Did non-citizens play a decisive role in 2008?

[Beezer]

I'm sure that by now you've come across this study:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/10/24/could-non-citizens-decide-the-november-election/

Michael Tesler finds some flaws in it:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/10/27/methodological-challenges-affect-study-of-non-citizens-voting/

My basic question is this. Can any analysis based on 340 people really be cited as supposed proof that non-citizens delivered the 60th Senate seat and NC in 2008? Shouldn't the margin of error be relatively high for such a small sample size?

[Boston Bread]

Can we even assume the ones who voted were D-leaning enough to do so even if thousands of them voting? This is no cause to deem any results illegitimate, or to say that they delivered some state in some election.

[DC Al Fine]

Can we even assume the ones who voted were D-leaning enough to do so even if thousands of them voting?

I would take a wild guess and say that non-citizens are largely

a) Non-white
and therefore
b) Vote Democrat to some extent

[Beezer]

I don't think there's any doubt that if non-citizens vote, they will in all likelihood vote Democratic. Still, the fact that their findings appear to be based on a dozen or so people makes one wonder how this ever got published.

The Cooperative Congressional Election Study, which focuses on the behavior of citizens, is ill-suited to examine the behavior of non-citizens, who make up about one percent of the sample. One consequence of this is that the number of respondents who report that they are not citizens yet vote or are registered to vote is quite small in absolute terms: in 2010, for example, only 13 respondents — not 13 percent, but 13 out of 55,400 respondents — reported that they were not citizens, yet had voted. Given the ever-present possibility of respondent or coder error, it takes a bit of hubris to draw strong conclusions about the behavior of non-citizens from such small numbers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/10/28/what-can-we-learn-about-the-electoral-behavior-of-non-citizens-from-a-survey-designed-to-learn-about-citizens/

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Of course not. 2000, maybe.

[Bacon King]

Of course not. 2000, maybe.

^^^^

This is the only Presidential election where it was close enough to be a factor (and the predominant group of non-citizen voters would have been Cubans voting Republican)

[Mister Mets]

There is some argument that it might have made the difference in the 2008 Senate by helping Al Franken win Minnesota by a slim margin. And that helped Democrats get a super-majority.

It might have made a difference in the closest states in the presidential race, but it wouldn't have been enough to make McCain president.

The effect on noncitizen voters is an interesting question that hasn't really been addressed. I wouldn't be surprised to see conservative groups spending money proving large numbers of voter fraud.