Racing to the polls: The voter demographics of New Haven, CT

Abstract:

The political landscape, at both the national and local levels, has experienced a resurgence of citizen participation. Rather, the desire to participate and be represented has been rekindled, fueled by the growing inequality of the nation; an inequality so great that it is impossible to ignore. However, barriers to achieve a truly inclusive democracy are quietly and consistently being constructed. While New Haven does not engage in such explicitly unequal practices, it remains that inequality is inarguably present. This was most prevalent during the mayoral candidate campaigns leading up to the last mayoral election in 2019. In the face of the 2021 municipal election – another mayoral election – this research examines if there are any relationships between race, income, and voter registration that exist at this scale. To do so, the 2020 Official Check List from the New Haven Registrar’s Office and the income and racial data acquired from the 2019 American Community Survey and 2020 decennial census, respectively, are added to ArcGIS software for spatial analysis. Preliminary results show a clear relationship between income and race, and a weaker, but still positive, relationship between the number of registered voters and either income or race. Because of the complexity around how race is categorized and calculated on the census, as well as the further generalization of this research, further statistical analysis as well as a deeper investigation is encouraged.

Keywords: registered voters, voter eligibility, race, income, census, New Haven, GIS

Authors: