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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (311512)	11/22/2006 1:35:20 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577886

What do you want, election stealer? Analysis: Ballots favored Dems Sarasota's 'undervotes' were examined in 5 state races. Jim Stratton \| Sentinel Staff Writer Posted November 22, 2006 The group of nearly 18,000 voters that registered no choice in Sarasota's disputed congressional election solidly backed Democratic candidates in all five of Florida's statewide races, an Orlando Sentinel analysis of ballot data shows. Among these voters, even the weakest Democrat -- agriculture-commissioner candidate Eric Copeland -- outpaced a much-better-known Republican incumbent by 551 votes. The trend, which continues up the ticket to the race for governor and U.S. Senate, suggests that if votes were truly cast and lost -- as Democrat Christine Jennings maintains -- they were votes that likely cost her the congressional election. Republican Vern Buchanan's 369-vote victory was certified by state officials Monday. His camp says that, although people may have skipped the race -- intentionally or not -- there is no evidence that votes went missing. But the results of the Sentinel analysis, two experts said, warrant additional investigation. "Wow," University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato said. "That's very suggestive -- I'd even say strongly suggestive -- that if there had been votes recorded, she [Jennings] would have won that House seat." David Dill, an electronic-voting expert at Stanford University, put it this way: "It seems to establish with certainty that more Democrats are represented in those undervoted ballots." The Sentinel reviewed records of 17,846 touch-screen ballots that included no vote in the tightly contested 13th District congressional race to determine whom voters selected in other major races. The analysis of the so-called "undervotes" examined the races for U.S. Senate, governor, attorney general, chief financial officer and agriculture commissioner. The results showed that the undervoted ballots skewed Democratic in all of those races, even in the three races in which the county as a whole went Republican. In the governor's race, for example, Republican Charlie Crist won handily in Sarasota, easily beating Democrat Jim Davis. But on the undervoted ballots, Davis finished ahead by almost 7 percentage points. In the agriculture commissioner's race, Republican Charles Bronson beat Copeland by a double-digit margin among all voters. But on the undervoted ballots, Copeland won by about 3 percentage points. Some questions remain The analysis does not -- and cannot -- reveal why no congressional choice was recorded on the ballots. It also cannot determine which candidate any single voter might have selected had he or she made a choice. But the strong performance of other Democrats indicates Jennings would have found a sizable number of supporters within the group. "If votes were actually lost," Dill said, "it appears those votes would have favored the Democrat." About 15 percent of ballots cast on Sarasota's touch-screen machines registered no choice in the bitterly fought congressional race. That percentage was about six times greater than the undervote in the rest of the House district, which spreads into four other counties. Since Election Day, dozens -- if not hundreds -- of voters have reported problems at the polls. Some say their vote for Jennings never registered after they touched her name. Others say they never saw the congressional race on the machine's screen. The Jennings campaign argues that only a machine malfunction can account for the high number of undervotes in the congressional race. Her experts claim that because Jennings won in Sarasota by a 52 percent-to-47 percent margin -- the only county she carried -- she would have picked up the bulk of any votes that were lost. Those votes, they say, would have been enough to defeat Buchanan. next >> Next Jump to page: 1 2 orlandosentinel.com