Robert Santos

Voting and ID Requirements: A Survey of Registered Voters in Three States

Since the 2000 election, one of the most contentious issues in election administration has been voter identification requirements. This article provides the results of a survey of registered voters in Indiana, Maryland, and Mississippi, which aimed to explore the extent to which ID requirements pose a problem (if any) to registered voters. The survey found that only 1.2% of registered voters in all three states lack a photo ID and in Indiana, which has the most stringent requirements, only 0.3% lacked an ID. The survey also found that more than two-thirds of respondents believe the U.S. electoral system would be trusted more if voters were required to show a photo ID. The article concludes with a proposal on how to construct an ID system that will assure ballot integrity while attracting new and more voters.

Discrimination Against Families with Children in Rental Housing Markets: Findings of the Pilot Study

This pilot study adapted a well-established paired-testing methodology to examine discrimination against families with children in the rental housing market, developed preliminary estimates of this form of discrimination, and explored what family or housing characteristics might affect it. Data were collected via telephone and in-person paired tests in three metropolitan sites: Dallas, Texas; Dayton, Ohio; and Los Angeles, California. The pilot study relied on a multifactor design using data from 612 matched pairs of rental applicants. Key findings are that homeseekers with or without children are equally likely to get an appointment with a rental agent and learn about at least one available housing unit. Compared with their childless counterparts, prospective renters with children were shown slightly fewer units and were told about units that were slightly larger, and, as a result, were slightly more expensive to rent. Other outcomes did not vary by the presence of a child. Differential treatment was greater in tests targeting one-bedroom units (versus larger units) and tests involving two-child families (versus one-child families). Other factors, including race/ethnicity and marital status of the tester and ages and sexes of the children, did not appear to affect systematically how families with children were treated in the rental housing market.

Future Directions for Research on Discrimination Against Families with Children in Rental Housing Markets

The essay Future Directions for Research argues that the results of the HDS-Families pilot study — and those of the most recent national paired-testing study of discrimination against minority homeseekers — suggest that protected classes of homeseekers are no longer blatantly denied access to available housing. Many fair housing advocates and practitioners suggest that discrimination today may take different forms or may occur at different stages in the homeseeking process. If so, effectively measuring the incidence of discrimination in 21st century housing markets may require alternative research strategies. This essay discusses possible adaptations to paired-testing study design; an analysis of local occupancy standards and how they are applied by housing providers; exploratory analyses of discrimination at later stages of renting; interviews of housing providers to understand their knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and a large-scale survey of renters.

Comparing Lay Community and Academic Survey Center Interviewers in Conducting Household Interviews in Latino Communities

Background: The employment of professional interviewers from academic survey centers to conduct surveys has been standard practice. Because one goal of community-engaged research is to provide professional skills to community residents, this paper considers whether employing locally trained lay interviewers from within the community may be as effective as employing interviewers from an academic survey center with regard to unit and item nonresponse rates and cost. Methods: To study a nutrition-focused intervention, 1035 in-person household interviews were conducted in East Los Angeles and Boyle Heights, 503 of which were completed by lay community interviewers. A chi-square test was used to assess differences in unit nonresponse rates between professional and community interviewers and Welch’s t tests were used to assess differences in item nonresponse rates. A cost comparison analysis between the two interviewer groups was also conducted. Results: Interviewers from the academic survey center had lower unit nonresponse rates than the lay community interviewers (16.2% vs. 23.3%; p < 0.01). However, the item nonresponse rates were lower for the community interviewers than the professional interviewers (1.4% vs. 3.3%; p < 0.01). Community interviewers cost approximately

US Children with Parents in Deportation Proceedings

415.38 per survey whereas professional interviewers cost approximately

Facing Our Future: Children in the Aftermath of Immigration Enforcement.

537.29 per survey. Conclusions: With a lower cost per completed survey and lower item nonresponse rates, lay community interviewers are a viable alternative to professional interviewers for fieldwork in community-based research. Additional research is needed to assess other important aspects of data quality interviewer such as interviewer effects and response error.

Longitudinal Research on Aging Drivers (LongROAD): study design and methods

While policy makers and researchers generally focus on the effects of deportation on crime rates and deportees, the effects of parental deportation and detention on children are often overlooked. This chapter seeks to fill this gap, finding that parental arrest often leads to loss of earnings, dependence on public assistance and charity, and increased family hardship. In addition, the resulting separation results in significant trauma and stress for both children and parents. Using in-depth interviews conducted over 2 years, the authors were able to track children and parents during the immediate and longer-term aftermath of a workplace raid or other parental arrest. They found that detained migrant parents reported increased stress, anxiety, and mental health challenges, as well as increased physical health challenges. Parents also reported that a majority of children in the study exhibited important behavioral changes. It is clear that current US immigration policies have substantial consequences for families with children, which will require large-scale policy changes in order to ameliorate these effects on immigrant children, many of who are US citizens.