George Floyd's Murder Prompted Thousands of Americans to Register to Vote

John B. Holbein and Hans Hassell
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Hans Hassell: Florida State University

No xv4je, OSF Preprints from Center for Open Science

Abstract: George Floyd's 2020 murder at the hands of police officers from the Minneapolis Police Department catalyzed thousands of citizens to take to the streets---protesting, rallying, and marching in communities across the United States (and beyond). But did Floyd's murder also affect citizens' broader political actions? In this paper, we employ a unique combination of large-scale validated nationwide voting records that cover all 50 states and the approximately 200 million citizens registered to vote therein and Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest location and timing data from the Crowd Counting Consortium (CCC). We pair these unique datasets with a regression discontinuity in time (RDiT) approach that leverages the precise timing of the police killing of George Floyd and the precise day of protests and voter registrations. We show that in addition to mobilizing citizens to protest in the streets, George Floyd's death caused thousands of citizens to register to vote. Many of these additional registrants were minorities, youth, Democrats, and low income individuals---groups that are historically less likely to register to vote. However, George Floyd's death also mobilized a substantial number of white, older, Republicans, and higher income to register to vote. The effects we observe vary substantially across the U.S.; being larger in areas where BLM protests occurred and being considerably larger in some states than others. Simultaneously, however, increases in registration are present in both in historically red and blue states. When put into the context of other highly-salient tragedies---which often have small to null effects on citizens' rates of voter registration---the untimely death of George Floyd stands out as one that had the indirect consequence of mobilizing many citizens who come from marginalized, demobilized, and political disenfranchised backgrounds.

Date: 2023-06-07
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:osfxxx:xv4je

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/xv4je

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