Florida results and some thoughts

[the_outsider]

When the results came out on Tuesday, it was hard to believe the 5% margin in Florida keeping in mind the exit poll and also the close pre-election polls. So I spent some time tonight looking at Florida data. I thought I would share a few interesting points. I apologize if these have already been discussed here. I have not felt like reading DU much over the last few days. Actually I have not felt like doing anything.

(all numbers are close approximations)

Nationally * gained 17% more votes and Kerry gained about 10% more than what Gore got. In Florida, the percentage gains are exactly double of the national gains. Kerry gained 21% more votes than what Gore got in Florida in 2000 and * got 34% more votes.

Two things happened here. 1) the increase in voter turnout in Florida was twice the national average increase. 2) However, the relative gains of two parties in Florida are exactly the same as the national average. It seems to support the oft-quoted theory that Florida is an accurate minuscule representation of the national trend.

Assuming we have statistically insignificant crossover from 2000 voters, (I cannot believe a whole lot of Gore voters went for * this time) the distribution of new Florida voters in 2004 is eerily identical to the national distribution of new voters. This is clearly in contrary to the popular assumption that greater the turnout, the better it is for us. For two completely different levels, (12-13% national turnout increase and 25% turnout increase in Florida), new voters broke down almost identically in favor of them. This is troubling.

If we look at different counties within Florida, however, there are some unusual data. Percentage wise, 's gains across counties are very uneven whereas Kerry gained a lot more evenly.

In 45/67 counties, * gained more than his stage average of 34%. In 25 counties, he had >40% gain ! In 10 counties, he had > 50% gains !! Most of these counties are very small with population in tens of thousands. These large gains were absolutely critical because he has the smallest gain in the largest county - Miami-Dade. Large % gains in a lot of small counties more than offset Kerry's gains in cities.

Kerry's gains are more even across the mean. He has >21% (his mean) in only 25 counties. In only 7 counties, he had > 34% (*'s mean gain). Also Kerry gained less than his mean (21%) in all 3 counties that mattered - Miami-Dade, Breward and Palm Beach. He won only 11/16 counties Gore won in 2000.

I have not looked at the national data in detail yet. But I have a feeling that this Florida pattern will be repeated in other states as well. Kerry's significant but could-have-been-better gains in large counties (cities) will be defeated by *'s small gains (small in absolute numbers, but huge % wise) in a lot of small counties.

I do not know how to explain the large % gains in small counties. Most probably it was a result of church-driven GOTV efforts. Interestingly in Florida at least, most of these small counties where * gained huge, Kerry's gains were marginal. In some counties, he even lost some votes.These large % gains in very small counties look definitely odd and we should investigate further.

I am not sure if the Florida counties showing the largest % gains for * were hit by hurricanes. I will try to find out.

I have built a database combining county wise 2000 results, 2004 results, population etc. for Florida and will build the tables for other states as well and I can run complex SQL queries on it. Let me know if you guys would be interested in any specific analysis.

[timeforachange]

1. NY Times has an article

about Dubya's Florida GOTV effort.

They concentrated on rural counties and pulled out all the stops in terms of volunteering and GOTV.

They basically kicked our ass in GOTV in the rural counties. Kerry ignored them for the bigger cities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/politics/campaign/07florida.html

[Awsi Dooger]

2. Stop posting substance; we're looking for fantasy fraud

Subtitled: why threads like this don't garner many responses, while anything screaming Diebold or stolen stays on page one for three days.

Here are some relevant parapraphs from the NY Times article. I have read many similar accounts from around the country:

"In particular, the Republicans focused these efforts on conservatives who had often failed to vote.

The Republicans enlisted 109,000 volunteers statewide to make a total of three million voter contacts on Election Day and the five days prior, strategists said. In 2000, fewer than 10,000 Republican volunteers made 77,000 contacts in the three months before Election Day, they said.

"I have worked several campaigns in Florida and I have never seen such a massive grass-roots program," said Mike Hanna, who led the Republican effort in central Florida. "Usually, you get volunteers, but you don't always get a lot of work out of every one of them. This was different. The passion of these volunteers was something I had never seen before."

While the Republicans were playing offense, the Democrats, still reeling from their searing experience in the litigated election here in 2000, seemed intent on playing defense. The Democrats dispatched 3,000 volunteer lawyers from around the country who manned the polls, especially in South Florida, the Democratic stronghold, to guard against any efforts by the Republicans to disenfranchise voters."

[the_outsider]

3. they ran a very very smart grass-roots campaign

The more I look at data in Florida and other states, the more impressed I am. It seems counter-intuitive and risky to aim for a lot of small gains instead of a few large gains in cities. Targeting big city voters is the lazy approach and looks good on paper. But it was beaten hands down.

The small numbers add up nicely if your grassroots network is wide enough. I am sure Karl Rove & Co. did a lot of number churning before they got out the vote. I also believe their think tanks could not care less about Christian moral and religious issues. Those just turned out to be the most effective way to win elections.

[JI7]

4. the Parental notification for abortions thing on ballots in Florida

probably also helped turnout out these religious right wing types.

[Awsi Dooger]

5. I thought Rove was extremely overrated in 2000

And I stand by that. Other than contesting West Virginia while we slept.

But Rove was very astute in assessing 2000 as if it were a loss. He knew 2004 would require much greater numbers vs. a frenzied Democratic base, and isolated the best option available to him. Immediately. I was reading online papers since 2001 indicating the GOP was already planning for 2004 and what it would take. We tried to pretend one year of registration drives would crush them.

Of course the Republicans don't give a damn about those rural voters or their values. No more than Bush will try to reach across party lines, or whatever bullshit he's currently spewing.

[Justice]

6. Interesting Analysis

I would be interested in looking at your numbers.

The one point that others make is that * gains in the smaller counties is limited to the counties with optical scan ballots - as opposed to touch screen ballots. Can you confirm or refute that conclusion?

[the_outsider]

7. I do not think numbers support that claim in any way

First of all, 15/67 E-Voting touch-screen counties are not any 15 random counties. Those counties are geographically grouped together. They include Miami-Dade, Breward and Palm Beach. They are the three largest counties and historically democratic counties. In a random sample of 15/67, you would include only 1 of those 3 given we won only 16/67 in 2000 and 11/67 total counties this time. So to begin with, you would expect the results to be skewed in favor of us a little bit in the touch-screen counties.

Now, let's look at the results.

Among the 15 EV touch-screen counties, *'s gain is 29%. Among the other 52 optical scan counties, *'s gain is 39%.

Among the 15 EV touch-screen counties, Kerry's gain is 19%. Among the other 52 optical scan counties, Kerry's gain is 25%.

*'s edge over Kerry in EV counties is (29-19)/19 = 51% and *'s edge over Kerry in optical scan counties is (39-25)/25 = 56%. These two numbers are remarkably close. Given the skewed sample, I would have expected these two numbers to diverge more, not less.

Both * and Kerry gained more in optical scan counties than in EV touch-screen counties. That is explained by the fact the EV counties included the 3 largest counties where % increase in turnout was less than the turnout increase in optical scan counties - particularly in the largest Miami-Dade where the turnout increase is 13% - half of state's 25% increase.

Even if you assume that 29% in EV counties is real and 39% is fraud
(I do not agree with this) and give 29% gain to * in all counties, * wins by a margin of 150,000 votes - a big win.

[Awsi Dooger]

8. Thank you outsider; that's interesting and deserves a glorified kick

For the cynical crowd to look at.

BTW, it's Broward, not Breward:)