I'm in Michigan. I'm bad at writing so this is stream of thought format, somewhat edited. It started out as an indignant post (original title was "Excuse me?"
and transformed as I researched.
- First, the problem was biggest in west Michigan -- Bernie country (specifically Kent County). That's what all the news reports were about too because it was so significant.
- I concede that other areas were affected too, with not as much immediate reporting. Here is the most comprehensive report I could find. I promise you I did not cherry pick this -- http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2016/03/08/michigan-presidential-primary-turnout/81502754/
- The areas listed in the above article are: Kent County, Ingham County, and Redford Township.
- As I mentioned above, Kent County is strongly Bernie country -- 62.5% to 37.3%. Ingham County is too, because Lansing/East Lansing: 54.7% to 43.7%. Redford Township (Wayne County) went for Hillary 55.4% to 43.1%
- Sources for data (because it took a while to find some): http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/03/live_results_michigan_primary.html (Kent/Ingham County)
http://www.waynecounty.com/clerk/1609.htm (Redford Township)
- I searched and found no evidence of any problems in Detroit (I concede Redford Township is probably "close enough" . I did find that it was true in Flint (Hillary territory). I didn't realize that and am sorry.
- I guess you don't outright say this, so I apologize if I misunderstood you. But it seemed to me (from the areas that you mentioned) that you meant to imply that Bernie supporters didn't care because Hillary supporters were disenfranchised and Bernie won. That's only very slightly true -- as described above, it was a problem across the board. It is true that we didn't make as much noise as I had hoped for (voter disenfranchisement is a SERIOUS issue regardless of candidate -- I was hopping mad when the reports were coming in and would have been even moreso had I known it was other areas too, regardless of which candidate is favored in an area). It's also probably true that this was because Bernie won (but not that he won because of it as I think you imply).
- To answer your question: As much as I hate hate hate this Republican voter suppression, it can at least theoretically be explained as incompetence instead of outright fraud. Again, don't get me wrong, it could've been intentional and even if incompetence it is INEXCUSABLE -- as I said I was very angry then (you should see my FB post about it) and am even angrier now. Having voter registrations misreporting, and all in one direction, is much harder to explain away as incompetence.
- Lastly, thank you for making me go do this -- I learned some things. I didn't realize areas other than Kent County had been affected. I thought this was something that affected Bernie more, now I think it was probably about equal. Just makes me even angrier about it!
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