This report consolidates analysis on the factors which might be at play behind voter turnout in Baltimore. The analysis is done at Community level with special focus on young voters, i.e. people between 18 and 35 years of age who are registered for voting. We analyze voter turnout of communities by various factors such as walk score, access to internet, no of businesses in the neighborhood, vehicle ownership and high school drop out rate. The aim of this report is to provide insights which will be helpful in developing strategies to increase voter turn by community.

Bottom 20 Communities by Youth Voter Turnout:

The below table shows Communities and their respective youth voter turnout for presidential primary and presidential general elections of 2020. We see that the youth voter turnout for presidential general elections is consistently and significantly higher compared to the presidential primary elections. Communities are sorted based on voter turnout for presidential general elections. From the table, we see that there is least voter turnout from people in jail.

FID Community Age bin PP20(%) PG20(%)
51 Unassigned – Jail 18-35 6 44
33 Midway/Coldstream 18-35 27 50
47 Southwest Baltimore 18-35 24 50
31 Madison/East End 18-35 32 52
43 Sandtown-Winchester/Harlem Park 18-35 28 52
46 Southern Park Heights 18-35 32 52
10 Clifton-Berea 18-35 32 53
4 Brooklyn/Curtis Bay/Hawkins Point 18-35 23 54
42 Poppleton/The Terraces/Hollins Market 18-35 35 54
23 Greater Rosemont 18-35 33 55
41 Pimlico/Arlington/Hilltop 18-35 37 55
54 Upton/Druid Heights 18-35 29 55
3 Belair-Edison 18-35 38 57
50 Westport/Mount Winans/Lakeland 18-35 32 57
1 Allendale/Irvington/S. Hilton 18-35 35 58
7 Cherry Hill 18-35 32 58
56 Greenmount East 18-35 34 58
15 Edmondson Village 18-35 40 59
21 Greater Mondawmin 18-35 36 59
9 Claremont/Armistead 18-35 32 60

Voter turnout and BNIA Indicators

We now consider selected BNIA indicators, to assess their relationship with voter turnout

1. Voter turnout is directly proportional to the number of neighbourhood businesses (per 1,000 residents). Based on the below visualiation we could hypothesize that where there are more local business establishments, people are more concerned about public policy and thus active in elections.

## `geom_smooth()` using formula 'y ~ x'

2. In the below chart, we have walk score on x-axis, percentage of households without vehicles on the y-axis and voter turnout is indicated by the size of the bubble. Walk score is calculated by mapping out the distance to amenities in nine different categories (grocery stores, restaurants, shopping, coffee shops, banks, parks, schools, book stores/libraries, and entertainment) and are weighted according to importance. As we would expect, the communities with high walk score and high percentage of households without vehicles have lower voter turnout. Therefore, the communities represented by small bubbles at the top right corner of the below visualization can be targeted for higher voter turnout by the provision of transportation services.

Top 20 Communities by high walk score and vehicle unavailability

Community Households without vehicle availability (%) Walk score
Oldtown/Middle East 60.9 90.8
Sandtown-Winchester/Harlem Park 60.4 80.8
Upton/Druid Heights 57.1 86.5
Southwest Baltimore 54.9 81.4
Cherry Hill 53.9 46.7
Madison/East End 52.3 88.8
Greenmount East 51.8 82.4
Southern Park Heights 51.1 60.8
Poppleton/The Terraces/Hollins Market 49.2 87.8
Midway/Coldstream 45.1 74.3
Clifton-Berea 44.5 72.2
Penn North/Reservoir Hill 42.9 77.0
Greater Rosemont 40.9 68.0
Harbor East/Little Italy 40.4 94.2
Midtown 39.5 89.4
The Waverlies 37.3 73.2
Downtown/Seton Hill 37.2 95.7
Greater Mondawmin 37.1 67.3
Pimlico/Arlington/Hilltop 35.7 72.8
Greater Charles Village/Barclay 35.1 87.1

3. From the below visualization we can see that access to internet is directly proportional to youth voter turnout. Therefore, in the communities with low access to internet services, alternative strategies to increase awareness should be sought out.

## `geom_smooth()` using formula 'y ~ x'

Below listed are 20 communities with least access to internet.

Community households without internet access (%)
Sandtown-Winchester/Harlem Park 38.8
Greater Rosemont 37.5
Pimlico/Arlington/Hilltop 37.0
Greenmount East 35.2
Midway/Coldstream 35.1
Brooklyn/Curtis Bay/Hawkins Point 34.7
Southern Park Heights 34.1
Greater Mondawmin 32.9
Oldtown/Middle East 32.6
Clifton-Berea 32.3
Upton/Druid Heights 31.6
Southwest Baltimore 30.3
Cherry Hill 29.6
Howard Park/West Arlington 28.3
Dickeyville/Franklintown 28.2
Morrell Park/Violetville 27.9
Dorchester/Ashburton 27.6
Glen-Fallstaff 27.4
Edmondson Village 27.1
Penn North/Reservoir Hill 27.0

4. From the below visualization, we can see that youth voter turnout is inversely propotional to high school drop out rate.

## `geom_smooth()` using formula 'y ~ x'