Reply #124: Hold your horses. The Connally thing is probably NOT a smoking gun [View All]

[pat_k]

The http://freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/944">original free press article has had a correction posted. Summary of the numbers added for clarification:

2000 Butler County

President
Kerry 54,185 34%
Bush 106,735 66%
160,920 votes cast in county for President. Bush won county by 52,550

Chief Justice
Democract Connally 59,532 47%
Republican Moyer 66,625 52%
126,157 votes cast (78% of Presidential total) in county for Chief Justice. Moyer won by 7,093

In raw votes, Connally got 5347 more votes than Kerry

The 45,457 number for Bulter in the table is Bush's margin of victory over Kerry, 52,550, minus the Moyer margin of victory over Connnally, 7093. It is not clear to me what this number is supposed to indicate, but this is the "margin" that reflected by all those numbers. Some people have interpreted the numbers as the "Connally got xxx votes more than Kerry" -- and that is wrong.

I'm not sure how signficant all this will end up being and urge caution. If there is nothing to it, then they can say "Look at them grasp at straws."

The pattern is about the same as the 2000 results (see below). Until I hear a reason that the margin for the Connally Cheif Justice race would have a much bigger margin than in 2000, OR evidence that votes were hacked in 2000, I just don't see this as significant:

2004 Butler County

President
Bush,83,680 63.42%
Gore 44,661 33.85%
128,341 votes cast in county for President.

Supreme Court Justice Term commencing Jan. 1, 2001
Deborah Cook 60,936 55.22%
Tim Black 49,417 44.78%
110,353 votes cast (85% of presidential total)

Supreme Court Justice Term commencing Jan. 1, 2001
Terrence O'Donnell 58,897 51.93%
Alice Robie Resnick 54,517 48.07%
110,353 votes cast (88% of presidential total)