Battle over numbers

Minnesota is expecting a record turnout in today’s presidential election.

But the calculation that political scientists use to determine the numberof eligible voters in the state is in dispute. That means that the percentage of voters who turn out in Minnesota could be higher or lower based on the methodology that the secretary of state’s office uses to determine the number of eligible voters.

On Oct. 31, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said in a press release that there are 3,741,514 eligible voters in Minnesota. He’s hoping 80 percent of those Minnesotans turn out at the polls. His office says the methodology that was used to determine the number of eligible voters is sound.

But Curtis Gans, the director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University in Washington, D.C., thinks the state’s eligibility number is too low. Gans puts Minnesota’s eligible voters at 3,824,000.

The state is using a method to gauge voter turnout established by Michael McDonald of George Mason University.

With the voter eligibility number used by the secretary of state’s office, 2,993,211 Minnesotans need to vote in order to achieve 80 percent turnout.

Achieving 80 percent using Gans’ methodology would require 3,059,200 voters.

Gans, who supplies his voter estimates to the secretary of state, said he determined voter eligibility based on the U.S. Census Bureau’s population figures among people age 18 and older minus non-citizens.

McDonald omits convicted felons and leaves in Minnesotans living outside the U.S., people who became naturalized citizens this year and factors in the undercount. He said that method obscures the turnout.

"It promotes a higher turnout than what is already there," Gans said.

Kate Mohn, Ritchie’s executive assistant, said she spent several weeks this spring studying both Gans’ and McDonald’s methods for determining voter turnout.

She said McDonald’s method provides a fresher picture of the population. McDonald’s approach uses monthly numbers put out by the Census Bureau.

Gans uses the rate of growth from one decennial census to the next, she said. It then extrapolates a rate of growth for the current year.

She also said McDonald’s number adequately handles the difference between overseas voters and felons.

"It’s not anything astronomical. If we’ve got a most current estimate, then let’s use the up-to-date information," Mohn said.