[rustbucket]

The black dots were a subset of other precincts whose votes were reported by the paper. There are so many precincts in Houston that I decided to do only a subset. I looked up the locations of the precincts I plotted. I was able to identify the principal ethnic/racial/economic makeup of some of the districts from what I know of the city but not most. In some cases, the paper identified black and Hispanic districts by precinct.

I cross plotted the votes of the same precincts from different elections. The precincts whose ethnic/racial/economic status I couldn't identify or whose makeup was probably mixed are the black dots.

The 2003 mayoral elections was complicated by the fact that it was a three-man race and involved the toy train issue. There was a black (Sylvester Turner), a white Democrat (Bill White), and the Republican Orlando Sanchez, a Cuban. Bill White was promising to build the street level light rail through and close some of the affluent white neighborhoods close to downtown (West University). That helped tilt their vote toward White. If you'll remember, they kept changing where the train would go before the election to increase the vote for White. At least, that is what I thought they were doing. The votes for the train project correlated positively with the votes for White. Sanchez opposed the train.

[lentulusgracchus]

If you'll remember, they kept changing where the train would go before the election to increase the vote for White.

No, I don't remember hearing or seeing that, but somehow I don't disbelieve you -- it would be typical. And if they did, I wouldn't read about it in the lying SOS called the Houston Chronicle. That's a given.