Study: Millions of 'unlisted' Americans would vote Democratic

When it comes to deciding elections, at least 11 percent of American citizens are practically invisible.

That’s according to a new Stanford University study posted online this week, which found that the absence of unregistered and unlisted people from the electoral process leads to an older, less diverse electorate more likely to vote for Republicans.


“The political implications of being listed, of contact and turnout are unambiguous. If more of the unlisted and unregistered people voted, elections would more strongly favor the Democratic party,” wrote study co-authors Simon Jackson, a political science professor and Bradley Spahn, a graduate student.

Using data from the 2012 American National Election Study, the researchers defined four categories of people as: those who voted in the 2012 presidential election, registered voters who did not vote in 2012, unregistered people who appear in consumer research files and people who are neither registered nor appear on any consumer file databases. As the researchers point out, the ANES data include addresses and information of people who are not registered or in databases.

Unlisted people tend to skew younger, more Democratic, more liberal, and are less likely to be affluent and less likely to be white, the study found. Since they are unlisted, pollsters and campaigns are unable to find these people.

Just 8 percent of unlisted citizens are white, compared with 71 percent of 2012 voters, while approximately one in five are black or Hispanic, compared with 58 percent and 47 percent of 2012 voters, respectively.

The median age of someone who is unlisted is 30 years old, but the median age of someone who voted in 2012 is 50.

As voter registration is tied to address, the study found that being registered alone has a positive impact on political participation, outweighing income and related factors, because as they illustrate, there is a greater likelihood of a 2008 voter being contacted by a 2012 campaign.

While 34 percent of 2012 voters identified as Democratic, 39 percent of the unlisted identified as such. Compared with 28 percent of 2012 Republican voters, only 14 percent of unlisted people identified with the GOP. Independents have a plurality in both 2012 voters and unlisted people, with 31 percent and 37 percent, respectively.

Of the unlisted respondents to the 2012 ASNE, 73 percent to 27 percent said they supported President Barack Obama over Republican challenger Mitt Romney, compared with the much closer 52 percent to 48 percent outcome.

This article tagged under: Voting