More Weirdness from Butler County

[Firespirit]

I'm strongly considering doing a precinct-level analysis of this place, but before I start, I'd like people's thoughts on this matter.

Taken from the official results: (http://www.butlercountyelections.org/LiveResults/data/results.txt)

Ballots Cast - TOTAL  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     168,976   70.99
PRESIDENT/VICE PRESIDENT
         MICHAEL BADNARIK/R. V. CAMPAGNA          412    0.25
   REP - GEORGE W. BUSH/DICK CHENEY  .  .     109,866   65.87
   DEM - JOHN F. KERRY/JOHN EDWARDS  .  .      56,234   33.71
   CANDIDATE REMOVED
         MICHAEL PEROUTKA/CHUCK BALDWIN .         284    0.17

ISSUE 1 PROPOSED CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT
AGAINST SAME SEX MARRIAGE
   YES .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     109,779   68.08
   NO  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .      51,462   31.92

This means that there were 7,735 people who didn't vote on the Hate Amen... er, Issue 1.

I don't know about anyone else, but it just looks WEIRD to me. There would seem to be more people in this Republican stronghold who, for such a well-publicized hot-button issue as this, either voted NO or abstained, than who voted for the Democratic ticket. 2,963, in fact.

What does everyone else think? Is there a reasonable explanation for this?

[saltpoint]

1. Is it this county -- Butler -- or neighboring Warren County --

-- that was the birthplace of the Poland China hog?

Anyway, I hope you do the analysis. I predict you will find widespread fraud.

Bush cheated.

[Firespirit]

2. Butler.

CASE seems to be all over Warren County, and they've got people on-site.

There are only 289 precincts in Butler. It's not totally overambitious. Haven't decided yet.

Edit: Didn't read your actual question. :shrug: Don't know about that, but their election sure is a pig.

[saltpoint]

4. Ok. Well, thank you for the analysis if you go ahead --

-- with it.

Somebody needs to wake the country up on the election theft.

[Zan_of_Texas]

3. Some people just don't care what other people do privately.

Thankfully.

How did the Ohio Supreme Court judge do compared to Kerry?

Connally?

If she outpolls Kerry by a lot, that is suspicious.

I believe Butler is punchcard, ES&S?

It is right next to Warren County, just to the west of it.

Check to see if there are more votes than voters, if you can -- maybe can't do that from a distance. Certainly voters as a percentage of registered voters can turn up some interesting numbers - like 98% in one Ohio area. Right.

[Firespirit]

5. The whole county stinks, IMO.

Connally got 5,325 more votes than Kerry.

This tidbit about Issue 1 just makes it even more suspicious.

The county is punch card, but I don't know which company rigs their tabulators.

[roseBudd]

22. ES&S has Butler, Clermont, Hamilton. Triad had Warren n/t

[Firespirit]

24. Rosebud57...

For some reason I'm thinking you're with CASE. If that's true, would you please look at my posts 18 and 23 and inform the team of them, so that this can be looked into? Thanks so much!

[roseBudd]

27. I'm not with CASE, I simply looked at poll books for about 10 precincts in

Warren

I will PM you with Andy's contact info so you can bring it to his attention. If you are nearby and can look into Butler I'm sure it would be helpful, as according to Moss vs. Bush, Butler is believed to have flipped 23,000 votes from Kerry to Bush.

[arissa]

6. I grew up in Butler county

Lived there almost 20 years. It's a heavily rural, small-town area, but it's also home to Miami University, a very large, white-collarish university which nonetheless has the normal charms of large college campuses.

With the exception of Oxford (home of Miami U.) and Hamilton (Miami U.'s second campus and the county's token "big city"), the county is mostly farming country and working class folks.

I personally don't see these numbers as anything too out of the ordinary. These people are likely to be swayed by Bush's BS, but a lot of the students in Oxford and Hamilton, while still probably heavily pro-Bush, have been living on campus with a relatively outspoken homosexual community due to the presence of the universities. I can see these people skipping over the Gay Marriange amendment. The schools have their outbreaks of homophobia, usually well-publicized, but most of the kids going there, even the closest homophobes, like to pretend they're not homophobes.

Just my two cents.

[Firespirit]

9. What a strange group! :-)

I'm in the "Bible Belt," so maybe it's regional myopia. Pro-Bushies who would avoid this amendment. :crazy: I'm not questioning you, just trying to imagine what they must be like. They're hawkish, then? Or rabid laissez-faire fanatics? What draws them to the guy, in your opinion?

But if there are so many pro-Bush students who didn't vote on the amendment, wouldn't Bush's total be significantly higher? There's an 87 vote difference between the two.

[arissa]

11. It's the student population that skews the numbers

For rural Ohio counties, Butler is different because of Miami University. Most rural Ohio counties are just that, rural Ohio counties probably much like where you live. But the student vote in Butler affects things.

Miami's campus is largely white kids from rich families, they come from Chicago and suburbs, Cincinnati and suburbs, and from around the state. Their families send them money every month and they're really well off, and major in things like economics.

However, it's a large university and has (at least by rural Ohio county standards) an outspoken, out of the closet gay community that does influence the thinking of the students around them and the surrounding communities.

I'm not into statistics or anything, I'm just saying this is not your normal, rural, religious county. The university skews things somewhat. :)

on edit - I see what you're saying, the discrepancy is with Kerry voters not voting on the Gay Marriage amendment. This could be explained by rebelious students who don't want to vote for Bush because their parents in suburban Chicago/Cincinnati are big Bush supporters, but are also influenced by the gay community at Miami. Honestly, I don't know, I'm just trying to give you an idea of what the county is like. It is my home, so I know it pretty well. :)

[GetTheRightVote]

7. I know that they were checking into Cleveland today for fraud issues

so they are still looking into problems and concerns in Ohio.
I heard about it at the Columbus hearing yesterday.

:kick:

[RPM]

8. PA -or- OH???

I think butler (PA) is also adjacent to warren (PA)...

[berniew1]

10. See Richard Phillips detailed analysis of Butler, Warren

http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/southwest.htm

[Firespirit]

12. Thank you!

Looks like Dr. Phillips has already done the precinct analysis. That's a relief.


One comment on it:

"In Butler County, compared to 2000, the population
increased by 3.12%, the number of registered voters
increased by 10.06%, voter turnout increased by
18.18%, Bush's point spread increased from 29.40%
to 32.52%, and Bush's victory margin increased from
40,197 votes to 52,550 votes."


Please correct me if any of this is statistically invalid.

Assuming that Butler County really is 2/3 Republican:

.1006 * .66 + 1.00 = 1.066396 --> Expected increase of Bush's margin from new registrants
.1818 * .66 + 1.00 = 1.119988 --> Expected increase of margin from voter turnout

40,197 * 1.066396 * 1.119988 = 48009 votes

If what I've done is valid, then this is the expected margin for Bush.

The difference between this and the reported one is 4,541. That seems awfully close to the Connally anomaly.

[berniew1]

19. Dr. Phillip's conclusion that there's serious problems in "official vote"

ONE MORE LOOK AT SOUTHWESTERN OHIO: Many observers have questioned how C. Ellen Connally, a little-known, underfunded, African-American municipal judge from Cleveland, running for Chief Justice against a well-financed incumbent, could have received more votes than John Kerry in Butler, Clermont, and Warren counties, in a race that attracted far fewer voters than did the presidential race. I compared the official precinct canvass results for both races in all three counties and concluded that she could not have. In the race for Chief Justice there were only three options: Ellen Connally, Thomas Moyer, or none of these. There were no third parties, and no write-ins. The votes not cast for Connally were not sufficient to account for all the votes awarded to Bush. When the results are examined precinct by precinct, it is revealed that 13,577 of Connally’s supporters must have voted for Bush in order for the official results to be true and correct: 7,440 people in Butler County, 3,580 people in Clermont County, and 2,557 people in Warren County. And these numbers are an absolute minimum. For every person who did not cast a vote for Chief Justice but did vote for John Kerry, there would have to be yet another person who voted for both Connally and Bush. These certified results defy credibility and should be rescinded. In my professional opinion, the only explanation for these numbers is election fraud.

Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D.
4 Fisher Street
Canton, NY 13617
[phone]

[minvis]

13. More Butler County Info

I posted this on another DU board.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x166913#183472

I did a precinct level analysis on Butler County. I found some very disturbing trends. One of which was a precinct with nearly a 91% turnout and that precinct had 1,451 registered voters. The vote in that precinct was 1,015 for Bush to 284 for Kerry. I know it was a Pro-Bush county, but nearly 4-1. One of the precincts also had a mysteriously high vote total for Badnarik, similar to others in Cuyahoga County that have been discussed in previous posts.

I'm also in the process of looking through Clermont County precincts as well. Clermont is also in the S.W. corner of the state like Warren and Butler. One thing I did immediately notice in Clermont County is that all 291 precincts were won by Bush there. Perhaps someone with local knowledge of this county can reply as to how odd this would be or not.

[Firespirit]

14. In that one precinct..

with the 91% turnout, did you by chance look at the votes for the Chief Justice race and Issue 1?

It's OK if you didn't... If you didn't, what was the name of that precinct?

[minvis]

16. 91% Turnout

I didn't look at that race in that precinct. The precinct is Liberty Township 4DO. There is also Liberty Township 4DI with over 1800 registered voters that had over 86% turnout. By the way, some of the lowest turnout in this county were precincts won by Kerry.

I just looked now and Connaly got 429 votes in that precinct, Moyer got 560.

[newyawker99]

30. Hi minvis!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[KnowerOfLogic]

15. Compare the results to other OH counties, or other states w/ gay

marriage ammendments on the ballot. See if the results are similar.

[Firespirit]

18. Took your advice and.... OMG!!!

Either we have some seriously weird voting patterns, or something else happened.



Counties where the combined "NO" and non-vote on Issue 1 exceeded Kerry's votes:

Auglaize
Butler
Clermont
Clinton
Darke
Delaware
Geauga
Greene
Hamilton
Hancock
Holmes
Mercer
Miami
Putnam
Shelby
Union
Van Wert
Warren


Out of this list, in the following, Connally got more than Kerry:

Auglaize
Butler
Clermont
Darke
Mercer
Miami
Putnam
Shelby
Van Wert
Warren



Someone with connections, get this to CASE and/or Conyers ASAP.

[Firespirit]

23. Counties where there were more "NO" votes than Kerry votes

Clermont, Delaware, Warren.

Boy, these names sound familiar.

[minvis]

17. Issue 1 Vote Totals

Issue 1 in Liberty 4DO

No 918
Yes 342

[minvis]

20. Excuse Me

Had the Yes and No numbers switched, sorry. Must have been wishful thinking.

[Firespirit]

21. Thank you minvis

That precinct looks fraudulent to me. It appears to have the same irregularity that much of the county does: Kerry getting outpolled by Connally, and the No's to the amendment.

[minvis]

25. Vote Padding

Think about it. Where is it easiest to pad votes for your candidate? In your strongholds. And where do you suppress the votes? In your opponent's strongholds.

[roseBudd]

28. And flipped Kerry votes to Bush in GOP strongholds where people

would assume there were few Kerry votes.

[MarkusQ]

26. Why is that weird?

You'd expect more abstentions on a questionable hot-button issue in a highly partisan area--or at least I would. People who don't feel they have community support for voting against something with which they nonetheless feel uncomforable voting in favour...abstain. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

--MarkusQ

[righteous1]

29. Yes my thoughts as well. And one would expect a Kerry voter

more likely to abstain than a Bush voter

[lukasahero]

31. Why would "community support" matter

if one votes in private?

[mgr]

32. There is something odd

My guess is that Measure 1 should poll more votes than Bush, since the issue would attract democrats and republican votes, that in the privacy of the voting booth they need not defend.

Mike