In following election and caucus day live coverage and reports from bloggers and later reports in print, a common theme from many states is “we’ve never before experienced this level of turnout or this many voters.” Would have been easy to dismiss as overwhelming and unprecedented turnout among Republicans due to the Trump factor. However, report after report rolled in about running out of Democratic ballots (in both primaries and caucuses) and people were told to go home and come back later (or would be called and told that they could come back) when more ballots were received.
The Chicago Tribune reported in Trump, Clinton-Sanders drive big turnout in Illinois primary
That compares with 687,551 overall ballots cast in the city [Chicago] in 2008, with 643,835 of them — nearly 94 percent — by Democrats. With about 200,000 fewer registered voters that year compared to this election, turnout approached 53 percent in the city.
And yet when one goes to compare the actual DEM vote counts in these states that have run out of DEM ballots and are claiming unprecedented voter turnout, the numbers aren’t confirming the reports. A few states have been flat compared to ’08 and most are down, some signficantly so. Even IL may not quite match the ’08 turnout. (2.038 million in ’08 and currently 1.989 million).
One possibility for the perceptual disconnect could be that more early and absentee ballots were cast in ’08 and polling stations this year received a large rush on election day. That, however, wouldn’t explain the reports of unprecedented turnout from DEM caucuses in ME, MN, and NV and one or more of larger caucus sites in IA as well. As the vote tallies rolled in on Tuesday night there did seem to be a large number of early voting/absentee ballots in NC, OH, and IL — although, not having observed this portion of the ballot tallies in the past have no idea if it was low, the same, or high compared to ’08.
(One of my guilty pleasures from when I was a kid, and that comes close to watching paint dry, is observing the vote totals as they roll into a TV station and now live blogs. The clicks and clacks of the mechanical display boards from long ago made it more exciting — or at least an audible signal to check out the latest — than the digital boards today. Sort of like the difference between mechanical pinball machines and the modern digital ones. Or mechanical vs. digital slot machines. However, that viewing in the past was limited to local and state races and presidential elections and only when convenient to do so which more often than not, it wasn’t.)
I’m not alleging anything. Expect that it’s likely nothing but selective reporting, erroneous impressions and/or any number of other various reasonable and normal explanations. Penny pinching by the DEM parties that host the caucuses and state governments in estimating the number of ballots that will be needed instead of printing up as many as were used in ’08 and running the risk of having to toss a large number away when fewer voters showed up.
Maybe I should dig back through all the reports but that seems like an large undertaking for what may be nothiing other than distorted selective attention on my part. Until November 2000 I never gave a thought to rigging election outcomes — even though I knew that it had occured in some places at some times. While more sensitive to the issue since 2000, I don’t get into the weeds with those that see it as prevalent and attempt to prove it with various mathematical/statistical models and claim that electfonic voting machines have been hacked because claims need better proof than what I’ve seen them offer. There is lots of perfectly ordinary noise and seeming anomalies that are indicative of nothing in plenty of elections.
So, just asking if anyone else noted this and found it curious.
Well — in the category of “ask and ye shall receive” and before I’d posted this diary, at least in one place in IL, the reports were true, Adams County From Bradblog:
I’m joined on today’s BradCast by Adams County, IL State’s Attorney Jon Barnard to discuss the extraordinary court order [PDF] issued just last night to mandate the county allow voters turned away from the polls last Tuesday, due to ballot shortages, to cast a “late vote” in that election Monday through Friday of next week. …
I’ve never seen a court-ordered remedy like it and, apparently, neither have any of the experts I spoke to. That’s for good reason: this may be a national precedent, certainly one in the state of Illinois. It’s also one that, as I learned from Barnard — who was just out of another court hearing on this matter today — the Illinois state Attorney General is now moving to block.
Seems that a county clerk’s decision not to have an adequate supply of ballots printed isn’t quite legal.
Venvertloh was responsible for the decision to print ballots for just 27% of eligible voters, despite the state statute requiring 110% at each precinct. He is hardly the only County Clerk in the state to ignore the rarely-enforced requirement due to cost-cutting reasons.
AGAIN AZ was a nightmare for voters that stood in line for five hours to vote. Such experiences and the images of them would suggest that turnout was unprecedented. Unfortunately, impressions in this instance would be misleading because the number of polling sites was significantly reduced this year. With not so many ballots left to count, DEM votes cast will likely fall short of the total number in ’08.
Real time reports from ID and UT were a repeat of what was heard at caucuses in other states. Huge turnouts. The numbers for UT (with 81.5% reporting) are way down from the ’08 attendance. ID, similar to CO, had modest increase of 3,173 voters which was 15% over ’08. HRC was up slightly from ’08 and Bernie was close to Obama’s ’08 number. In UT, HRC is way down from ’08 (in numbers and percentage of the vote) and Bernie doesn’t appear poised to match Obama’s vote total but did get 80% of the total.
Guess this is a lesson in know the past before drawing conclusions about how the present compares to it.
