Broward County Voters Give 110% in Florida Primary!
BLOGGED BY Brad Friedman ON 1/31/2008 3:23PM
Broward County Voters Give 110% in Florida Primary!
'Unofficial Results' on County Website Shows Turnout Exceeds Registered Voters in Precinct D001
Officials Have No Explanation for Now, Said to Be 'Still Reviewing That Information'...
Turnout at Broward County, Florida's precinct D001 was excellent in last Tuesday's primary election, according to the "unofficial results" posted on this county webpage.
With 1,028 ballots cast, and 930 registered voters at the precincts, voters having turned out, the turnout was an impressive 110.54%!
The BRAD BLOG called the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office to find out if there was any explanation for these numbers. We spoke with Patricia McCallister, an assistant to Supervisor Dr. Brenda C. Snipes...
McCallister told us that they are "still reviewing that information" and that they "don't have an answer" at this time for the anomalous numbers.
The results will "become official this coming Friday," she told us, recommending that we call back on Monday after the final results have been determined, for further explanation as to what may have happened. The complete "unofficial results" for Broward are available here.
For the record, Broward used paperless ES&S iVotronic touch-screen voting machines last Tuesday. The same machines which apparently lost some 18,000 votes in the razor thin, 369-vote margin race between Republican Vern Buchanan and Democrat Christine Jennings for the Congressional seat previously occupied by former FL SoS Katherine Harris. In that November 2006 election, Buchanan was announced the winner in that race, despite the fact, more than a full year later, no definitive explanation has ever been determined to explain the thousands of missing votes in Sarasota County's 13th Congressional district race.
Perhaps a few of those lost ES&S iVotronic votes from Sarasota in '06 have finally shown up shown up on ES&S iVotronic machines in Broward County in '08.
Last Tuesday's primary election in the Sunshine State was the last to use such touch-screen systems, as the State's Republican Governor and Legislature have finally agreed to trash the unreliable, untransparent, hackable voting systems once and for all. They will still be in wide-use, however, across the country in many other states this year, where Election Officials continue to be in dangerous denial about the unsuitability of such machines --- with or without so-called "paper trails" --- for American elections.
Special Pre-Emptive Note to the Management of Daily Kos and their Front-Page Diarists:
The BRAD BLOG is not alleging fraud, conspiracy (dark or otherwise), or that Hillary Clinton or John McCain, who both won their respective races in that precinct, have stolen any election anywhere at any time, much less in Broward County, FL. We simply post the above item, as part of our continuing, ongoing efforts towards ensuring transparent, verified, and accurate elections in America. We look forward to your joining us some day in that fight. Until then, best of luck in your endeavors.
UPDATE 3:55pm PT: Additional breakdown of precinct numbers in both the Republican and Democratic Primary races, as well as a Property Tax Initiative that was on the ballot in Broward's D001 precinct, now follow below. Unfortunately, they seem to beg more questions than they answer...
According to Broward County's website, here is how the numbers break down in each race on the ballot:
ALL VOTES (Early, Election Day & Absentee)
Republican: 181
Democratic: 786
Tax Initiative: 1011
Broken down, the numbers look like this (click on the header to see the numbers on the Broward County website in each category):
EARLY VOTING
Republican: 8
Democratic: 627
(Total D+R: 635)
Tax Initiative: 640
ELECTION DAY VOTING
Republican: 138
Democratic: 146
(Total D+R: 284)
Tax Initiative: 325
ABSENTEE VOTING
Republican: 35
Democratic: 13
(Total D+R: 48)
Tax Initiative: 46
In total, that amounts to...
TOTAL D+R VOTERS: 967
TOTAL TAX INITIATIVE VOTERS: 1011
Why one part of the same website declares 1028 votes total, as per the graphic at the top of this article, yet the maximum number of votes recorded is 1011 total for the tax initiative, is unknown.
If 1028 voters voted, that means that 17 of them went to the trouble of casting a ballot with no vote on it whatsoever, for either Primary or for the tax initiative.
As to why there are 44 voters who seem to have voted for the tax initiative, but chose not to vote in either the D or R Presidential Primaries, we also can't tell you. Perhaps some voters voted only on the tax initiative and had no preference in either Presidential Primary. Or perhaps they "wrote in" another candidate, if that was allowed, whose votes are not reflected on the Broward County website results. Or perhaps they voted in the Presidential Primary, but as in the Sarasota FL-13 race in 2006, their votes were simply "lost" to the ether.
Using the 1011 votes counted for the tax initiative, the undervote rate in the Presidential primaries would be 4.35%.
Using the 1028 number, the undervote rate for the Presidential primaries would be 5.93%.
Of course, whether the total number of voters was 1011 or 1028, it still does not explain why there were so many more voters than the 930 said to be registered in that precinct.
For what it's worth, the Broward County website says that no provisional ballots were cast in that precinct, so the numbers remain a mystery for now.
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