The Effects of Race of the Interviewer on Measures of Electoral Participation by Blacks in SRC National Election Studies

This study investigates the effect of the race of the interviewer on self-reported voting, actual voting, and political attitudes of black respondents, based on the SRC/CPS National Election Studies (NES) of 1964, 1976, 1978, 1980, and 1984. The impact of race of the interviewer in the NES surveys has not been analyzed previously. Over the course of the five studies, the proportion of black respondents who were interviewed by black interviewers declined sharply, particularly in the South. Almost all white respondents were interviewed by whites. Except for southern blacks in the pre-Voting Rights Act election of 1964, black nonvoters in the presidential election surveys