voting twice--dems vs. repubs

[abcdan]

http://nydailynews.com/front/story/224449p-192807c.html

This story's a few days old, but there's something that's bugged me about it.

The story is about how 46,000 dual residents of New York and Florida are registered to vote in both states, which is illegal. They give the statistic that of the offenders, 68% are Dems and 12% are Pubs. Pretty damning for our side. They also say of the 46,000, between 400 and 1000 voters actually voted twice in at least one election.

Although it's illegal to register in both states, if the person didn't vote twice, I tend to think the dual registration is an honest mistake (what else would someone have to gain?). To vote twice is clearly the greater offense. Hmmm, I wonder what the breakdown of party affiliation is for people who actually voted twice. The journalist, while being interviewed on NPR, was asked the breakdown of party affiliation for double voters, he said it was about even. (Convenient that he left this stat out his article).

Although I think on the surface this looks worse for Dems, I think the opposite is true:

1) I would guess that the vast majority of New York/Florida dual residents are Democrats.

2) By the law of averages, if you have more Democrats that could possibly register twice, you'll have more Democrats who actually register twice.

3) If 500 Dems voted twice, that's 1.6% of all Dems who registered twice. And if 500 Republicans voted twice, that's 9.1% of all Republicans who registered twice.

4) In conclusion, a Republican is more than 5 times as likely to vote twice than a Democrat. This of course comes as no surprise to me.