NC: The Full Unofficial Audit: The Case for Tampering

[ignatzmouse]

Sorry for the numbers. This is a long and comprehensive report, so please stay with me -- it offers what I believe to be a strong case that election tampering took place, and I want to carefully establish the facts. I think it may be the first deep examination inside the numbers of a given state -- not just speculation -- but real data collection and questionable results put to the test.

BeFree asked me a few days ago to look over the North Carolina election returns. Things looked funny. They were way out of sync with the exit polls and no one could believe that Erskine Bowles had lost in the Senate race. The deeper I looked at the figures, the more things began to look disturbing. I downloaded the precinct data and began to pour through it for clues. Then I saw that the absentee vote (which apparently also includes the early voting data) was huge, comprising more than *a million votes* and nearly a full third of the total vote (30%). It offered the chance to compare an unadulterated voting pattern against the strange results of election day. I reasoned with an early vote that large, it is no longer a sample but a benchmark. The nearer one approaches 100%, the more accurate the picture of the whole. At one third, any inconsistencies should even out -- even if more white suburban Republicans voted by absentee (as has been charged in the past with smaller samples) or if the Democratic GOTV pushed our early numbers (as has been assumed for this election). In that respect, I was lucky to have looked at North Carolina -- it's not as crazed as the battleground states and the electorate is nicely split between parties. Any inconsistencies of one side dominating the early vote would have showed up in the data -- they didn't.

With that in mind, I began an informal review of the NC absentee vote. What I found was stunning, and I believe it should have national implications. I have little doubt that we will find the same thing elsewhere by using benchmark absentee data against election day returns. It not only reflects the pattern of exit poll discrepancy we saw throughout the country, but it also makes a compelling case for purposeful tampering with the electronic data. I also think it reveals the three objectives of the Bush re-election campaign: 1) re-election 2) mandate 3) strong Senate majority.

All of the absentee information was buried in the precinct data, hundreds of thousands of lines worth, and had to be pulled out before a comparison could be made. Before we look inside the numbers, note that of the 102 North Carolina counties, 2 have not yet posted absentee data, Catawba and Lee. It may well be in the precinct data but mislabeled or combined in some way. The NC Board of Elections said that both counties have reported, but weren't sure where it was recorded -- I'm awaiting a call back with the information. My estimate based on Catawba's demographic similarity to Davidson would shift the absentee percentages by 0.6% in the Republican's favor, so bear in mind that I've not incorporated it into the data and the consistency is going to be even better than represented. Catawba has a strong Republican base (47,923 to 33,024 registered Republicans to Democrats) and is heavily White (91,141 white to 7619 black registrants). As it is now, the absentee/early vote is almost precisely balanced statistically with the final results. Lee county is much smaller and has 16,391 Democrats to 9149 Republicans (again mostly white) -- it likely would have little impact on the percentages.

Now, here is the absentee data for all the statewide offices, followed by the overall vote, and then the poll-only results (obtained by subtracting the absentee data from the overall figures). The poll-only data is important as it gives us an isolated snapshot of the results that were returned on election day.

GOVERNOR (Absentee)
Mike Easley (DEM): 573,120 (55.6%)
Patrick J. Ballantine (REP): 445,505 (43.2%) -12.4
Other: 12,490 (1.2%)

GOVERNOR (Overall)
Mike Easley (DEM): 1,939,137 (55.6%)
Patrick J. Ballantine (REP): 1,495,032 (42.9%) -12.7
Other: 52,512 (1.5%)

GOVERNOR (Poll only)
Mike Easley (DEM): 1,366,017 (55.6%)
Patrick J. Ballantine (REP): 1,049,527 (42.7%) -12.9
Other: 40,022 (1.6%)

Already we notice that the Democrat, Easley, ran consistently at 55.6% at the polls, in the absentee, and in the poll-only vote. The Republican, Ballantine, actually did very slightly better in the absentee. But this is the overall pattern of consistency in all the statewide races (except for Senate and President which I'll hold till last). There is one other important hidden benchmark we can measure here, percentage of turnout. Perhaps the Democrats had more early/absentee voters and the Republicans had a bigger election day turnout? Well, we can figure that by dividing Easley's absentees by his overall votes (573,120 divided by 1,939,137) to find a ratio of 30% for the Democrat. And then do the same for the Republican Ballantine to also get a ratio of 30%. Both Democrats and Republicans turned out in equal numbers in early voting and at the polls. Thank you, North Carolina.

To establish the point of consistency, here are the comparisons of all the other statewide races. It's a lot of numbers, most all of them in the same percentile range, but it was important to establish that there was a clear, obvious, and unaccounted diversion from the norm in both the Senate and Presidential races, so I spent a couple of twelve hour days and went through all the statewide numbers including the amendment votes.

MAJOR RACES

*******************
LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR (Absentee)
Beverly Eaves Perdue (DEM): 561,584 (55.7%)
Jim Snyder (REP): 433,112 (43.0%)
Other: 13,217 (1.3%)

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR (Overall)
Beverly Eaves Perdue (DEM): 1,888,382 (55.6%)
Jim Snyder (REP): 1,453,711 (42.8%)
Other: 56,367 (1.6%)

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR (Poll Only)
Beverly Eaves Perdue (DEM): 1,326,798 (55.5%)
Jim Snyder (REP): 1,020,599 (42.7%)
Other: 43,150 (1.8%)

*******************
SECRETARY OF STATE (Absentee)
Elaine F. Marshall (DEM): 575,045 (58.0%)
Jay Rao (REP): 416,145 (42.0%)

SECRETARY OF STATE (Overall)
Elaine F. Marshall (DEM): 1,911,570 (57.3%)
Jay Rao (REP) 1,423,115 (42.7%)

SECRETARY OF STATE (Poll Only)
Elaine F. Marshall (DEM): 1,336,525 (57.0%)
Jay Rao (REP): 1,006,970 (43.0%)

******************
ATTORNEY GENERAL (absentee)
Roy Cooper (DEM): 546,477 (56.7%)
Joe Knott (REP): 417,824 (43.3%)

ATTORNEY GENERAL (overall)
Roy Cooper (DEM): 1,869,699 (55.6%)
Joe Knott (REP): 1,493,061 (44.4%)


ATTORNEY GENERAL (poll-only)
Roy Cooper (DEM): 1,323,222 (55.2%)
Joe Knott (REP): 1,075,237 (44.8%)

******************

OTHER STATEWIDE RACES:


******************
AUDITOR (absentee)
Leslie Merritt (REP): 476,257 (48.6%)
Ralph Campbell (DEM): 503,250 (51.4%)

AUDITOR (overall)
Leslie Merritt (REP): 1,662,361 (50.4%)
Ralph Campbell (DEM): 1,633,622 (49.6%)

AUDITOR (poll-only)
Leslie Merritt (REP): 1,186,104 (51.2%)
Ralph Campbell (DEM): 1,130,372 (48.8%)

*********************
COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE (absentee)
Steve Troxler (REP): 478,794 (48.6%)
Britt Cobb (DEM): 506,613 (51.4%)

COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE (overall)
Steve Troxler (REP): 1,665,678 (50.04%)
Britt Cobb (DEM): 1,663,022 (49.96%)

COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE (poll-only)
Steve Troxler (REP): 1,186,884 (50.7%)
Britt Cobb (DEM): 1,156,409 (49.3%)

**********************
COMMISSIONER OF INSURANCE (absentee)
Jim Long (DEM): 582,238 (58.4%)
C. Robert Brawley (REP): 414,204 (41.6%)

COMMISSIONER OF INSURANCE (overall)
Jim Long (DEM): 1,934,061 (57.6%)
C. Robert Brawley (REP): 1,421,404 (42.4%)

COMMISSIONER OF INSURANCE (poll only)
Jim Long (DEM): 1,351,823 (57.3%)
C. Robert Brawley (REP): 1,007,200 (42.7%)

**************************
COMMISSIONER OF LABOR (absentee)
Cherie Berry (REP): 475,570 (50.2%)
Wayne Goodwin (DEM): 472,632 (49.8%)

COMMISSIONER OF LABOR (overall)
Cherie Berry (REP): 1,721,841 (52.1%)
Wayne Goodwin (DEM): 1,582,253 (47.9%)

COMMISSIONER OF LABOR (poll only)
Cherie Berry (REP): 1,246,271 (52.9%)
Wayne Goodwin (DEM): 1,109,621 (47.1%)

***********************
SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION (absentee)
June S. Atkinson (DEM): 507,523 (51.7%)
Bill Fletcher (REP): 473,991 (48.3%)

SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION (overall)
June S. Atkinson (DEM): 1,656,092 (50.1%)
Bill Fletcher (REP): 1,646,838 (49.9%)

SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION (poll only)
June S. Atkinson (DEM): 1,148,569 (49.5%)
Bill Fletcher (REP): 1,172,847 (50.5%)

**************************
TREASURER (absentee)
Richard H. Moore (DEM): 546,160 (55.3%)
Edward A. Meyer (REP): 440,871 (44.7%)

TREASURER (overall)
Richard H. Moore (DEM): 1,812,182 (54.5%)
Edward A. Meyer (REP): 1,512,628 (45.5%)

TREASURER (poll only)
Richard H. Moore (DEM): 1,266,022 (54.2%)
Edward A. Meyer (REP): 1,071,757 (45.8%)

*******************************
NC Constitutional Amendment 1 (absentee)
FOR: 432,697 (51.7%)
AGAINST: 403,475 (48.3%)

NC Constitutional Amendment 1 (overall)
FOR: 1,494,789 (51.2%)
AGAINST: 1,423,195 (48.8%)

NC Constitutional Amendment 1 (poll only)
FOR: 1,062,092 (51.0%)
AGAINST: 1,019,720 (49.0%)

****************************
NC Constitutional Amendment 2 (absentee)
FOR: 679,434 (78.6%)
AGAINST: 185,101 (21.4%)

NC Constitutional Amendment 2 (overall)
FOR: 2,334,683 (78.0%)
AGAINST: 659,532 (22.0%)

NC Constitutional Amendment 2 (poll only)
FOR: 1,655,249 (77.7%)
AGAINST: 474,431 (22.3%)

****************************
NC Constitutional Amendment 3 (absentee)
FOR: 591,122 (68.7%)
AGAINST: 269,641 (31.3%)

NC Constitutional Amendment 3 (overall)
FOR: 1,984,151 (68.0%)
AGAINST: 933,021 (32.0%)

NC Constitutional Amendment 3 (poll only)
FOR: 1,393,029 (67.7%)
AGAINST: 663,380 (32.3%)

****************************

Of all the statewide races, the only other votes that may raise red flags are the Labor and Agriculture Commissioners, though likely the Catawba data will pull them into line. But none of the races showed anywhere near the unexplained swing of the Senate race.

*************************
SENATOR (absentee)
Richard Burr (REP): 492,166 49.48%
Erskine Bowles (DEM): 492,536 49.52% .04
Other: 9,917 1%

SENATOR (overall)
Richard Burr (REP): 1,791,460 51.6%
Erskine Bowles (DEM): 1,632,509 47.0% -4.6
Other: 48,103 1.4%

SENATOR (poll only)
Richard Burr (REP): 1,299,294 52.4%
Erskine Bowles (DEM): 1,139,973 46.0% -6.4
Others: 38,186 1.5%


*************************

WOW. With essentially the same vote demographics in the absentee and the poll, there was a sudden shift of 6.4% of the vote toward the Republican. That's more than a little alarming and is in itself enough to call into question the legitimacy of the election day vote. North Carolinians in this forum can speak to this, but Bowles is generally well liked. There is absolutely nothing to account for the bizarre drop of support in the electorate by 6.4% between the early voting (mostly the week prior) and election day. But when we compare it to the Presidential race, it is dwarfed by absurdity.

*************************
PRESIDENT (absentee)
George W. Bush: 529,755 52.9%
John F. Kerry: 469,522 46.9% -6.0
Others: 2749 0.2%

PRESIDENT (overall)
George W. Bush: 1,961,188 56.0%
John F. Kerry: 1,525,821 43.6% -12.4
Others: 13,989 0.4%

PRESIDENT (poll only)
George W. Bush: 1,431,433 57.3%
John F. Kerry: 1,056,299 42.3% -15.0
Others: 11,240 0.4%

**************************

So what the heck is going on here??? Kerry was behind by 6 points in the absentee/early voting. The result is consistent with the pre-election polls and most importantly with the exit polls of November 2nd. THE EXIT POLLS TELL US THAT PEOPLE VOTED IDENTICALLY TO THE OTHER THIRD OF THE ELECTORATE. By all standards of reason, the other two-thirds of the vote should be very close to the same result. But look at what happens -- a sudden and unexplained plummet in the very same electorate of NINE POINTS at the election day polls, more than doubling Kerry's overall margin of defeat. A 15 point edge for Bush in North Carolina on election day??? Come on -- I'm not that gullible. I honestly don't know how to account for that outside of computer programming -- and if it's there, there's a damn good case with the nationwide inconsistencies between exit polls and results on election day to say that it follows everywhere electronic tabulation goes. My gut tells me that this is why there is a reluctance in Florida and Ohio to push the absentee counting and that the ballots and counts had best be watched very damn closely. They present a paper trail challenge that if understood will provide a key benchmark for election day fraud. I also want to point out that the differential was not there prior to election day -- meaning there either had to be a *date specific* alteration in the software, a hack, or a specific activation just prior to the election. And lastly, it is not only the Presidential election day vote that is spurious -- the close Senate races also bear close scrutiny.

[Lostnote03]

1. Thank You For Your Efforts!!!n/t

[ewagner]

2. One truth

that your numbers point out is that the exit polls were essentially right but something very strange happened ...

[Florida_Geek]

3. If you read my post

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x40303

One of the things I talk about is the need for the vote corruption software to ONLLY work on the TRUE data and time of an election.

If you look at the Senate race

SENATOR (absentee)
Richard Burr (REP): 492,166 49.48%
Erskine Bowles (DEM): 492,536 49.52% .04
Other: 9,917 1%

SENATOR (overall)
Richard Burr (REP): 1,791,460 51.6%
Erskine Bowles (DEM): 1,632,509 47.0% -4.6
Other: 48,103 1.4%

SENATOR (poll only)
Richard Burr (REP): 1,299,294 52.4%
Erskine Bowles (DEM): 1,139,973 46.0% -6.4
Others: 38,186 1.5%

That's just when Burr pulled ahead of Bowles....

Two things Bush needed in this election, One to Win and Two to stack the Senate with as many Repugs he could.

But your figures still show Kerry losing in NC IMHO even if the vote was true.


Thanks for your work.

[ignatzmouse]

4. Thanks!

Yes, that's great work and fits perfectly into the scenario.

As far as Kerry's NC numbers go, it was a given that he wouldn't win the state, but it was the absurd election day margin that makes the whole thing suspect beyond reason.

[Richard Steele]

5. Thank you for posting this

Printing it out to show some friends here in Durham.

Thank you for all your hard work on these numbers!

[oddtext]

10. i agree

i wanted to spit i was so mad when i saw that result! no EFFIN way * got that margin here!
:mad:

[NCvoter]

6. Absentee totals from 2000

this also includes early voting, though the early voting numbers were much higher in 2004.

Absentee Totals from 2000

Gore 187140 41.7%
Bush 258714 57.66%
Browne 1482
Buchanan 1061
McReynolds 303

Total 448700


These totals don't include curbside and provisional votes, which were relatively small figures.



Final overall totals:

Gore 1,257,692 43%
Bush 1,631,163 56%


This certainly doesn't hurt the author of this thread's case...


this information is here: http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/y2000elect/stateresults.htm

[BR_Parkway]

7. Thank you for doing all this and Holy Shit

what other explanation can there be? NC doesn't allow the President to go on a straight party ticket, but the Senate seat certainly was.

[jdj]

8. Thank you so much for all the work that you put into this.

It certainly supports the malicious code or hacking theories.

these machines have got to go.

[TalkingDog]

9. Please, please write the General Council

of the NC Elections Board with this information. (He's sick of me writing) [email protected]

Also send it to the Charlotte Observer:
[email protected]

Winston-Salem Journal:
[email protected]

For the Raleigh News and Observer, you'd have to send a hard copy. I can't get a non-form email addy.

The more people that write in, the more seriously they'll take it.

[roguewolf5]

11. you're giving hope to those who need it

thank you. maybe something will turn up with a rejuvinated look into the election. if anything you have given me hope.

hope that perhaps, just perhaps, the odds have been unfairly stacked against us. which means we weren't bested.

time to rock.

[chathamdem in NC]

12. Calling all NC Dem's re county results

Ignatzmouse cleverly looked at an aspect I wasn't looking at here in NC, which was early voters vs E-Day vote. This is significant because there are reports that Rove/Hughes et al sat W down sometime (afternoon) on Nov 2 and told him he was losing.

I worked outside early voting site two afternoons and visited a couple of others, and worked at 2 precincts, visited another on election day here in Chatham County.

Anecdotal report: Committed (straight ticket type) voters turning out for both parties in early voting though Dems expressed concerns about vote counting and possibly delays election day. I would posit one theory, that ticket splitters (less common this year, seemingly about 1-2% of people I met, if that) more likely to wait until E-Day, still making up minds. Undecideds (really few) seemed to end up with Bush.

Dems registration is notably meaningless in NC but the down-ticket voting comparison tells the story well, and my contacts with voters throughout the election show that the vast majority of voters seemed to have lined up. (Those that were ticket splitting or defecting or whatever were probably the ones who were keeping their heads down the most, not flagging their intentions.

NC GOP website talks about their last minute E-day GOTV efforts, and they did not have workers outside all 4 of our early voting sites, only on election day, so E-day was clearly their emphasis. But there was not an evening rush at all precincts.

(We also did not have long lines, or voter suppression, etc. here, but there are reports scattered about the Internet of this in several NC counties where there were inner city or student voters.

I have not been able to determine what was done by county Dem parties in other counties, but here Dem party volunteers outside polls were handing out miniaturized copies of sample ballot and reminding (all interested) voters to remember to vote for president by name as well as straight ticket.

Normally one would expect a small number of voters to only vote for president, but in my experience with voters this represents a really tiny fraction, something like 1 in 400, and not a significant factor (these were all Bush voters, unaware (of so much but including) of fact that a Perez needs a down-ticket Congress, senate etc.

With Prez vote separated from straight ticket, in some past elections there should have been an overall deficit in presidential votes, consisting in all the lost votes of straight ticket voters, more of them Democrats probably since the GOP voters in past did not always have candidates in every race to vote for.

This year there seem to be more votes for Prez in some counties (and states, NC and Florida just for an e.g.)

Of course the real comparison has to be made not between votes and votes, but votes and voters.

The only verifiable accounting of voters is the precinct poll books. Which should also apply to records of early voters. However, it takes a perceived problem to justify asking a county elections director or county board of elections to see the book(s) to verify the given count.

State Board of Elections site has results that don't list that information.

Some counties in NC have a website and some don't. My county's website lists results by precinct WITH voter numbers, but most others I've checked so far (just a few) don't.

Mecklenberg stupidly reports "turnout" as votes, not voters!!!!!

So calling all NC Democrats. It doesn't matter what kind of vote counting procedure was used, you need to get results from your county that show precinct results including numbers of voters who signed in to vote, including absentee, and early voting.

Then you have to do the math to ensure that the number of votes cast in any race do not exceed the number of voters.

Sometimes this is immediately apparent from the totals of combined precinct results, but one large precinct could have extra votes that are making up the deficit from elsewhere in the county, so it takes detailed checking.

With certain types of vote-counting system, such as Optiscan machines, the tape is run to tally the clean ballots, then the ballot box has to be opened to hand-count the rejected ballots.

Useful information to get from county board is if any precinct had any problems which delayed reporting beyond the others. The larger the precinct the later the report usually. Thus early returns from most counties (when 3% in and TV starts pontificating) are usually the most rural precincts with fewest voters (so fewest bad ballots, maybe none).

One really glaring defect in many states now (if not virtually all) is that party registration of past, party affiliation of past is simply no guarantee in an election divide like 2004 what the agenda is the poll judges actually counting our votes if it is done at the precinct level.

So it behooves us all to continue to do the math.

If there are problems, then it shows that there is something wrong (not only possibly with the vote counting technology but also) with the system under which so many activist Dems (even after 2000 for heavens sakes) volunteered to work so many hours on this election, but not as poll judges, who were in chronic short supply this year.

[ROH]

13. Very Interesting!

You wrote: "Of all the statewide races, the only other votes that may raise red flags are the Labor and Agriculture Commissioners, though likely the Catawba data will pull them into line. But none of the races showed anywhere near the unexplained swing of the Senate race."

Did the Catawba data pull them into line?

Have you had chance to do similar analyzes for other states, such as Ohio and Florida?

[BeFree]

14. Thanks ROH

I'd kinda forgotten about this analysis from ignatzmouse, what with all that has gone down in the last two months. Thanks for digging this up.

Reading this again just flat out reinforces our argument that the BBV screwed up the numbers.
Gonna have to send the link to Election forum, right now!

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

15. Other data that would help solve this puzzle

One thing that might affect things:

Lumped in with absentee voting is early voting.

There are 2,752 regular precincts.

There are 128 one stop voting precincts.

The distribution of one stop may affect the numbers.

The data that would be most helpful of all is the actual voter turnout data by precinct. This would identify undervotes.

Don Wright has admitted that we will never know the true turnout in Gaston County.

We need voter turnout and voting data broken out for
one stop voting
one stop voting provisional
absentee voting - mail in
regular voting - on election day

I am trying to get this data, but currently the NC BOE has one stop and mail in lumped in together.

www.uscountvotes.org would like to have this data, and they have the personnel to put a study together.

So far, this kind of study has found phantom votes and undervotes in New Mexico.

Also helps to prove that DREs drop between 5 and 10 times more votes than do optical scan machines.

[starmaker]

17. contrast between votes for pres and sen

i voted in haywood co on optiscan and tallys showed more for gov and sen than pres
buncombe co next door with seq.dre had 4000 more for pres toggle principal evidently
still no info on total votes nc is a mess

[captainslack]

16. One problem

There's only 100 counties in North Carolina. Not 102.

Before we look inside the numbers, note that of the 102 North Carolina counties, 2 have not yet posted absentee data, Catawba and Lee.

[JanMichael]

18. It's called a "typo" and doesn't negate the rest of the data.

Thanks for playing.

[dsc]

19. The problem that I see

is that the early voters are likely to have been the most partisan and thus the most likely to be consistent in their voting across races. The people at the polls would have been more likely to be split ticket voters and thus Kerry and Bowles would do worse amongst them than Beasley and the others.

[BeFree]

20. Damning Evidence That Lives

Thank you, ignatzmouse.

See the current discussion about this in the DU Election Forum...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=429093&mesg_id=429093

[BeFree]

21. Kick