Address-Based Sampling and the 2008 American National Election Survey: A New Paradigm for In-Person Household Surveys

• Activity Number: 512
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 5, 2009 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods
• Author(s): Vincent G. Iannacchione and Jamie L. Ridenhour*+ and Bonnie Shook-Sa and Joseph P. McMichael
• Companies: RTI International and RTI International and RTI International
• Keywords: Delivery Sequence File ; Mailing addresses

Abstract

The 2008 American National Election Survey (ANES) is an in-person, national household (HH) survey designed to collect data on voting, public opinion, and political participation as a way to better understand the theoretical and empirical foundations of national election outcomes. Since its inception in 1948, the ANES has been based on a multi-stage area sampling design that used field enumeration to construct a sampling frame of the HH population. In 2008, cost savings motivated a change to an address-based sampling (ABS) frame. We describe how the change to an ABS frame influenced the design and implementation of the ANES. In particular, we estimate the coverage of the sampling frame, and we evaluate the effectiveness of using ABS to over-sample Latinos and African Americans. We also discuss the alignment of postal addresses with geographic segments based on Census Block Groups.