George Ehrhardt, An ASU professor in the Department of Government and Justice Studies recently completed a study that concludes “vote suppression for political gain … didn’t happen” in the wake of changes enacted by the Republican-led Watauga County Board of Elections for the recent municipal elections in Boone.
Ehrhardt teaches research methods, involving mostly statistics, to political science students and for several years has used voter data from the Watauga County Board of Elections office “to give students a hands-on experience of what real-life data work involves,” he said, adding that students were learning how to formally scribe quantitative results as the election was coming to a close.
The beginnings of the study started with a curiosity, Ehrhardt said, adding that he really began delving into the numbers after cries of voter suppression “seemed strange” in light of the Democratic sweep of the Boone Town Council and mayoral races.