TEAM
Predicting Voter Turnout Using Polling Site Accessibility
Katie Betancourt, Brian Hepler, Avram Steiner, Davis Stagliano, Charles Kimball
This project aims to investigate whether polling site accessibility influences voter turnout. Specifically, it seeks to determine if voters in areas with less accessible polling stations—identified through "holes" in resource coverage using persistent homology—are less likely to vote.
The study will leverage data from multiple sources:
Polling site accessibility data from a "Persistent Homology for Resource Coverage" case study and Google Maps API,
Voter turnout data from the MIT Election Data Science Lab and Harvard Dataverse, and
Demographic data from the American Community Survey and state voter registration files to estimate the voter eligible population (VEP).
The project aims to uncover potential correlations between accessibility issues and lower voter turnout, providing insights that could help address disparities in civic engagement and ensure fairer access to voting.