Precinct racial statistics are provide better data for analysis, as they assign addresses to smaller windows of registered voters. Definitive racial statistical information can be obtained from the actual Voter Registration lists. We also performed ZIP code analysis to evaluate Palast's claims. We evaluated all of the ZIP codes on the comprehensive caging list, "Caging-1.xls", using year 2000 census information. "Caging-1.xls" contains addresses from all but two Jacksonville residential ZIP codes (33 of 35). Of the 33 ZIP codes with caged addresses, six (18%) are ZIP codes with greater than 50% of the population identified as black ("Majority Black"). 26 (79%) are ZIP codes with greater than 50% of the population identified as white ("Majority White"). In the 2000 census Jacksonville population was 29% Black and 64.5% White. Of the 33 ZIP codes with caged addresses, eleven (33.3%) are ZIP codes with higher than 29% black population ("High Black"), whereas 21 (63.6%) are ZIP codes with higher than 64.5% white population ("High White"). Similar to precinct analysis, the ZIP code data indicate that the mailings used to "cage" voters in Duval County in 2004 were indeed likely to be sent diffusely, rather than uniquely or predominantly to "Black Majority" areas.

Although "caged" addresses appear in all but two of the Jacksonville residential ZIP codes, the RATE of "caged" addresses is highest in the "High Black" ZIP codes (as defined above, greater than 29% black population). We defined the caging rate as the number of caged addresses per the total number of people over the age of 18 in a specific ZIP code. For example, in the 32209 ZIP code with a black population of 98%, there were 255 addresses "caged" from a population of 27,710 over the age of 18. Thus, the rate of caging is 9.2 addresses per 1000 people over 18. In contrast, in ZIP code 32221 with a white population of 84.7%, there were two addresses caged from a population of 13,019 over the age of 18, yielding a caging rate of 0.15 addresses per 1000 people over 18. Thus, the caging rate in "Majority Black" ZIP code 32209 was 61 times greater than the "High White" ZIP code, 32221. Averaging the caging rates for the 11 "High Black" ZIP Codes shows a rate of caging of 5.8 names per 1000, whereas the 21 "High White" ZIP codes had a caging rate of 2.1 per 1000. The six "Majority Black" ZIP codes had a caging rate of 7.8 per 1000, over 3 times greater than the caging rate in "High White" ZIP codes. In summary, whereas the caging list demonstrates that the acquisition of caged addresses was not restricted to "black" ZIP codes, the effect of caging identifies addresses in "black" ZIP codes at a higher frequency. However, in total, Only 579 of the 1826 addresses (31.7%) for which a ZIP code was listed were located within "Majority Black" ZIP codes. Thus, Palast's claims are not supported by the caging list data. Regardless, actual race statistics are available publicly by contacting the Duval Supervisor of elections, so we know the exact racial makeup of most the caged voters (see articles).

ePluribus Media Contributors: standingup, cho, publius revolts, Aaron Barlow, BronxDem

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