The Marion County Clerk's Office is showing all the precincts as having reported. Let's go over some of the more interesting numbers.
In 42 of the 590 precincts there was a unanimous vote reported in favor of the Wishard referendum. If you toss out the precincts with less than 20 votes to focus on those more statistically significant, there were 28 precincts with 20 or more votes that reported a unanimous vote. The larger ones include:
Ward 29, Precinct 15 179-0
Ward 27, Precinct 06 148-0
Ward 19, Precinct 03 134-0
Ward 23, Precinct 05 118-0
Ward 01, Precinct 03 112-0
In 29 precincts, there was only one "No" vote cast. If you drop out the ones with less than 20 votes as being statistically insignificant, you have 23 precincts that report only one "No" vote. The larger ones include:
Ward 1, Precinct 7 193-1
Ward 23, Precinct 7 162-1
Ward 6, Precinct 2 146-1
Wash., Precinct 38 117-1
Ward 1, Precinct 2 108-1
There were 71 precincts that were unanimous or had only one "No" vote. In those 71 precincts, the Wishard referendum won 3671-29, an astonishing 99.2% to .8% victory.
In paper ballot elections, the Clerk's Office works off of vote totals that are reported to them by campaign workers. They would only look at the actual paper ballots in the event of a recount, which obviously isn't going to happen in this case.
It does raise an interesting point. The integrity of elections have always depended on Republicans and Democratic campaign workers watching each other. What happens when there is a referendum that the organization of both parties is supporting?
10 comments:
How many of those precincts even had both parties represented in the poll workers?
So, are you saying the two parties colluded to throw an election just because you don't like the result? Or, are you just implying it?
Personally, I find it next to impossible to believe 99% of a given population would agree on anything.
For my part, I think the final tally would have still favored Wishard, but it is very interesting to find whole precincts voting one particular way.
A statistician might have something to say about the odds.
Timb,
I Don't believe I said anything of the sort. I'm saying that there might be a disconnect between what was repoted by poll workers and what the ballots actually say.
Seriously, 42 unanimous precinct votes and 71 by one vote or less don't seem a little odd to you?
For example, one precinct was 179-0. Now, Timb, you mean to tell me that shouldn't raise eyebrows?
Varan, in answer to your question many of those precincts might not have both parties present or present in name only. Don't forget though, this was not a partisan election. Actually the leadership of both parties supported it.
DI, I agree. Even if you put 179 people in a room and told them to all vote "yes" on something, you'd have people still screw it up.
Varan (second comment), I don't think there's any question that the Wishard referendum still passes overwhelmingly.
Paul? Don't they call this the "combine"?
I thought that's how things work in Marion county.
Remember the CIB city council vote? The democrats didn't act like democrats and the republicans didn't act like republicans.
Few polticians are philosophically grounded. Most are sociopaths (and I don't use that word lightly)
HFFT,
I certainly don't think there was some sort of concerted two party effort in these 71 precincts. If anything, it's probably just poll workers being overzealous on their count. If it were true, it wouldn't excuse the behavior. But I really doubt anyone high up in either parties would have been involved. Probably just people acting on their own.
We don't know though anything is wrong with the numbers. At this point, we just have some numbers that would understandably make someone take another look. I plan to do that.
I think the results are more than a little suspicious.
The number of unanimous precincts is highly suspicious. Case in point; in 1941 after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor the vote to declare war on Japan was 388 for to 1 against in the House of Representatives. If you an act of war can't get unanimous agreement, it is beyond amazing that 6% of our precincts were perfect!
Even the simple of choosing a yes / no vote I would expect someone to misread or miss mark a ballot.
I noticed on Election Night the pattern as results came up on the computer: these are heavily African-American populated precincts. Building a new, better Wishard Hospital was a no-brainer to the stable, home-owning working class Black voter who never ever misses an election. They vote faithfully every election. They participate in every Primary too with an unbroken stream of "D" after their name.
There's no polling place skullduggery involved: just an almost unanimous shared opinion by those voters. Kinda like the results of a referendum on leprosy. Easy to predict!
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