Residential mobility and persistently depressed voting among disadvantaged adults in a large housing experiment

This study examines the impact of residential mobility on electoral participation among the poor by matching data from Moving to Opportunity, a US - based multicity housing - mobility experiment, with nationwide individual voter data. Nearly all participants in the experiment were Black and Hispanic families who originally lived in high - poverty public housing developments. Notably, the study finds that receiving a housing voucher to move to a lowpoverty neighborhood decreased adult participants' voter participation for nearly two decades-a negative impact equal to or outpacing that of the most effective get - out - the - vote campaigns in absolute magnitude. This finding has important implications for understanding residential mobility as a long - run depressant of voter turnout among extremely lowincome adults.