Who Overreports Voting?

Abstract

The effects of respondent characteristics with regard to the propensity of nonvoters to report that they voted are examined by analyzing the vote validation studies conducted by the University of Michigan Survey Research Center in 1964, 1976, and 1980. Previous research has suggested that vote overreporting derives from the respondent's wish to appear to engage in socially desirable behavior. This earlier research suggests that the only respondent characteristic that is strongly related to overreporting is race; measures of socioeconomic status and of general political attitudes are said to be at most weakly related to the tendency to exaggerate voting. These earlier conclusions are incorrect. We measure the extent of overreporting for the population “at risk” of overreporting voting: those who did not actually vote. Respondents most inclined to overreport their voting are those who are highly educated, those most supportive of the regime norm of voting, and those to whom the norm of voting is most salient—the same characteristics that are related to the probability that a person actually votes. Blacks are only slightly more likely to overreport voting than whites. The pattern of relations between education and vote overreporting is opposite what would be found if those who falsely reported voting fit the typical image of the uneducated, uninvolved, “acquiescent” respondent who is concerned primarily with pleasing the interviewer.