Among people who voted in 2004 but not 2000, did more vote

[Eric J in MN]

for Bush or Kerry?

[NewYorkerfromMass]

1. Given the vote totals it is obvious more had to have voted for Bush

The guy got 9 million more votes than last time.

Bush 59,729,986 (51.0%) Bush/others = 51,500,846 Bush alone: 50,461,092 (47.9%)
Kerry 56,249,864 (48.1%) Gore/Nader = 53,876,814 Gore alone: 50,994,086 (48.4%)

[New Earth]

2. why does that sounds impossible?

9 million?????

[NewYorkerfromMass]

3. I am skeptical myself

They must have been fabricating votes somehow.

[Skittles]

6. it's absolute bullshit

there is no f***ing way that incompetent piece of shit legitimately earned that many votes.

[CAcyclist]

7. It is impossible

The poll says 17% of people didn't vote in 2000.

But there are only ten percent more voters this time than last time.

Proof this poll is dead wrong.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

9. It's possible if 127 million people voted this time

A total of 105.5 million voted last time (see my post above)
17% of 127 = 21.5 million.

This makes sense if they were predicting a repeat of 1960's 63% turnout. The eligible popualtion this time was a little more than 200 million. (200 x .63 = 126)

[StatGirl]

13. So the question is

"Where are Kerry's missing 9 million votes?" rather than "How did Bush get 9 million extra votes?"

You do have to allow for some natural attrition, though. It's really a pity that this particular exit poll question isn't broken down by state.

[BlueDog2u]

14. I've been waiting for someone to say this....

We've been focusing on Bush getting extra votes, but if this macro-audit approach has any wings to it, there are 5-15 million votes, presumably most of them for Kerry, which are just plain zapped into nothingness.

Can't a disappearance on this scale be proven? That's a lot of missing votes. Shouldn't all those -- shall we say, 124 million -- voters have signed some sort of logbook, whatever kind of machine they cast a vote on? Can't we prove that the turnout was much larger than the recorded numbers?

[StatGirl]

4. Kerry, according to CNN's exit polls

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

Search for "Gore" or scroll down about 2/3 of the way.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

5. Let's just post the totals

......................Bush Kerry Nader
Didn't Vote (17%) 45% 54% 1% (equals 7.5% of electorate to Bush- 9% to Kerry)

Gore....... (37%).. 10% 90% 0% (equals 4% of electorate to Bush- 33% to Kerry)

Bush....... (43%).. 91% 9% 0% (equals 39% of electorate to Bush- 4% to Kerry)

Other....... (3%).. 21% 71% 3% (equals 0.6% of electorate to Bush- 2% to Kerry)

[Eric J in MN]

8. If Kerry got more votes of new voters, and more people

who voted for the Republican-presidential candidate in 2000 voted Democratic in 2004 then vice-versa, how did Kerry lose?

[NewYorkerfromMass]

10. It doesn't make sense

Rove may have found his 4 million stayed-at-home-in-2000 evangelicals, but that only gets Bush to 55.5 million votes this time.
Where did Bush get his 4.5 million addtional voters from?
The raw numbers seem inexplicable.

[unpossibles]

11. "Where did Bush get his 4.5 million addtional voters from?"

well, I guess now we know the answer to "Who Would Jesus Vote For?" as this seems to be a miracle! Praise!

[StatGirl]

12. Better than loaves and fishes!

Check out the thread at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x60377 for more discussion of this.

If we have about 118 million voters, that means, *if* the exit poll is correct:

20 million didn't vote in 2000
51 million voted for Bush in 2000
44 million voted for Gore in 2000
3 million voted for 3rd party candidates in 2000

So, of the 105 million who voted in 2000, only 98 million came to the polls this time. And, coincidentally, all of the missing 7 million were Gore voters (Gore got 51 million votes in 2000).

G*d does indeed work in mysterious ways.

[BlueDog2u]

15. Hmmm....

How can we put some real facts behind these provocative analyses -- that this argument from being merely one of circumstantial evidence to one which has solid direct proof?

[StatGirl]

16. My main point here is to show that the exit poll values are absurd

It's actually reasonable to assume some attrition from 2000 -- say 1% per year through death, and another couple percent from illness, lack of interest, etc. But this drop-off should be reasonably equally distributed between Bush-2000 voters and Gore-2000 voters.

I think the focus really needs to be on the impossibility of the 43/37 Bush/Gore split in the sample, leading us to the conclusion that the original exit polls, showing Kerry leading, weren't wrong at all.

[BlueDog2u]

17. OK

Gotcha.

I hadn't read that thread on the exit poll data of voter trends in 2000.

Where does the rubber meet the road in this analysis of massive "lost votes"? Of course, if the game plan was both to lose votes for Kerry and pad votes for Bush, then the overall pattern becomes correspondingly more difficult to pin down. But still the cumulative impression of this thread is that we are looking at a significant net loss of total votes tabulated for either candidate.

Can't a statistically significant sampling of polling books prove this phenomenon -- with documentary evidence, not statistical analysis (which, however valid, will be pooh-poohed forever by the MSM) if its a real one?