社会群体在政府中代表其利益的程度，但残差率高的群体比残差率低的群体获得的代表权少。这引起了民权学者的关注，因为有令人信服的证据表明，少数族裔选民的剩余投票率相对于白人选民高。更多地了解残票的来源，以及残票一般是无意的还是有意的，将有助于学者和选举改革实践者确保社会上所有群体都能从选举中得到良好的服务。最后，该项目说明了选票级别分析的重要性，并可能鼓励在佛罗里达州之外创建选票档案。这些档案可以极大地提高对剩余选票的学术理解，因此，该项目表明，将选票提供给研究将如何加强美国选举的合法性。

An election's residual vote rate is the fraction of ballots cast in it that do not contain valid votes, and within contemporary literatures on uncounted votes, voter disfranchisement, and electoral reform residual vote rates are considered the barometer by which election administration is measured. Nonetheless, a limitation of residual vote rates is that they aggregate many types of invalid votes. Voter errors, voting machine problems, and intentional abstention all produce residual votes that are observationally equivalent insofar as affecting an election's overall residual vote rate. This is problematic as researchers studying technology-related residual votes and those focusing on minority voter disfranchisement care more about unintentional residual votes than they do about intentional residual votes, i.e., deliberate abstention.The project disaggregates residual vote rates into, among other rates, unintentional and intentional rates. This requires generating and coding a set of ballot images. Contrast a general election ballot that has no vote for president yet includes valid votes in all other contested races with a ballot that has attempted votes for all offices including president. The former ballot presumably contains an intentional presidential residual vote while the latter, an unintentional residual vote. Distinguishing between these nonvotes-that is, distinguishing between residual votes caused by voter error, technology, and abstention-requires ballot images. On account of the recount that took place in Florida following the 2000 general election, the Florida State Archive now houses all the ballots cast in the state during this contest. Across the United States there are no comparable ballot archives. The ballots in the Florida archive consist of sheets of paper sorted by precinct, and the ballots are not coded in any sense. Thus, the first step of the research project is making electronic images of the ballots from a set of representative Florida counties and then coding the images. For each county so considered images will be made of all its ballots that have invalid presidential votes and also of a randomly selected set of ballots that have valid presidential votes. The second step of the project is applying case control statistical techniques to estimate intentional residual vote rates, unintentional residual votes, and residual vote rates associated with technology limitations.The project concludes by publishing its ballot images and associated codings on an Internet site so as to benefit scholars of election reform, voting irregularities, and electoral participation. This will generate an unprecedented resource on uncounted votes that will also be of interest to researchers who study ticket splitting-a phenomenon that occurs when individuals vote for a presidential candidate of one party and a Congressional candidate of another in the same election. Ticket splitting rates are unobservable and can only be estimated reliably with ballot images. Elections influence the extent to which groups in society have their interests represented in government, yet groups with high residual vote rates receive less representation than groups with low rates. This is a concern for civil rights scholars as there is compelling evidence that minority voters have high residual vote rates relative to white voters. Knowing more about the origins of residual votes and whether they are in general unintentional or intentional will help academics and election reform practitioners ensure that all groups in society are well-served by elections. Finally, the project illustrates the importance of ballot-level analyses and may encourage the creation of ballot archives beyond Florida's. Such archives can vastly improve the scholarly understanding of residual votes, and as such the project shows how making ballots accessible for research will strengthen the legitimacy afforded to American elections.