Homework: Joining Voters to Their Histories

For this assignment, you will download the ncvoterXX.txt files for the N.C. counties to which you’ve been assigned.

You will also need to find and download the election returns for your counties, which are in different locations depending on the year:

  • ftp://alt.ncsbe.gov/ENRS/
  • ftp://alt.ncsbe.gov/ENRS/ElectResults_Pre_2007/
  • https://enr.ncsbe.gov/downloads.aspx?election_dt=11/04/2014
  • https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/NC/Alamance/42927/113903/Web01/en/summary.html#

Next, answer the following questions:

  1. In the 2012 presidential election, which counties had more votes for Obama than registered Democratic voters?
  2. From 2008-2012, which precincts saw the biggest drops in the number of Democratic voters?
  3. From 2008-2012, in which precincts did Obama see the biggest drop in percentage of votes?
  4. What are the names of the precincts, if any, in which a plurality of voters are “18-25” and in which Romney won a plurality of the votes?
  5. Were there any counties in 2012 in which both Obama and McCrory won? What are the distributions of age, race, gender and party identification in those counties?
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