Driverʹs License and Voter Registration Lists a s Population-Based Sampling Frames for Rural African Americans

PURPOSE: To compare coverage of a state driverʹs license list and county voter registration lists as frames for sampling rural African Americans. METHODS: Name, birth date, sex, and county were extracted from records for all 18–59 year-old African Americans residing in eight rural North Carolina counties and listed in the North Carolina Driver license file [obtained as a SAS dataset from the University of North Carolina (UNC) Highway Safety Research Center] and in machine-readable text files of registered voters (obtained from county boards of elections). Files were edited, merged, and matched by last name and date of birth to produce three files for each five-year age group, sex, and county: 1) persons listed only in the driverʹs file; 2) persons listed only in the voterʹs file; and 3) persons listed in both. RESULTS: The median percentages of unique persons found only on the driverʹs list, only on the voterʹs list, and on both lists were 54%, 17%, and 30% men, and 35%, 25%, and 41% women, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The driverʹs list provided better coverage than did voter registration lists. Federal legislation that prohibits states from releasing driverʹs license lists for use in surveys removes a valuable resource for population-based research.