Two-timing: Politics and response latencies in a bilingual survey

Through the recording of response times in a national four-wave bilingual p anel survey, this study reports improvements in the prediction of vote choi ce rep to I year in advance of a federal election. These results were achie ved with conventional computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) softw are, indicating that the immediate Else of response time measures is both p ractical and attractive for commercial as well as academic survey units. Ev en so, response latencies were found to be sensitive to political circumsta nce, such that timings should be analyzed separately for minority and major ity populations. Moreover, a broad analytic focus, beyond timing only vote intention and partisan commitment, is recommended because latency data on c ore questions of identity and allegiance reveal a great deal about the cont ours of political context.