Need help with communicating Tom Daschle’s strange numbers

[Rhapsody in Blue]

This is just too strange, and I refuse to let it go. I crunched the numbers for South Dakota and found that the totals votes cast for Senate EXCEEDED the total votes cast for President - I’m not talking party differences, I’m talking total votes cast in the whole state:

President: 388,215
Senate: 391,188 ..... which is 2,973 more than President
House: 389,468 ..... which is 1,253 more than President

I don’t buy it - why would almost 3,000 people vote for Senate but not President? I couldn’t find a precedent in previous South Dakota elections where a lower race brought in a higher turnout than a presidential one. And I don’t know of another state where this has happened, either.

What’s in the poll books? Which one is the true turnout number?

Last week I sent this info to Daschle’s office, the SD Democratic Party, as well the political reporter for the Argus Leader, the largest newspaper in SD. No answer, but I didn’t really expect one. There may be a valid reason for these numbers, but I do think we’re entitled to an explanation, that’s all. (No, I haven’t sent it to BBV - they’re swamped, this would be low on their list, and I think the candidates themselves need to take the lead - but hey, if you want to...)

Anyone up for contacting the above parties yourself? I’m just one person - I think if they get even a couple of people asking the same thing, they might actually notice and look into it.

Senator Tom Daschle’s email: it’s a webform at http://daschle.senate.gov/webform.html
South Dakota Democratic Party email: [e-mail]
David Kranz, U.S. Senate reporter for the Argus Leader (and a personal friend of Tom Daschle’s): [e-mail]

Source for the election numbers is at http://www.sdsos.gov/Elections/. A county by county breakdown is posted at http://www.geocities.com/truthnow2004/South_Dakota.htm.

We need every senator we can get, and these numbers are pretty clear - no statistics or variance analysis required. :) Thanks!

[jamboi]

1. I'm so glad someone hasn't let that go. I've been wondering about

all the weird numbers in the Senate races. Daschle, Bunning, FL, OK. So many of those had that strange phenomenon where the Dem was winning until somewhere late at night when the numbers started going for the Republican all of a sudden. Hmmm...

[Rhapsody in Blue]

5. I've been looking at those senate races too

and thought it would be really useful to have a snapshot of those numbers before the late-night adjustments. I'm trying to figure out what numerical method was used to produce the pro-B* results - how did they know how many votes to add, was it done on a percentage basis, etc. If I could see what the numbers were earlier in the evening....

You know, it's funny how several local newspaper articles state the same phenomenon: "At Daschle's election-night headquarters at the Sioux Falls Convention Center, a crowd of nearly 500 cheered with spirited enthusiasm when early returns showed their candidate with a 52 percent to 48 percent lead. But the mood mellowed when the race tightened and then swayed in Thune's favor late Tuesday." From: http://www.southdakotaelections.com/Story.cfm?Type=USSenate&ID=3198

[jbond56]

18. read this thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x78441

It will give you the numbers as they were put on tv.

[Rhapsody in Blue]

20. thanks !! maybe you could post the graph...

in a thread of its own, maybe with the raw numbers added? I think a lot of people would be interested in seeing this....

[Melissa G]

12. This is a great way to tell the media from Momcat's post below

We need to flood the media with letters. e-mails and phone calls urging them to cover the growing story of the major voting "anomalies" that all seemed to tilt in one direction.
DU has a great media blaster to help you with this task:

How to use media blaster: Info from the admin dept.

There is the local media blaster, which is available by clicking the "Campaign Underground" link at the top of every page. Also, there is a national media list pinned to the top of the General Discussion: Politics forum. I'm not really sure how to connect the two, but you are welcome to direct people to either list when they are trying to contact the media.

Also remember to thank media who are covering the story and encourage them to do more. A partial list of the friendly media is at this link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph ...

[Straight Shooter]

2. An interesting analysis of what happened in 2002 parallels 2004 concerns

This will make you wonder why we didn't raise more hell in 2002, because what we're seeing now is 2002 all over again:

How The Bush Gang Stole Its Third National Election In A Row

http://www.politicalstrategy.org/archives/000869.php

<snip>
Republican Senator Wayne Allard was running behind in Colorado with the momentum going in the other direction. When the results were revealed he, like Coleman, had won in a final surge that the pollsters failed to detect. The identical phenomenon occurred in New Hampshire, where popular Governor Jean Shaheen, who had been on Al Gore’s short list for the vice presidency in 2000, appeared on her way to the U.S. Senate. The pollsters were once more revealed to be dramatically wrong as John Sununu Jr. pulled through with another one of those 2002 Republican final surges to nip his opponent at the wire.

The most widely observed case of Republicans seemingly clutching victory from the jaws of defeat occurred in Georgia. This is the state where Karl Rove enticed lackluster Congressman Saxby Chambliss to run against Vietnam War hero and incumbent Senator Max Cleland. Despite shameful television ads showing Cleland alongside Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden the incumbent appeared to have weathered the storm and was ahead in the polls, as was Democratic Governor Roy Barnes. On Election Day the Republicans had scored two more of those amazing come from behind victories in the face of negative poll forecasts as Chambliss and Republican gubernatorial candidate Sonny Perdue both won.

A few perceptive analysts observed the strong showings made by Chambliss and Perdue in polling areas when the widely heralded new Diebold voting machines were in use. They dovetailed this information alongside the fact that similar machines were being used in the other races in which Republicans had scored dramatic triumphs.

[Rhapsody in Blue]

11. WOW! Didn't know that about 2002.

Makes sense, though. Have to see how it's going before you know how much to tweak the numbers, dontcha? No sense in doing it too early in the day .....

:grr:

[truehawk]

I was just going to start looking at the SD numbers

Did you look at the precinct by precinct data?

[Rhapsody in Blue]

6. Precinct data not available on the SoS Elections site

But the point i'm trying to raise is that in the state as a whole, 2,973 people showed up at the polls, made a mark on their ballot for Senate, but didn't bother to make a mark on the same piece of paper for President? Hard to believe.

The county breakdown at http://www.geocities.com/truthnow2004/South_Dakota.htm shows that it was spread out over nearly all the counties in the state.

[skids]

15. Or more to the point....

The number of people who voted for senate but skipped the presidential race is 2,973 higher than the number of people who voted for president, but skipped the senate race.

It sounds wrong to me, too. Collect the data from all the past years you can find. If there is no precedent for it, someone should look into it more seriously.

[NVMojo]

3. I've wondered about this race too....

[truehawk]

4. This state is small enough to look at the detail

[Old and In the Way]

7. I suspect Daschle's happy to escape Washington with his life and

sanity intact. There's so much structural fraud, who knows where to begin.

[Rumba]

8. that's less than 1%

some people may not have felt comfortable voting for either presidential candidate. My dad, for instance, chose this in Ohio.

[AtLiberty]

9. What was the vote breakdown in the SD's senate race again?

Thanks.

[newyawker99]

23. Hi AtLiberty!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Stand and Fight]

10. Yeah...

Tell me about it -- I'm still wondering how that nut, Tom Coburn, won here in Oklahoma. He's not even popular in the area I live in -- arguably one of the most conservative in the state.

[anamandujano]

13. thanks

He was a suck up but he was OUR suck up.

--go Jessie go--

[jamboi]

14. kick

[ClintCooper2003]

16. Listen!

The Daschle/Thune race was the most important race in South Dakota, NOT the Presidential race. Lots of people in South Dakota were upset with President Bush, but didn't want to vote for Kerry either.

[ebayfool]

17. bump - this shouldn't get lost! n/t

[Carolab]

19. I saw that in a "suspicious" area in Minnesota too

Northfield, MN, District 25B. Heavily Democratic, went DECIDEDLY for the DFL candidates across the board, yet gave the race to the Republican Christian builder who is buddies with the local community leader-banker-Legatus chapter chair by ALOT. This Republican representative has been following Governor TIm Pawlenty's TRIM-PLENTY budget program so I doubt that these voters would have rushed out to vote for him overwhelmingly.

In addition, total votes cast for him and against his peace-loving, Oxford-educated teacher Democratic opponent totaled 59 votes more (519) than the total votes for President (460). In fact, the presidential race got fewer combined votes than did either the other race for state representative (496) and the county commissioner (471). Do you not find this rather odd?

In fact, the only reason I found this tonight was because I got curious about the Legatus foundation, which is a group of "Christian" businessmen with some rather curious members having strong Bush ties. I looked down the list of "chapter cities" and thought to myself, I wonder whether certain candidates in certain races where there is a Legatus chapter did better than in others?

So I found that the Legatus chapter chair in the Twin Cities area is one Michael McGovern of Northfield. I decided to see how Northfield voters voted. And I found the above. Isn't that curious? I also wondered whether the odd results in and around Canton Ohio had anything to do with the membership of T.M. Timkin of the Timkin Corporation in Legatus. I also discovered that Mr. Timkin and two other Timkin execs got positions with the Bush administration.

[keepthemhonest]

21. my brother has been kicking around some numbers

in ohio ,where he says the senate had more votes than the president

as far as Daschle I agreee, something always sounded fishy to me on that one

[keepthemhonest]

22. my chart came out all funky so I deleted it

[Wordie]

24. I really don't know if there is a problem with the numbers or not, but

you probably should consider that * targeted Daschle in what I understand was an especially nasty campaign to oust him. The * people were apparently very angry about the tactics Daschle used to block the things the Repubs wanted in the first term. And Daschle was a bit to the left of a lot of his constutents as well, so the targeting did have its desired effect.

What I'm saying is that the numbers you got MAY be reflecting the huge amount of money * poured into the effort to defeat Daschle. This is just speculation on possible explanations on my part. I don't really know one way or another. I liked Daschle and was very disappointed when he lost.

[Amigust]

25. I trust the integrity of all the races equally. The same theft machinery

was in place wherever the race mattered and conditions permitted.