Check out Larimer County, Colorado results and data!

[ClintCooper2003]

First, let me mention that Larimer County does its voting differently than other counties in this country.

Here's an excerpt from a recent artcile on Larimer County:

"At center stage Thursday was a presentation by Larimer County Clerk and Recorder Scott Doyle of a pioneering system employed Nov. 2 in his county - the use of vote centers, rather than the traditional system of assigning voters a polling place by the precinct in which they reside.

Larimer County was the only county in the country to use vote centers, which enabled residents to vote at any one of 31 sites in the county that they found convenient, rather than polling sites in each of the county's 143 precincts.

Larimer County's use last month of vote centers resulted in a 93.5 percent turnout of the county's 155,045 active voters in the general election. " ( And the link to the article: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/election/article/0,1299,DRMN_36_3388599,00.html )

(They mention a 93.5% turnout. The figure I get is 72.74%. I'll have to write and ask about this.)

Now let's look at the political party composition of Larimer County as of Oct. 2004 ( here's the link: http://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/oct_2004.htm )

Republicans 39.05%
Democrats 26.21%
Independents 34.23%

Clearly this is a Republican county. It's more Republican than Jefferson county (R = 38.04% D = 29.27% I = 32.37%) and substantially more Republican than Arapahoe (R = 36.7% D = 29.25% I = 29.25%)

Now let's sneak a peak at the results from Larimer County from the Presidential race from 2000. ( link: http://uselectionatlas.org )
Bush 62,429 52.7%
Gore 46,055 38.9%

And from 2004:
Bush 75,884 51.8 (percentage change in votes cast = +21.55%)
Kerry 68,266 46.6 (percentage change in votes cast = +48.23%)

That's really quite amazing. In a county where there are 49% more registered Republicans than Democrats (78,602 divided by 52,757), Kerry very nearly pulls off an upset.

Thoughts?

[eleny]

1. We have friends in Fort Collins

And they have a son of draft age. They're diehard Republicans. But this year, because of their fear of the draft, they said they were voting for Kerry.

Btw, hubby and I live in Jefferson County. A traditionally conservative county. What fun.

[pleiku52cab]

2. You oughta' try living in Sarasota Co. Florida

my rep in Congress is Katherine Harris

[Turn CO Blue]

5. My condolences.

[lonestarnot]

10. Oh you poooooor thing!

:hug:

[BlueDog2u]

3. Interesting results

How would the vote center procedure make fraud more difficult in this county?

[Turn CO Blue]

4. Look at the high percentage of Indies.

I have to be honest - I registered as non-affiliated, even though I am very liberal in my politics. That's how people who live here tend to think and vote (independently). Also, look at the outstanding election results for the local races - with return of Dem control in the state legislature and the Senate seat for Salazar - this state is moving toward blue. A lot of people are relocating here (300 sunny days per year, beautiful scenery!) - and that is also helping to shift toward blue.

It's too bad that Boulder took a week to count their votes - as their precincts came in over that week, it totally SHRANK the margin between * and Kerry from what was reported about Colorado on election night.

[ClintCooper2003]

6. Did it really? It looked to me like Kerry's margin was HUGE in...

Boulder and Denver. Much higher than in 2000. Check out uselectionatlas.org.

[Turn CO Blue]

9. I probably wasn't clear.

What I meant was that Boulder (very progressive college county) went heavily for Kerry - but because they were only counting a few precincts per day - those weren't being added to the overall state tallies fast enough to suit me.

So on election night and the next few days - it appeared that Bush had a larger lead statewide than I knew that he really had - but once the Boulder count finally came in - Bush's statewide margin shrank quite a bit.

[ClintCooper2003]

15. Oh, yes that's true. I remember wondering about Boulder.

[sled]

7. Grand County, Co.

Check out Grand County, where I lived for 20 yrs., until moving,
recently. I was checking it out last night, & it was exactly what I
expected. Even the Rep. thought Jr. sucked, there. The place was
small enough, that I knew, or knew of, a lot of these folks. I ran
for State Congress there, in 2002, & worked with a lot of the folks,
from throughout the county. A lot of the local's families, have been
there since the late 1800s. Good folks, not neo-cons, more like
Lincoln Republicans, whose roots date back there, from the end of the
Civil War...the Union side. Republicans by birth, it's just always
been that way.

Kerry got 819 more votes, than registered Dems, Jr. got 868 less than
he, purportedly, should have. So much for that "moral values" turnout
BS...a lot of no shows, or they voted for Kerry. I think you could find example of this nationwide...

http://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/general/CO-GRAND-CUMULATIVE.htm

General Election

George W. Bush (REP) 4260 55.99 %
John F. Kerry (DEM) 3243 42.62 %

http://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/oct04_party.doc

Registrations

Rep. - 5,128
Dem. - 2,424

[ClintCooper2003]

8. Yes, we certainly could find evidence of this nationwide, if...

the vote hadn't been altered by the crazy people in the White House.

[ClintCooper2003]

14. And, by the way, that represents a very large uptick in overall

percentage for Kerry over Gore. Check out uselectionatlas.org.

[rumpel]

11. The large Independent base has to be considered, too.

[sled]

12. True

But it doesn't explain the lack of Rep. turnout, considering the supposed, "moral values" voting mobs, that weren't...

Kind of shoots down the "Dixiecrat" theory in Florida, too, when at least, two bastions of Republicanism, Collier, & Lee Counties, couldn't even get all the Rs, to the polls, yet one is supposed to believe, some counties turned out droves of Dems, who went for Jr. It just doesn't add up...

[ClintCooper2003]

13. No it doesn't add up at all. It's very clear that the touch-screen

machines have a large part to play in all this. Probably the Diebold optiscan equipment as well.