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Racial Disparities in Voting Wait Times: Evidence from Smartphone Data

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  • M. Keith Chen
  • Kareem Haggag
  • Devin G. Pope
  • Ryne Rohla

Abstract

Equal access to voting is a core feature of democratic government. Using data from hundreds of thousands of smartphone users, we quantify a racial disparity in voting wait times across a nationwide sample of polling places during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Relative to entirely-white neighborhoods, residents of entirely-black neighborhoods waited 29% longer to vote and were 74% more likely to spend more than 30 minutes at their polling place. This disparity holds when comparing predominantly white and black polling places within the same states and counties, and survives numerous robustness and placebo tests. We shed light on the mechanism for these results and discuss how geospatial data can be an effective tool to both measure and monitor these disparities going forward.

Suggested Citation

  • M. Keith Chen & Kareem Haggag & Devin G. Pope & Ryne Rohla, 2019. "Racial Disparities in Voting Wait Times: Evidence from Smartphone Data," NBER Working Papers 26487, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26487
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    4. Annan-Phan, Sébastien & Ba, Bocar A., 2024. "JUE Insight: Hot temperatures, aggression, and death at the hands of the police: Evidence from the U.S," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
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    7. Kyle Raze, 2022. "Voting rights and the resilience of Black turnout," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(3), pages 1127-1141, July.
    8. Pradhi Aggarwal & Alec Brandon & Ariel Goldszmidt & Justin Holz & John List & Ian Muir & Gregory Sun & Thomas Yu, 2022. "High-frequency location data shows that race affects the likelihood of being stopped and fined for speeding," Natural Field Experiments 00764, The Field Experiments Website.
    9. Bloem, Michael D. & Holbein, John B. & Imlay, Samuel J. & Smith, Jonathan, 2025. "Voting Among Siblings," IZA Discussion Papers 17962, IZA Network @ LISER.
    10. Susan Athey & Billy A. Ferguson & Matthew Gentzkow & Tobias Schmidt, 2020. "Experienced Segregation," NBER Working Papers 27572, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Jacob M. Grumbach & Charlotte Hill, 2023. "Which States Adopt Election-Subversion Policies?," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 708(1), pages 243-256, July.
    12. Bindal, Shradha & Joseph, Kissan & Meschke, Felix, 2025. "Corporate shutdowns in the time of Covid-19," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    13. Theresa Kuchler & Johannes Stroebel, 2022. "Social Interactions, Resilience, and Access to Economic Opportunity: A Research Agenda for the Field of Computational Social Science," CESifo Working Paper Series 9606, CESifo.
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    15. Milena Almagro & Joshua Coven & Arpit Gupta & Angelo Orane-Hutchinson, 2020. "Racial Disparities in Frontline Workers and Housing Crowding during COVID-19: Evidence from Geolocation Data," Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute Working Papers 37, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    16. Painter, Marcus & Qiu, Tian, 2021. "Political beliefs affect compliance with government mandates," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 688-701.
    17. Li, Teng & Barwick, Panle Jia & Deng, Yongheng & Huang, Xinfei & Li, Shanjun, 2023. "The COVID-19 pandemic and unemployment: Evidence from mobile phone data from China," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    18. John (Jianqiu) Bai & Shuili Du & Wang Jin & Chi Wan, 2023. "Is social capital associated with individual social responsibility? The case of social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 64(4), pages 1861-1896, April.
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    20. Holt, Stephen B & Vinopal, Katie M., 2021. "It's About Time: Examining Inequality in the Time Cost of Waiting," SocArXiv jbk3x, Center for Open Science.
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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