About that flat turnout ...

[autorank]

(The victory margin may be substantially greater if there are missing votes. Imagine that. Right
now it's questions like, how can twice as many Democrats voting in the primaries equal the same
turnout for the general. California will come in at some point but that's the last big block of
votes hanging out. Is there more. Seems like there should be.)

PresidentialTurnout Flat: How Did That Happen?

(Wash. DC) In 2004, we were told to anticipate a red versus blue election. It didn’t turn out that way but that was hardly mentioned. By 2008, we were told to expect record voter turnout for the presidential election. Now we’re told that the predictions were wrong, the pictures of long lines, massive early voting, and massive registration increases all went to produce just about the same vote total as reported for 2004.


Does this make sense? What about the enthusiasm that the Democrats generated in the primaries. Primary voters are highly motivated. They tend to vote in very high numbers in the general election following the primary.

Democratic Primaries: 2008 Primary Turnout More than Doubled 2004 Turnout


The 2008 Democratic priThe Green Papers: 2008 2004maries for 34 states showed 34 million voters, twice as many when compared to 2004. In fact, the difference between the two years, 17.6 million, is greater than the vote total for the same 2004 primaries, 16.1 million.

Link: http://usacoup.scoop.co.nz/?p=966

[BrklynLiberal]

1. As always....fascinating.

[autorank]

3. Isn't is curious...

I'm surprised that turnout isn't up and also that it's now a blowout for Obama, although I'm
grateful that Sen. McCain will retain that title;)

I owe you an answer from a previous thread on AP. You asked if they had some electronic connections to vote counting. In 2004, they announced that they had electronic feeds from the various states to get final counts. Makes sense. There was some speculation that this indicated something was amiss but I never heard any more about that.

:hi:

[BrklynLiberal]

18. Hard to believe that turnout was not up....just hard to believe.

In 2004 there was a whole bunch of stuff that was amiss. Right?

[autorank]

25. Oh, without a doubt.

It was messy all over the country. And then there's the conceptual problem - how can you have votes counted in secret by private vendors who alone have access to the inner workings of the machine.
That's a major nightmare. SC has a law that says in no uncertain terms, the votes will be counted in front of the people. They have all touch screens and just shrugged when this problem was pointed out.

"All elections by the people shall be by secret ballot,
but the ballots shall not be counted in secret. "

South Carolina Constitution

[Joe Chi Minh]

33. That needs to be taken up by lawyers now.

[ben_meyers]

2. Cross over voters who stayed home rather than vote McCain.

[autorank]

4. Well, the Republican base was less enthusiastic.

McCain is off about 5 mil off Bush's 62 mil in 2008
Obama is up about 6 mil from Kerry's 59 mil

That's just moving votes around in the current mix.

The core Republican base, red rural voters were off again this year, but just by a couple of points.
But even when they were way off from 2000 to 2004 (down 30%), turnout went up.


Rural votes as a percent of all votes. National exit polls 2000-2008.

Doesn't make a lot of sense to me a this point.

[Celebration]

7. I think you need to look at this locally, and even by precinct

I do think there were a lot of disenchanted Republicans, but not necessarily rural ones--my guess is suburban.

Also, the swing states are where there were all the voter registration drives. I would start by looking at Ohio, Indiana, and Virginia.

[autorank]

26. Good point. Let's look locally at Cuyahoga County, OH (Cleveland)

Locally, here's Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), Ohio



Turnout is down from 2004, there are 109,000 new registrationswith 65% expected to vote.

The way things work out with the newly registered voters plus the drop from 2004 to 2008, we get
106,000 voters staying home from 2004. That's 50% of the Bush voters sitting it out (doing it the
easy way, but just plug in 40%, it's still strange).

This makes no sense but that's where these local numbers lead you. They're like the national
numbers, very odd.

[Celebration]

31. to figure out the demographics of this

You would go by each precinct. Who was staying home? Were there lots of provisional ballots?

Is Cleveland might be actually a smaller city than in 2004?

Also, the Cleveland numbers were very fishy in 2004. The problem in that case could be the 2004 numbers were cooked.

[autorank]

36. There's enough there right now to raise questions & questions are good.

We could clean up a lot of mess if politicians had to prove that they were elected:) We'd have real
paper ballots, open access etc. quickly.

The population declined there 1.6% from 2000 to 2006 and there was no mass exodus since. That's pretty
stable. Population decline isn't the culprit here.

As I said, I'm raising questions at this point. However, you don't need precinct data to know that
there were a lot of people staying home, most likely for McCain, if you believe those numbers. There
is precinct data and the Ohio folks will be looking at that, I'm sure.

You're correct on the 2004 vote being a difficult base line. But assume it was inflated 4-5%. We're
talking about percentages much higher just looking at this data. What scenarios get you 106,000 new
registrants and a drop in turnout. The Democrats were really on fire. There base would have been
as well.

People in Ohio will figure this one out but it illustrates how distorted the #'s are when you
just factor in new registrations. Check out how many Democrats voted in the primary there. That
would be interesting.

[Progressive_In_NC]

44. Here in NC a lot of my suburban, bush voting neighbors stay home

My wife and I came up with 5 couples off the top of our heads. All conservative voters, and all said there wasn't a conservative to vote for.

maybe it's an anomoly, but maybe there is something to it.

[autorank]

45. That's interesting.

Lot's of folks sitting it out in the burbs perhaps. NC has a real skew to "rural" voters, according t the Exit Poll. The top line is national. The suburbs went way up. Although I think of NC as a state with several major metro areas, I guess the rural population is larger than I'd thought. Somebody will do a survey on McCain voters who stayed home. That will answer a lot of questions. This Rural portion for NC as a voting entity makes the Obama win there all the more impressive.

US: Urban 30%, Suburban 49%, Rural 21%
NC: Urban 27%, Suburban 27%, Rural 44%

[Alcibiades]

62. There was also the early vote in NC

Here in Durham, we made a huge effort to get Democrats to the polls early. McCain campaign did nothing in this regard. We turned out so many early that the in precinct vote was actually down. Screwed with some of our number because the early vote locations are tallied as separate precincts. You can still get numbers that are reasonable for any given area of town, but the precinct numbers are way off. based on what I've seen so far, though, the generalizations are correct: the folks who did not turn out were Republicans and Republican-leaning Dems and Unaffiliateds. This served to keep overall turnout low side (a modest 2% increase), despite a huge increase in Obama voters.

Here's how the absolute turnout numbers and share of two-party votes look for the least three presidential elections here in Durham:


Republican and Democratic two-party votes for 2000, 2004, 2008

2000 2004 2008
Total votes 84057 109138 134277
Democratic share 64.1 68.3 76.1
Republican share 35.9 31.7 23.9

[BeFree]

63. Is this right?

...............2000...... 2004..... 2008
Total votes 84057.... 109138.... 134277
............

Looks to me like there was a 25,000 increase each election. So where's the 2% increase?

[Alcibiades]

70. Turnout increae was a little lower than we had hoped

but only because we did such a phenomenal job at new registrations!

Our turnout is actually understated. Durham is a college town, and about 40% of the voters registered in the college precincts have graduated, moved on, and will have no further effect on our politics other than to artificially lower our turnout statistics.

This town also has a high rate of residential turnover among folks who live in rental properties, which also accounts for plenty of "ghosts" on our rolls i.e. people who should have canceled or changed their registration.

[autorank]

65. Turnout

Congratulations, that's a great victory.

There are three types of turnout.

1. Turnout relative to the previous election or the previous election for an office. These figures show a significant increase in overall turnout compared to the previous federal election and a huge increase in turnout from 2000 to 2004 for president. Quite amazing.


These figures from Durham add to the questions I'm raising. Why such
a huge turnout figure for this medium size NC city? Why isn't this
even close to the national figures for turnout or the increase in
Democratic presidential vote.

2. Turnout relative to registered voters. This is the percentage of those voting to those eligible, on the rolls. This can be confusing because states purge voters from the rolls and you need to know when and how many to deal with those figures. I'm note sure that those who use this figure even take this into account. It almost invalidates comparisons.

3. Turnout relative to eligible voters. The percentage of those voting compared to those eligible to vote. This is meaningful but not as meaningful as type 1.

[Alcibiades]

71. Nice chart

Turnout here is up because the town is about 50% African American, and overwhelmingly Democratic. RTP, the various hospitals and universities have plenty of those secular, well-educated elite types that the right has hated for a generation. we also have a great corps of Democratic activists who turn out the vote. We're a deep blue splotch in a sea of red in NC, though that red sea is looking more purple every day.

I didn't even want to cite the turnout relative to # of registered voters because there are so many folks here who are effectively "ghosts" on our rolls. Our actual turnout was even higher than reported by the BoE. Our turnout relative to voting age population is also a little off because we have so many foreign nationals--which also understates our performance.

Durham sends more folks to the Democratic national convention than anywhere else in NC. We are the best-performing Democratic area in NC. It's hard to estimate the real effect of all the things that artificially depress our recorded turnout, but, if I had to guess, I'd say actual turnout was about 80-85% of registered voters.

[autorank]

74. Thanks. A little adjustment tells an even better story.

When you adjust for the increase in eligible voters (over 18, citizens, not felons or ex felons), you
get about a 5% growth nationwide. So, for the sake of argument, assume that applies to Durham. You
take 5% from 2004 and 2008 growth and you still have a kick ass increase. The uncounted votes coming
in may push national turnout compared to 2004 up to 6%. Then adjust for the population increase in
eligible voters and you get a real 1% increase in turnout, compared to 11% in 2004.

[Alcibiades]

76. It helps that ex-felons can vote here

Had some educating to do on this issue, but in NC you can vote even with a felony conviction, so long as you're not currently on probation or parole. We're very proud of what we've accomplished here, though with the margin so close, almost any city in NC can describe itself as provifing the margin of victory that made NC blue again. I'll be posting some numbers on our results here when the BoE gets the official results in. :toast:

[autorank]

77. I'm totally impressed.

I'm a little embarrassed too on your changes with the ex felon deal. I should check The Sentencing
Project more diligently. That's a huge move. Crist tried in Florida, making restoration automatic
upon release. His own A.G. fouled it up with a manual process so it's much slower. That's truly
fantastic. And after whoever did it did it, the good citizens of NC obviously accepted it, no
torches and pitchforks. Those laws go right back to the Redeemers and the KKK of post Reconstruction
days. Amazing, pardon my ignorance of this great achievement.

I'll look for the officials from NC. You're probably one of the most accurate states at this point.

On the national totals, it's looking like a 5-7% turnout increase without adjusting for increases
in eligible voters. When you factor in that, a bit more than 5%, it's a 1% increase;)

But not in Durham! :toast: to NC

[eowyn_of_rohan]

61. Despite the disenchanted Repubs and even providing for the Ohioans

who were still so disillusioned from the corruption in the 2004 Ohio election that they chose to stay home this time, I would think a far greater number of Ohioans would have been more determined to cast their vote in this election in an effort to keep it from being stolen again. That is what happened all over the country. Why not in Ohio? after what they went through last time wouldn't they have been MORE fired up over this?

[Joe Chi Minh]

34. I don't even think most of them stayed at home. I think many, if not even most,

will have voted for the Democrats.

They are worldly-wise people and the thought of Palin being a heart-beat way from the presidency, not to sepak of the ever-growing contempt of the rest of the world should have made them want to make absolutely sure THEIR own party didn't win! It would have been almost like voting for the School of the Americas to take over the administration.

[bleever]

5. To the Greatest with you.

The greatest upwelling of voter enthusiasm in many decades, and turnout is reported as "flat"?

What, in fact, happened to millions of votes?

We may have won this election, but until we can trust the results, the work is far from done.

[autorank]

8. They just need to do the simple work

Fixing the problems with elections means let every citizen register and vote with assistance and NOT
hindrance plus getting a simple and reliable vote counting methodology - hand counted or look at India's
low tech solution that seems to have people happy. Take about three months, six at the most.

THANK YOU!!! for the trip to the Milky Way:)

[bleever]

10. Thank you,

for your incredible work, and for your friendship through the last four years.

I'm tremendously proud to have been a witness to what a handful of people can do in the face of a monumental crime like the 2004 election.

Also, glad that I don't have to change my DU name from "bleever" to "whatsthepoint". :)

:patriot:

[Joe Chi Minh]

35. Same here, shipmate.

[bleever]

40. .

:toast:

:)

[truedelphi]

42. I am glad that there is no name change in your near future.

'What'sthe point' would be so dour.

[autorank]

69. How about 'leever'

[truedelphi]

43. I am glad that there is no name change in your near future.

'What'sthe point' would be so dour.

[spooky3]

9. well said

[ihavenobias]

6. K & R, very interesting analysis n/t

[Me.]

11. K & R

[stevedeshazer]

12. Dammit

You always force me to think.

It's easy to just imagine that Obama won in a landslide, and that he had coattails.

I can see here that it ain't exactly so. Things just ain't what they seem.

Thanks.

[autorank]

16. Hey Steve, it's good news

He won a totally impressive victory. He knew he had to because they'd be up to their normal
crap, whomever they were this time. I saw this early on and said he'd win, no way to hide enough
votes to steal it. http://usacoup.scoop.co.nz/?p=722

But, looking at it, there just isn't a way to get from pre campaign to vote totals, not a way that
makes sense.

So, big win, outstanding and maybe more eggs hidden in the garden, lots more;)

[HCE SuiGeneris]

13. We are in dire straits with our vote tallying methods.

Thank you for providing more evidence, sir.

I was rebuked for postulating that things are not as they should be... http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4402676

K & R

[orleans]

14. how many votes haven't been counted? how many provisional ballots

are floating around? and mail in?

[autorank]

17. One big state, smaller numbers

The provisionals will dribble in. Most states are done. The few with votes out are in the five
figures, low. California should be getting done but that will only push the total up 2.5% (with
a 60-40% split for Obama-McCain if it's like the rest of the state). So that's not much more.

One thing we may be seeing here is this. In 2004, turnout was up 17 million votes compared to 2000.
Part, not all, part of that was the 4.0 million white ghosts who appeared in the big cities (according
to the exits) and nearly doubled Bush's 2000. Those 4.0 million, not seen before or since, should
probably be subtracted form 2004 turnout bringing it down to 12-13 million and about 11-12%. But
that makes things even stranger. These are questions now but at least it's an environment where
rational inquiry can take place.

[truedelphi]

20. MY hat is off to you - and I like the ghost theory as it is one I can explain

There used to be thousands of ghost votes for the first Richard Daley, mayor of Chicago.

But those ghosts got tired of hanging out in that city, especially as Illinois has straightened out its voting system considerably.

So they drifted off to other cities and found employment with the Republicans for a while.

Can't say if they were active this eelction or not - will rely on your research for that end of the story.

But as Casper always said, "Boo!"

[EFerrari]

24. When you say CA, do you mostly mean Los Angeles County?

[autorank]

38. Isn't that LA not CA;)

LA County had a few problems I hear. The CA uncounted is dribbling in (2.0 mil). Much smaller
uncounted in OR 0.27 mil. That's a little less than 2% on top of what we have now. Who knows, maybe
there will be a discover of hidden ballot boxes all over the country like they had in Baldwin Co.
in Alabama when Siegelman lost (I think a judge woke up in the middle of the night and said he
knew where ballots were, not sure though). They've made their bed on this now they have to sleep
in it (and that includes inflation of votes in 2004, as several have pointed out here).

[Peace Patriot]

28. Ah! nt

[BeFree]

15. Flat turnout my ass

Tell ya, anyone who buys that the turnout was flat is in denial. The only way that the 2008 numbers could be correct is that the 2004 numbers were inflated. Could be. I do remember a thread about ghost like urban voters that might help explain things like how '04 was inflated.

[althecat]

19. Befree.. I am in your camp on this one.

I always found the 2004 turnout numbers hard to swallow. I could understand the heavily motivated democratic voters turning up to vote Bush out but not the record republican turnout that kept Bush in power.

[autorank]

22. If a picture is worth a thousand words, what are two pictures worth

(many thousands of words;)



http://tinyurl.com/2pj6ge http://tinyurl.com/2csewu

[autorank]

21. My fat ... er...

Good point. There were 4.0 million white "ghosts" in 2004.

So lets dump them and see what happens

Million votes

Year Votes Turnout increase
-----------------------------------
2000: 105
2004: 117 = 11% turnout increase*
2008: 123 = 05% turnout increase

* Remove 4.0 million white "ghosts" from 2004

So even with all those primary votes, 35 mil, as a solid basis; the 100,000 in St. Louis,
80,000 in Denver, 75,000 Portland, 20-30 thousand across the country; all that effort; all of the
predictions based on voter registration increases; all that commotion, the youth, etc. etc. --
all of that and we get a 5% increase in turnout in 2008 compared to 2004.

OK so the Republicans were tired, how tired we don't know. They only lost 2 points off of their
core, the red Rural segment (chart above) and the burbs went up to 50% of the total voters. But
lets say that they were both tired and sanguine about Obama winning.

Look at the 2004 and 2008 candidates compared, Obama goes up 10% and and McCain down 7%. But that's
just reshuffling the same deck of cards, no added voters. Now we have to do some real gymnastics to
get the new voters in that 2008 total to account for no increase in overall turnout.

Just questions now. What do you think, oh wise one???

[BeFree]

60. well

I think, my friend, that you are on to something. No one I know refused to vote this time, but didn't vote in 2004. Maybe there were even more ghosts in '04?

In 2004 some 30 M new voters came to vote for the first time, it has been estimated especially by that New York, small college professor we've all had to deal with.

And if another several M were never counted this time -- there is good evidence of that-- maybe even 10M+, then we're getting to an actual number.

Hey, We actually won this time!!! It's just really beginning to sink in. Really. We fucking beat the machines, eh? Someone pinch me.....lol

[GuvWurld]

23. Raising some important, and very basic questions

Of course "official" numbers don't mean shit, from 2004 or 2008. But the more we can expose them as being ridiculous, the more able we will be to bring people into the process of disarming weapons of mass deception.

K&R

[autorank]

47. Somewhere along the way on this thread

I suggested that we'd get election reform right away if those elected had to prove it.

Just a law or two here and there would change a fair amount. Keep up the good work!

[snot]

27. thank you autorank; as usu., v. impt. k&r'd

[stellanoir]

29. Pssssssst. . .

A subtle hint:

They may just be BS-ing us.

Do ya think . . .?

(That goes in the no shit Sherlock category) according to Steph Miller. :)

[autorank]

59. When do you think they'll let us in on the trick?

They're a bunch of pranksters. I heard some report about how Graham and McCain are fast buddies
and like to reference their inside jokes when speaking to the public. Maybe they'll give us a hing
from the Senate floor.

It's always something, isn't it?

[Hubert Flottz]

30. K&R...

I Believe...

That if the vote counting had been fair so many people across the country wouldn't have had their democratic vote flipped to GOP. I never heard of one vote flipping the other way. I think if the election had really been fair, that come January it would have looked like the GOPers really had been "Raptured" in congress.

I think we need to go right on raising hell about these Mickey Mouse machines, until every state that got conned into buying them gets a full refund.

[formercia]

32. Black hole

in states that used DRM. States that used verifiable paper ballots showed a Dem landslide.

[SOS]

37. Check out Alaska for some weird stuff

2004

Bush: 188,943
Kerry: 109,765

2008

McCain:136,348
Obama: 80,340

A 28% drop?
The governor is on the ticket and 50,000 Republicans fail to show up?
And 29,000 Democrats didn't show up for Obama, but did for Kerry?

Perhaps this is how Stevens is holding on to his seat?

[autorank]

39. Yes, that's a great example.

And they expect us, the citizens (their bosses) to buy this crap.

Any small business person facing these type of strange numbers at inventory would flip out and
find the answer. But we can't do that since there are no ballots or, if there are, they've been
counted on a optical scan that has memory cards held private by the vendors.

Alaska is important to examine. Palin's popularity may have dropped there with all the bad publicity
but she had an 80% approval rating and then these numbers. Go figure (literally;)

[abbiehoff]

41. I think that the phantom voters from 2004

along with the fact that Karl Rove predicted the electoral result of 2008 exactly (?), indicates that the election fixers decided to let Obama win. They had to know that the polls were not close enough to actually steal the election. Plus, they may think that letting the opposition win for a change might make us cool down on election reform.

[autorank]

46. Throw us a bone

Good way to chill on reform. A so-called leftist alternative author did a column recently claiming that the Obama win would put an end to the 'leftist conspiracy theories' on election fraud. How about that. Guess we just take their word for everything from now on. Yes sir ree! I'm pretty sure that there were at least 4.0 million ghosts on the rolls in 2004 so that would impact turnout and make it look flatter than it is but that doesn't preclude a victory tempered by removing the landslide features. Can't give us citizens too much power (unless it's through creating nightmares, which is why the officialdom is constantly suspect). Great point.

[blm]

51. Exactly - 7 million of Bush's votes were ACQUIRED in the vote padding process.

They'll be back when they feel covered enough by 2008 - in 2010 and 2012.

[nadinbrzezinski]

48. They TRIED... and we know where some of those ahem missing votes

went to in some obvious manners

Check Alaska, Minnesota, Georgia... usual suspects, especially the first one

[autorank]

55. Hi Nadin

Right Alaska down 20 or so and Palin's at 80% and it's her home turf. Georgia has been screwy since 2002 with Cleland & Barnes. That was an outrage. It will take a while to get the details but there should be enough by mid Dec to make a firmer judgment on this nationwide. Hopefully, those states will get take care of well before then. And we may have an election reform advocate in the Senate;)

[noiretextatique]

49. yet another BIG LIE pushed by the MSM

saw a story about the supposedly unimpressive turnout for the election...total bs.

[goclark]

50. D I E B O L D

[autorank]

64. They were there

Take and count about 1/2 the votes in the USA. They're beyond inspection though.

The county and state boards of elections who buy their machines sign an agreement that states
that the state cannot look inside the machines, deeply at the source code, etc., since these
are proprietary trade secrets. So our votes are proprietary, owned by Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia.
We have no right to see what really happens.

No wonder.

[goclark]

68. So the owners of the machines tried their best to own America

and we outslicked them -- I sure wish we could have been flies on the wall.

Roves Elves should have gotten busted once and for all but Super Obama managed to still pull it off!

[tom_paine]

52. OMFG! RED -- FUCKING -- HANDED!

Yeah, right...turnout was flat.

And I am General Winfield Scott!

:grr: :mad: :argh: :grr: :grr: :argh: :grr: :mad: :grr: :mad: :argh: :grr: :grr: :argh: :grr: :mad: :grr: :mad: :argh: :grr: :grr: :argh: :grr: :mad: :grr: :mad: :argh: :grr: :grr: :argh: :grr: :mad: :grr: :mad: :argh: :grr: :grr: :argh: :grr: :mad: :grr: :mad: :argh: :grr: :grr: :argh: :grr: :mad: :grr: :mad: :argh: :grr: :grr: :argh: :grr: :mad: :grr: :mad: :argh: :grr: :grr: :argh: :grr: :mad: :grr: :mad: :argh: :grr: :grr: :argh: :grr: :mad: :grr: :mad: :argh: :grr: :grr: :argh: :grr: :mad: :grr: :mad: :argh: :grr: :grr: :argh: :grr: :mad:

They're STILL doing it! MOTHERFUCKER!

We take back the voting system and make it fucking honest again...or it WILL come to what none of us want.

Goddamnit and god damn their vote-suppressing asses to HELL!

We BURIED THEM in REALITY. I'll bet 58-42 at least!

Goddamn it.

Ok, ok. Calm down. Party today. WORK LIKE HELL TOMORROW!

[fascisthunter]

57. We DId Bury Them and We WIll DO It AGain

We don't need to steal elections or use phony electronic voting machines, and these rich fucking Republicans know it....

They should be very scared, they earned it!

[autorank]

66. We'll check it out

They'll drag a few more percent across the finish line in the next couple of weeks and get some academics to say "it's all good" but there are serious questions raised at this point.

Ironically, the best argument that the vote count is OK is that 4.0 million votes were added to the city totals in 2004 to get Bush over, therefore turnout is actually up more than it seems (subtracting the 4.0 mil from the 2004 total). I'd welcome that argument.

Alaska, turnout down; Ohio, the same. It's going to take a systematic look at this to prove it out
but the question is out there and deserves an answer.

:hi:

[The Hope Mobile]

53. I worked at a poll that day and was told by all the other workers

that this was 3-4 times the regular turnout for that spot. I heard the same thing from other precincts as well. It just doesn't add up. I honestly believe we were up by well over 10 points.

[rcsl1998]

54. Unfortunately, We Need To Know How Many Phoney Votes Were Added To The Bush Total In 2004 nt

[autorank]

58. 4 million Here they are, never seen before or since.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0706/S00165.htm

FIGURES 6 & 7. According to the NEP, white voters contributed less than 5 million votes to the big city
segment in 2000 but almost 9 million in 2004. This is worthy of the term “surge.” They accounted
almost exclusively for the increase from 2.3 million to 5.9 million big city votes for Bush from 2000
to 2004. Where did they come from? We may never know but they “won” the election.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

56. K&R

[brindis_desala]

67. West Virginia, Arizona, Georgia, Alaska, Texas, Florida

likely massive undervotes. "In Maricopa County, Ariz, the instructions on the ballot said "Connect the
arrow with a single line", and county election officials had publicly
recommended that voters use Bic ballpoint pens. Unfortunately, when
the machines were tested, two of them had their mark-sensing threshold
set to a level that could not reliably sense a single stroke of a Bic
pen..."

Phoenix New Times

[autorank]

73. Thanks, those are helpful.

It looks like the best turnout can be is 130,000,000, and that's high. Only 6% over 2004, which was 16% over 2000. We'll see what tumbles out of the woodwork then take another look after Dec. 4, which is when the the states are done.

How about that Alaska. People point out the lousy turnout then we get the 90,000 uncounted ballots. Could be a function of information flow - the departments of elections are not used to answering to anybody. But that's a huge chunk of votes for that state. What the heck are these people up to? Reading books on "Texas Hold 'em."

[Joe Chi Minh]

75. Their wickedness always manages to surprise. I can't imagine why.

[autorank]

72. kick

:kick:

[Kurovski]

78. Kick.

:hi: