Political Science 357 - Minority Representation and the Voting Rights Act

Minority Representation and the Voting Rights Act

Basic Population Data | Voting District Maps | Electorate Information
County Auditors & Election Boards | Cities, Towns, Counties & School Districts | Newspapers

Following are selected resources to help you find information for your PS357 research paper. For further questions and research help, stop by the Government Publications Reference Desk, Ground Floor, Suzzallo Library, or email us at govpub@u.washington.edu.


Basic Population Data

Find the racial composition of the community within your jurisdiction by using the Census Bureau's American Factfinder.

http://factfinder.census.gov
Use the "Fast Access to Information" box to find basic information about cities, towns, counties (not school districts). You can also generate maps for each statistic in the table (link to maps is on far right margin of table).

http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sdds/index.asp
Use the National Center for Education Statistics School Distric Demographics System to find population data for school districts.

Voting District Maps

Once you open the map, you may need to use the Zoom feature to see details.
The map legend is in the upper right corner. The Voting District boundaries are blue.
Make a note of the voting district numbers for your geographic area. The last 3 numbers are what you will use in the next step. For example, the number on the map may be 17303. The voting district is 303.

Basic Population for Voting Districts

Now that you know your Voting District numbers, you may find data about your districts by going to the "Data Sets" feature on American Factfinder

Electorate information: Table PCT44 - Sex by Age by Citizenship


County Auditors & Election Boards

County 2000 Total population Elections web page Elections results Elected Officials Precinct results Precinct maps
 
Chelan 66,616 http://wei.secstate.wa.gov/WEI/Chelan/Elections/pastelections/ 1999+      
Clallam 64,179 http://wei.secstate.wa.gov/WEI/Clallam/Elections/        
    http://www.votewashington.org/county.tpl?c=5 2005+      
Franklin 49,347 http://www.co.franklin.wa.us/elections/   current 2007  
    http://www.co.franklin.wa.us/elections/auditor.cfm?page=archive.cfm 1998+   no no
    http://franklinwa.mapsifter.com/Mapsifter/default.aspx       yes
King 1,737,034 http://www.metrokc.gov/elections/   no   yes
    http://www.metrokc.gov/elections/results.htm 1998+ no yes  
    http://www.metrokc.gov/elections/gis/       yes
Kitsap 39,564 http://www.kitsapgov.com/aud/elections/archive.htm 1998+      
Okanogan 39,564 http://www.okanogancounty.org/Auditor/Elections.htm 2005 county yes yes
    http://www.okanogancounty.org/Auditor/Precincts%202004.pdf       yes
Pierce 700,820 http://www.co.pierce.wa.us/pc/abtus/ourorg/aud/Elections/Archives/ 1998+ current 2007  
    precincts visible on map for county council districts       yes
Snohomish 606,024 http://www1.co.snohomish.wa.us/Departments/Auditor/Divisions/Elections_Voting/ 1996   1993-2007  
Yakima 222,581 http://www.co.yakima.wa.us/vote/english/Returns.htm 1998+ current no yes


Cities, towns, counties and school districts

Newspapers

Washington State Newsstand
Includes 18 newspapers published in Washington state. Mostly full-text, mid 1980s to present.

Additional Washington State newspapers
The UW Libraries subscribes to a number of Washington State papers in smaller communities, available in Microforms and Newspapers, ground floor, Suzzallo Library. This webpage links to the online versions of these papers when available.


Questions? Comments? Email:   govpub@u.washington.edu
Last modified: Thursday November 2 2007 (emkeller)