Who Helps DeShawn Register to Vote ? A Field Experiment on State Legislators

We contribute to the understanding of political inequality in the U.S. by investigating whether state legislators are less responsive to requests for help with registering to vote made by blacks relative to identical requests made by whites. To answer this question we conducted a field experiment in October 2008 where approximately 6,000 state legislators were e-mailed. In the experiment we randomized whether the e-mail was sent using a putatively black alias or a putatively white alias. We also randomized whether the email signaled the sender’s partisan preference (Democrat or Republican), or signaled nothing about their partisan preference. At first, we found that Democratic legislators ostensibly do not engage in differential treatment while Republican legislators are more responsive to requests made by the white alias. The majority of this differential treatment persists when partisanship is signaled, indicating that strategic partisan concerns do not completely account for the observed differences. However, taking into consideration the race of the legislators reveals that white legislators of both parties exhibit similar, significant levels of differential treatment against the black alias. Both black and non-black minority legislators do the opposite. This provides evidence that the race of elected officials significantly affects how effectively minorities are represented.