I've been doing my own analysis of the Florida election data today comparing 2004 results for President to the 2000 results and also to the increase in registration for Dems and Repubs between 2000 and 2004.
The stuff about the small optical scan counties appears to be mostly a red herring- nothing substantial there. The small Dixiecrat counties really vote like that.
But there are some big unusual patterns in the big touchscreen counties and a few of the big optical scan counties. They had a big Repub vote swing that was not consistent with the 2000 vote and the Dem and Repub registration increases between 2000 and 2004. For those who are interested I can email you my spread sheets.
The touchscreen counties with unusual Repub vote increases include: Broward, Hillsboro, Indian River, Lake, Martin, Palm Beach, Pinellas, Sarasota. I don't know whether the absentee ballots were included in the data I used or the extent that they were so this could be a smaller issue. Charlotte, Lee, Miami-Dade also had similar patterns but to a somewhat lesser degree.
Additionally among the Optical scan counties there were also similar patterns: Bay, Brevard, Manatee, Orange, Osceola, Polk. Citrus, Escambia, Hernando, Marion, Seminole, and St Lucie also had similar pattern but to lesser degree.
The only explanations for this pattern other than irregularities would be that the Repubs hugely beat the Dems in get out the vote or a lot more Dems voted for Bush in 2004 than in 2000. I heard the Dems thought they had record get out the vote effort in Florida.
The data I used came from :
ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm
election.dos.state.fl.us/voterreg/index.shtml
enight.dos.state.fl.us
www.floridacountiesmap.com/counties_list.shtml
The stuff about the small optical scan counties appears to be mostly a red herring- nothing substantial there. The small Dixiecrat counties really vote like that.
But there are some big unusual patterns in the big touchscreen counties and a few of the big optical scan counties. They had a big Repub vote swing that was not consistent with the 2000 vote and the Dem and Repub registration increases between 2000 and 2004. For those who are interested I can email you my spread sheets.
The touchscreen counties with unusual Repub vote increases include: Broward, Hillsboro, Indian River, Lake, Martin, Palm Beach, Pinellas, Sarasota. I don't know whether the absentee ballots were included in the data I used or the extent that they were so this could be a smaller issue. Charlotte, Lee, Miami-Dade also had similar patterns but to a somewhat lesser degree.
Additionally among the Optical scan counties there were also similar patterns: Bay, Brevard, Manatee, Orange, Osceola, Polk. Citrus, Escambia, Hernando, Marion, Seminole, and St Lucie also had similar pattern but to lesser degree.
The only explanations for this pattern other than irregularities would be that the Repubs hugely beat the Dems in get out the vote or a lot more Dems voted for Bush in 2004 than in 2000. I heard the Dems thought they had record get out the vote effort in Florida.
The data I used came from :
ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm
election.dos.state.fl.us/voterreg/index.shtml
enight.dos.state.fl.us
www.floridacountiesmap.com/counties_list.shtml