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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (88231)	11/24/2004 7:15:43 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 794122

Sound Politics - Even Odds That's what I would now give in Washington state's gubernatorial election — assuming there is a complete hand recount of the entire state. The margin after the first recount, 42 votes, is so small that it is easy to see that it might not survive another recount. (Those of you who follow my site closely may recall that I originally set the odds at 3 to 1 in Rossi's favor. But that was before King county discovered so many votes.) King county, the heart of the Christine Gregoire's strength, did what amounted to a manual recount, and so I would not expect her to gain more than few votes here. But she could gain more in the rest of the state, even though she lost badly to Dino Rossi in most of Washington's counties. The votes that she might gain would come from voters who did not fill out their ballots correctly. Those voters tend to be less educated than the average voter and the less educated tend to be Democrats. (As well as the most educated. The Republicans have the edge with in between voters, from high school graduates up to those with post graduate educations.) Kerry had just a 1 point advantage over Bush this year among those with less than a high school education, according to the New York Times exit poll, but in the three previous presidential elections, the Democratic advantage was more than more than 20 percent in that group. I am sure that there are Democrats who can do this same analysis, so I think a hand recount is almost certain. (I have heard reports that the Democrats will ask for hand recounts of just a few counties. If that isn't illegal, it should be.) And if Gregoire wins this second recount, will I consider her win illegitimate? Almost certainly yes. Not because of the glitches in the recounts, which at times almost seemed intended to create Republican suspicions, but because of what I have begun to call "distributed vote fraud", the vote fraud committed by individuals, and made easier by our lax election laws. (I described the problem here and here.) Here is my guesstimate again. If a Democrat wins a statewide election in Washington by fewer than 100 votes, then their margin almost certainly came from fraudulent votes. If they win by fewer than 1,000 votes, then their margin probably came from fraudulent votes. I can't prove those numbers are correct, of course, but neither can anyone who disagrees prove that they are incorrect. We simply don't know how many fraudulent votes are cast in our elections, but we can be almost certain that they benefit Democrats, net.