On Election Day, the pundits say, black Floridians turned out to vote in record numbers. In total, it is calculated that 893,000 black voters showed up at
the polls, a 50% increase over 1996.
There is only one problem with this theory.
There aren't 893,000 registered black voters in the state of Florida.
According to the website for the Florida Department of State, 875,135 registered voters in Florida identified themselves as African Americans -- 10.7%
of those who chose to describe their race. A further 145,980 voters declined to state their skin color. Assuming 15,000 of these voters were African
Americans, that leaves us with 890,000 black voters. The projected black turnout, based on these numbers: 100.3%.
A precinct-by-precinct analysis of some of the counties with the largest black populations shows that not only did African American turnout not match the
media hype: it wasn't even close. For now, never mind the fact that all black registered voters (and them some) would have had to vote to make up 15%
of the voting population. Instead, keep in mind this stat: black turnout would have to be 40% higher than turnout among the rest of the electorate.
Looking at these precincts, did it even come close to that?
Nope.
In Palm Beach County, site of the imfamous butterfly ballot, 39,898 people were registered to vote in precincts that were more than 50% black -- and
21,720 showed up to vote, a 54.44% turnout. Turnout in the rest of Palm Beach County was 62.95%. Not only was black turnout not higher -- in Palm
Beach County it was eight points below the average -- and the total number of voters factors in both the undervotes and the overvotes which supposedly
occurred the most in black precincts.
Miami-Dade County is home to one fifth of Florida's African American population. If there was any surge in the black vote, one would see it here first.
In 1996, 97,504 voters in Dade's majority-black precincts cast votes for President. In 2000, 101,866 voters in these same precincts voted -- a 4.5%
increase. Countywide, this statistic was 12.5%. In the Cuban community, there were 12.7% more voters in 2000 than in 1996. In all, these black
precincts saw a 60.97% turnout, nearly four points lower than the 64.7% turnout countywide. (Because precinct-level under- and overvote data is not
available for 2000, this data compares the number of ballots that were legally cast in the Presidential election, not how many voters showed up at the
polls.)
The same pattern holds in Duval County, where a confusing ballots allegedly stymied the votes of thousands of African American voters. Here, we have
the benefit of knowing precinct-level data for spoiled ballots and including it in the turnout figures. However, since we do not have demographic data for
these precincts, we will consider all precincts where Al Gore got 80% or more of the vote as the majority-black areas. Here too, turnout was lower
(63.97%) than it was countywide (68.79%).
In total, these three counties represent 36.5% of the state's African American voters. No evidence of a surge in black voter turnout could be found.
Since black turnout was actually slightly lower than overall turnout, it is safe to assume that around 10% of Floridians who went to the polls were black
-- not 15%.
So where did this mythic 15% figure come from?
The answer is the same exit polls that caused us so much agony on Election Night and were responsible for the faulty Gore victory call early in the night.
Those exit polls showed that 15% of Florida's voters were African Americans -- 50% more than the true figure. Now we see why Gore was called the
winner. Gore won overwhelmingly among black voters and the exit poll dramatically oversampled those same voters.
Just to show you how lazy the media actually is, do you want to know where they came up with the notion that 893,000 blacks had voted in Florida?
Simple. They just took the total votes cast for President in Florida (5,958,643 or thereabouts) and multiplied it by 15%. The figure that popped up in the
collective calculators was 893,796.
Incredible. Rather than conducting sound precinct-level analysis, the media actually placed blind trust in exit polls which turned out to be totally bogus.
The intellectual sloth in evidence here is completely astounding. |
