Spoiled ballots in Cuyahoga County

[jmknapp]

"Spoiled ballots" are defined as those which have no vote for president.

Looking at the unofficial Cuyahoga County results, 221 of the 1436 precincts had a spoilage rate of 3% or more. For sake of discussion, call these "spoiled precincts." In these spoiled precincts, Kerry had 71,867 votes to Bush's 9,866. So the spoilage tended to occur in heavily Democratic precincts--more specifically, African American precincts. The 221 precincts accounted for 13% of the total vote countywide.

A look at the votes for the minor party candidates Badnarik and Peroutka (both right wingers) in these precincts reveals highly anomalous results. Badnarik and Peroutka combined got a total of 3,495 votes countywide, but 918 of them (26%) came from these spoiled precincts. That is, (largely black) precincts with high ballot spoilage rates, accounting for 13% of the overall vote and leaning 8:1 Kerry, accounted for 26% of the vote for the right wingers Badnarik and Peroutka.

The pattern of ballot spoilage is not totally confined to black precincts. The Cleveland suburb of Orange has a white population of 81% (12% black) and median income of $90,000. Orange's four precincts went for Kerry by over 2:1. They voted against issue 1 by a wide margin (unlike predominantly black precincts).

precinct Kerry Bush Badnarik Peroutka spoilage
ORANGE A 298 119 0 18 2.8%
ORANGE B 254 154 1 0 0.7%
ORANGE C 379 206 3 4 0.8%
ORANGE D 180 86 12 9 1.7%

The two heaviest Democratic precincts in Orange, A and D, had unusually high rates for Badnarik and Peroutka. Moreover, these two precincts had the higher spoilage rates.

Well, you know those rich white liberal folk have trouble with paper ballots.

[MrUnderhill]

1. What's the point?

We knew ahead fo time that those precincts were likely to have higher spoilage rates.


And I'm not sure the third party data says anything. That looks like they got about the same percentage of the vote they got in the rest of the state (combining for a under 1%)

[jmknapp]

2. Nice call

You already knew that rich white liberal precincts (Orange) would go for Badnarik/Peroutka by ~5%?

Very good!

The Badnarik/Peroutka percent in the black precincts was highly clustered, for example 25% in Euclid 3-C, 10% in Cleveland 8I, 10% in Cleveland 13X, 40% in Cleveland 4F, 15% in Cleveland 3I, 25% in Cleveland 8G, etc.

[MrUnderhill]

3. No. But your post didn't say that.

I didn't find it very odd that they got 1/4 of their votes from 1/7 of the precincts if they were the most populous precincts.

[jmknapp]

4. 13% of total vote but 26% of Badnarik/Peroutka vote

That says it all--no need to appeal to size of the precincts themselves.

Here's another telling stat. There were 36 precincts in the county that went for Badnarik/Peroutka by 2% or more.

34 of those precincts went for Kerry; 2 for Bush.

In total for those 36 precincts, Kerry got 7,248 votes, Bush 1,356, Badnarik 409 and Peroutka 615.

Here is a map of said precincts:



The rightmost two precincts are Orange (rich white liberals).

The lower two are the only Republican precincts in the set.

The rest are urban black precincts.

[goclark]

5. I think I understand

but I am not clear on one pt.

Are they saying that the Black Precincts voted for others and not for President so they are soiled?

If that is so, I know they are lying because if anything, people would vote for the President and forget the rest! The overwhelming majority of African Americans were voting for Kerry. I can not believe that they didn't do that..help me.

[jmknapp]

7. I tend to agree

The knee jerk (conservative) explanation would be that black Democrats #$@* up their ballots more.

But how does that translate to votes for Badnarik/Peroutka?

Also there is the case of Orange, and one of the Bush precincts, North Royalton 3A (lower right), had 9% Badnarik/Peroutka and 7% spoiled. The other Republican precinct (lower left) is a special case that only had 42 votes, so the 1 Badnarik vote there put it over 2%.

In total these 36 precincts (2.5% of the 1436 precincts) accounted for 29% of the Badnarik/Peroutka vote! Very weird...

[MrUnderhill]

8. That's still not a given.

Didn't you say that Kerry won 90% of those precincts?

Was THAT in line with the rest of the state? Or is it possible that they REALLY didn't like Bush? and if Kerry wasn't what they wanted they would rather choose a no-name than vote for Bush?

Why does this have to be evidence of some error?

[roseBudd]

6. High spoilage rates in liberal educated precincts suggests either

punchcard machines that are defective or ballots that are different. By defective punchcard machines, it may mean the pads under the punching holes are rotten and no longer resilient or the reservoir the chads fall into is full. By defective ballots I mean either off register die cutting or a different composition of the paper. For example some type of fiber added to that lot of ballots that would make those ballots more difficult to perforate.

Miami Legal Blank provided the punchcard ballots for the state of Ohio.

If neither is the case my bet would be that the tabulation (ES&S) has been tampered with.

[momzno1]

9. heard that ballots in poor communities

were a heavier paper weight than those in repuke communities - don't know where to source that info though. Saw it on one of these boards last week some time. The machines would have more difficulty reading those punch cards.

[goclark]

10. That would be separate and unequal ,yes/no?

Do we have samples of both kinds of paper?

[roseBudd]

11. I mean Dayton Legal Blank provided all Ohio punchcard ballots

[Eloriel]

12. Very interesting. Thanks. n/t