Voting Trends Nate Scholten and Kerry Hofmeister 106 E. Main St. Spring Arbor, MI Telephone: E-mail: Nathan.Scholten@arbor.

edu

Introduction Obviously determining the topic for our final ArcGIS project was extremely tough. However, after much thought and discussion, we decided to closely tie our research/project to one related to social studies. With voting trends being the main focus, in this report we will investigate many different factors which contribute to voting results around the United States in congressional elections. Our main question or problem which led our research and investigation was What are some of the factors which directly relate to the outcome of congressional elections, and how does each factor affect political choices? The three factors we decided to analyze, partly because the ArcGIS program contained these statistics, were race (white, black, Hispanic, and Asian), gender (male and female), and median age. Every one of these factors was observed on a per county basis and the statistics were based on the year 2000. This was the most recent year all of the information we wanted to analyze was calculated in ArcGIS. When looking at data and trying to find a correlation, one must always remember that no matter how strongly correlated results may be, no exact answer can be found. We realized this when observing the many different factors concerning voting elections. In the end, we used our best judgment to analyze the data and make assumptions based on our findings. ArcGIS Component For looking at voting trends, we were able to use ArcGIS in a number of ways to analyze voting data while also creating maps and legends to convey the information effectively. To begin, we located the mgsidata folder and opened one of the preset maps, ex_4, in the map documents folder. The main reason we decided to use this folder was because it had both the 111th congress and the U.S. counties layers. This allowed us to not only create a map based on political parties, but also to look at the many factors which influence voting trends. For our first map, which would be the foundation for this project, we turned on the 111th congress layer. Next, by using the PARTY field, we created a unique values map which included both the Democratic and Republican parties. This map allows us to compare results with the factors of race, gender, and median age. To construct the maps based on factors, a longer process was needed. First, the 111th congress layer was turned off, and then the U.S. counties layer was turned on. In order to find the percentage of white/black/Hispanic/Asian individuals living in each county, a new field was

created for every race in the attribute table. Next, we used the field calculator on the empty fields to come up the percentage of each race in every county. The formula in the field calculator was as follows: [WHITE] / [POP2000] * 100. Obviously for each new field, we would substitute in a different race. In the end, we were able to come up with four varying race maps all based on population density per county in the United States. The same strategy was used to create the two maps based on gender, and the median age map was based on the field already present in the U.S. counties attribute table. For each map, a legend was made using ArcGIS, and was then copied and pasted into our presentation. Research One of the best things about looking at voting trends in the United States is that much of the information was actually located in the ArcGIS program. Statistics regarding race (white, black, Hispanic, and Asian), gender for both males and females, and median age were all in the Ex_4 map document, located in the U.S. Counties layer. This eliminated a lot of the time and effort which we would have had to do to find the data from other sources. However, although these factors were easy to locate, the ArcGIS program did limit how recent the information would be in our project. Both the minority factors and congressional election data were all based on the 2000 census data. While the numbers were accurate and provided understandable results, a more recent analysis could not be conducted. We did, on the other hand, find a decent amount of data from outside sources. One of these sources came from the U.S. Census website. It provided us with very useful information about the percentage of registered, non-registered, and the number of actual voters in the United States based on the four race factors of white, black, Hispanic, and Asian individuals. This chart can be found at the end of the paper. One article we implemented into our project discussed the voting behavior in America. An interesting quote we were able to find from this source stated, African Americans have firmly linked themselves to the Democratic Party...90% voted for Gore in 2000 (Trueman, 2000). As we discovered in our findings using the ArcGIS program to relate the data between congressional elections and the black race, this was exactly the case. The article also gave us much information on age, religion and education, much of which we had to ignore in order to have a more limited/specific amount of data to accurately and effectively analyze. The last source we were able to use was found on the American Past website. This page provided a number of different maps and videos projecting the various voting trends throughout our

country's long history. These images can also be found at the end of the paper. A very beneficial aspect of this project was being able to look at these images at one time, and compare/contrast the many correlations between all of the data. However, as we discovered, while there seemed to be some relationships between the factors and the actual voting results, much of our findings were inconclusive. Findings Through both the ArcGIS program and the outside data we were able to collect, we discovered many different details and outcomes in regards to congressional voting trends in the United States based on the year 2000 census. Obviously, when observing each factor of race, gender, and median age, different conclusions were made. The original map, which was our base map of the outcome of the congressional election according to the 2000 data, displayed a very evenly matched race between both the Democratic and Republican party. This was expected due to the popularity of these parties here in the United States and also because of the seemingly equal amount of supporters for each side which can still be observed today. Our first factor map, which took into account the percentage of white individuals in each county, showed little pattern. Whites vote both for the Democratic and Republican parties. However, this map did make apparent that the more heavily white populated counties tended to be in the northern states. Just as the map of white individuals showed where most of these people were located, so too did the map representing black individuals as most were located in the south. The more interesting data, as discovered in the article talked about in the previous section, made a correlation between blacks and the Democratic party. Fortunately, when looking at results throughout history, this has almost always been the case. Also, from data found in other sources outside of ArcGIS, blacks tend to have a much lower voter turnout rate, which could also affect voting trends in different areas throughout the country. It was incredibly obvious that the map with the highest correlation was the one which focused on the population of Hispanics per county. Not only were most of these regions located near the southern border of the United States, but these areas were incredibly Democratic when observing the voting results. Again, this makes sense due to the Democratic party's tendency to be more open to immigration. Finally, it is in our last racial factor map where we were again able to see little correlation. Due to the low amount of counties with a majority percentage of Asians, no real conclusive assumptions could be made. However, we did notice that most Asian

individuals were resided around large cities like Seattle, New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco and Dallas. The gender maps offer a very limited amount of conclusive evidence just as the race maps showing both white and Asian populations. As expected throughout the country, there is a pretty close number of male and female individuals. The biggest gap between the percentage of males and females hovered around three percent. Some of the areas which were in fact male heavy (Western states), seemed to show a seemingly even split between Democrats and Republicans. We experienced the same split results with the female data as was observed in the male data. The female heavy areas were not as skewed as compared to other factors like race. Overall, it was interesting to see that both males and females are almost evenly split between the two major parties now present in the United States political system. Median age was the last factor we analyzed and this data was found directly in the ArcGIS program. Fortunately, we were able to discover a decent amount of correlation between this factor and the voting trends of the 2000 congressional election information. This map communicated that as Americans grow in age, they tend to vote slightly more Republican. Overall, it became apparent that the northern section of the country was slightly older than the southern area of the country. However, Florida was the only exception which makes sense due to its high number of retired individuals. Our theory regarding this outlier, is that it takes money to move and retire. The upper middle class seems to lean more to Republican beliefs which would obviously impact voting results in this state. Conclusion At the conclusion of this project, after compiling and analyzing all of the data collected, we were able to conjure up a number of different assumptions. While there were indeed some factors which greatly correlated to the voting results in our original map (racial data on blacks and Hispanics, median age), most of the data did not express any conclusive evidence. It is obvious that the United States was and is currently split between Democratic and Republican parties. Furthermore, while just our project focused on factors such as race, gender, and median age, there are a extremely large number of other factors which affect voting decisions in this country. Our study is just one piece of the complex puzzle which represents the political trends that have been a part of the United States since its founding While not completely conclusive, the evidence was helpful in allowing us to understand the population density of different individuals,

and how each party should act in an attempt to gain the most votes in congressional elections. Graphs, Charts, and Other Images

References Trueman, C. (2000). History learning site. Retrieved from http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/voting_behaviour_in_america.htm University of Richmond. (2010). Voting america. [Web Video]. Retrieved from http://www.americanpast.org/voting/congressional_elections.html United States Census Bureau. (2012). Voting and registration: Historical time series tables. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/socdemo/voting/publications Price, Maribeth. Mastering ArcGIS. McGraw-Hill College, 2011.