I have no idea what to make of this.
Allegedly, a down-ticket Democrat polled 257,000 more votes than Kerry in Ohio. If true — and the web site offers some county-by-county vote figures — that's very odd, as barring the most unusual circumstances the top of the ticket polls well ahead of candidates with very limited advertising budgets. (spotted via Cosmic Iguana)
Bush is currently believed to have carried Ohio by circa 130,000 votes, although exit polls showed a narrow Kerry win. Were Kerry to have won Ohio he would have won the electoral collage although not, on current counts, the popular vote.
The Ohio vote count has had its oddities, notably the apparently false claim that the count in Warren County had to be held behind closed doors without the usual observers due to an FBI terror warning that … didn't exist. It would be enough to make you suspect some hanky-panky were we not all in the grips of … of what exactly?
Note that they’ve updated the linked story at freepress.com. They didn’t really mean that the Democrat Supreme Court nominee actually got more total votes than Kerry (except in isolated cases). Instead, they meant that the margin of difference between her vote total and her opponent was a quarter million votes different than the vote margin between Kerry and Bush. It’s interesting, but as an indicator rather than as evidence. Although she didn’t have nearly the campaign budget as Kerry, her opponent also didn’t have the even bigger war chest of Bush. More importantly, her opponent didn’t spend hundreds of millions of dollars claiming she was a war criminal and liar and sinner. That tends to hurt your vote totals a bit.
Also, although I read Cosmic Iguana since many stories show up there first, many false stories also show up there so you should probably be cautious in linking to that site.
I think you’re being unfair to the Iguana, who says “If true” in this case. I can only remember one story which the Iguana had to retract and that was last Thanksgiving regarding Bush’s photo-op turkey trip to Iraq, which he did retract promptly. Considering the utter fantasticness of some of the stuff he posts, I think its pretty remarkable, and a good indication of the fact that in the Bush era truth is stranger than horror fiction.
From what I can see, nearly every bit of evidence points to theft in Ohio. Judicial votes are nearly always along partisan lines, since judges are rarely widely known and would indicate a tremendous amount of ticket splitting in favor of Bush if it was accurate, and that seems quite unlikely
For what it’s worth, in Illinois, Kerry ran well behind Barak Obama in Illinois. So it’s not all that uncommon for the head of the ticket to run behind very popular down-ballot candidates.
Obama is proof that this is common? Obama didn’t have a freaking opponent, for all intents and purposes.
Heidi,
that understates the Obama-Keyes race.
Obama was *about to* run unopposed, following the Chicago Tribune’s takedown of Republican primary winner Jack Ryan, and practically no Republican politician in the state wanted to run against Barrack Obama.
So they reached to Maryland to find a Black Republican with similar educational and public service qualifications. Only problem was that Keyes was on record as being opposed to Carpetbaggers (read Hillary Clinton) as he would then be, So Keyes reframed his acceptance as a MORAL CRUSADE against Obama’s supposed record on abortion.
…and thereby immediately alienated Moderate Republicans, and it went downhill from there.
Obama-Keyes was not typical/common by any stretch of the imagination: Obama was well liked by Democrats and Republicans, but Keyes was a spectacularly bad opponent; that he actually got as much as 26% came as a shock to his campaign staff.
OK then, in indiana bush got 55%, but Birch Evan Bayh (D) got 66% against a black republican.
Or, in Kentucky last year, some of the down-ballot races went wildly R, others D. It depends a lot on incumbency, name recognition, being a moderate with a solid record, that kind of thing.
OK then, in indiana bush got 55%, but Birch Evan Bayh (D) got 66% against a black republican.
That sounds like Indiana Republicans punted that race…
The Republican candidate (Martin Scott) doesn’t seem to have ever run for public office before…
They punted alright.
Or, in Kentucky last year, some of the down-ballot races…
Down-ballot of what exactly, in 2003 ?
It’s not that uncommon for “downballot” candidates to get higher vote percentages.
However, it is pretty uncommon for lesser-known candidates to get more votes than the Presidential candidate at the top of the ticket. Statewide, Connally received 660,000 fewer votes than Kerry (her Republican incumbent opponent received 500,000 fewer than Bush).
In 15 Ohio counties, apparently, Connally outpolled Kerry in raw votes. Three of these I’ve personally examined — the Cincy suburbs. Thousands and thousands of votes.
One place was Warren County…the infamous terror lockdown site.
This info suggests a need for an audit. In one Indiana county, unusually high vote totals for a Libertarian candidate led to the discovery that people voting straight Democratic ticket were recorded as straight Libertarian voters.
Today, I’ve read that a number of African American precincts across the state had VERY high vote totals for third party candidates. Thousands of odd votes…
Time for an audit.