Election Shenanigans - Waiter There's a Fly In My Soup!

As I previously indicated, I decided to take a look at the numbers that came out of the election to try to see what happened. My supposition is that by comparing the detailed election results for my county from this year’s gubernatorial election against the results from the 2009 election, I should be able to learn something about what is happening to GOP voters or find some indicators about any nefarious goings on. The following is an accounting of my journey through these numbers. If you are so inclined, grab a cup of coffee, and join me in what will be for most a boring adventure in numberland.

Sources

There are few sources that I pulled from for this analysis. For election results from the 2013 election I got the spreadsheet export from the Board of elections site here.

Similarly, for the numbers for the 2009 election, I pulled from the Prince William County site, which had the results in a much less helpful format of a PDF file. This meant that I had to painstakingly hand enter the numbers from the PDF file into my own spreadsheet. I will freely admit that though I was careful, there may be one or two errors that resulted in that process. Here is the source PDF.

For population numbers I pulled data from the census sites, here and here.

Methodology

In preparing the data I had to make some decision. As a rapidly growing county in the suburbs of Washington, DC, Prince William County has had its voting districts big and small redrawn a bit during this time period between 2009 and 2013. This makes it sometimes exceedingly difficult to do a precinct by precinct comparison. To account for that, I compared each precinct and matched up names. I discarded results from precincts that either was eliminated or was created for the 2013 election. I know that every vote counts, but this is a statistical analysis and I had to base it on something comparable. I ended up with 63 precincts. For this analysis I also did not analyze the absentee ballots as they are indeterminate from a geographical viewpoint. If I have time I will come back to them.

Population vs. Voting

The only definitive numbers from the census that I could find indicated that there were 402,002 persons living in the county in 2009 and 430,289 in 2012. That’s a 6.57% change in two years, or 3.29% annual change. Applying this percentage across the years you get the following:

With that in mind, let’s look at some overall voting numbers. In 2009 there were 75123 votes cast for Governor. That means that only 19.32% of the county population participated in the election. In 2012 there were 97060 votes cast for Governor. Applying the same formulas, that means that population participation jumped to 21.98%, or a 2.65% increase in participation. This all looks perfectly reasonable right? Given the fascination with the first black president, a modest increase in participation of 2.65% seems reasonable, right. Well, don’t eat that cookie quite yet. Let’s look at it just a little differently. The population increased at an annual rate of 3.29% right? Thus, from 2009 to 2013 that would be a total increase of 13.16%. So if voter rates were to follow population trends, then you would expect a similar increase in total number of voters. Given the number of votes for both years above, the actual number is 13.74%. Since that is less than a 1% variance, it appears reasonable. No Flies in my soup yet, though I may see a very tiny hair in there.

Of course just looking at total number of voters is not enough because elections are about people making choices and a winner being chosen. An important, nay the important question is how they voted and how did that change since the last election. Taking overall numbers from the fore mentioned 63 precincts, in 2009, you have:

• McDonald (R) 58.38%
•  Deeds        (D) 41.62%

 In 2013 we have:

• Cuccinelli (R) 43.43% 
• Macaliffe (D) 52.37%

That’s a decrease of 14.33% in republican votes and an increase of democrats by 10.12%, or a net change in votes for democrats by a whopping 25.70%. Now let’s consider those population numbers again. Even if every single new participating voter that moved into the county was a democrat, this swing is twice as much as you would expect. There is something very odd going on here that warrants a deeper look at the specific numbers. Ah, I think I see a tip of the a fly wing down in there hiding behind a meatball...

Here’s a more detailed plot of all the precincts net change:

Now admittedly that really isn’t unexpected, given that you already know that the overall net loss for Republicans was 25%.

Let’s take a look at a ‘typical’ precinct. Here are the 2009 and 2013 results for the Chinn precinct:

2009					2013
Rep	Dem	Tot	Rep %	Dem %	Rep	Dem	Ind	Tot	Rep %	Dem %
463	351	814	56.88%	43.12%	377	582	42	1001	37.66%	58.14%

Note that total for that precinct only increased by 187 votes, or 22%. While the Republicans had a decrease in 86 voters, the Democrats saw an increase of 231 voters. Now let’s assume for a minute that half of the missing Republicans were disaffected voters that decided to cast a ‘pox on both your houses’ vote and account for all of the Independent voters, and the other half got sick, had to work, etc. That still doesn’t explain how in a precinct where only 1001 votes were cast, the Democrats managed to generate 231 new votes or an increase of 28%. Now if you are going to say these are Obamabots, remember that the 2009 election was just one year after Obama first won the presidency. Those voters were already there! The question then is where did all these new voters come from?

Let’s take a closer look at this precinct. Here’s the official map of that precinct:

I am very familiar with it as I go to that library all the time. All those roads at the top of the region are a townhouse community where the majority of the population for the precinct lives. The bottom 2/3rds of the precinct are older established homes. So if there were a turnover in the community, I would expect most of it would come from the townhouse community.

  

I did a quick search of ‘homes recently sold’ atRealtor.com and came up with 42 homes sold in that area within the last 6 months, 30 of which appear to be in that precinct. So if that held true for the last 4 years, that would be about 240 sales, and assuming that all of the new residents had at least one voter, and each of those voters were Democrats, then that would account for the additional votes. Let’s just see how improbable that is. First, consider where I noted above that about 20% of the population in the county voted. Assuming a two person household for the above 240 houses, that’s:

480 * 20% = 96 voters

Now it really isn’t reasonable to assume all of those new voters are Democrats, so lest use the election results to divvy them up and we come up with:

96 * 58% = 55 Democrat voters 

That seems a really far cry from 231 voters needed to satisfy what is being reported. The other assumption is that rate of sales has remained constant throughout the last four years. Anyone who has thought about selling a house in this area can tell you that is just not true. Along with the rest of the country, sales (and prices) have been very depressed over the last four years and have only picked up in the last year. Yep! I can see it now... A big old nasty horse fly, swimming in my soup; and I think he's doing a backstroke!

I am not a statistician, but from what I can see here, these numbers look extremely suspicious. It appears that voters have appeared out of thin air to pull a lever for the Democrats. I welcome constructive analysis, based on actual numbers and logic to explain where these voters came from, because I don’t see it. If I get time, I intend to winnow down further into this, perhaps taking a specific precinct, voter list, and knocking on doors to see if the people who are recorded as voting actually did. In the meantime, I welcome all constructive, logical, analysis of what I have presented here.

Salute!

Happy Veteran's Day to my fellow veterans! I was fortunate in that I served during the cold war and never got shot at. There are uncounted many more of my fellow veterans who served in much tougher times, and my hat is off to them. That we continue to have the finest Army in the world is a testament  to the men and women of this nation that continue to volunteer and give their professionalism and bravery to grateful nation. Here's hoping we as a nation can somehow continue to be worthy of their sacrifice.

Here's a picture of me getting my corporal stripes (yeah - they promoted fast in the Intel ranks) I can't believe I was ever that young! Then again, I am old enough to have spent some time being trucked around in the back of a M35 too (Deuce-N-Half - pictured above). My Sargent stripes got pinned on a bit later...

Hero of the Week: 11-10-13

My hero of the week is this guy:

Yeah - he's kinda hard to make out in that picture, and I have written about his daddy here before. Let's see, what can I tell you about him. Well, after leaving the farm, he joined the Navy and did a four year tour. He tried wildcatting for a while, then got drafted into the cold war and worked at moving atoms around in Tennessee. Then he moved to Memphis, raised four wild boys and a crazy girl to be mostly fine upstanding citizens. Along the way he somehow became an active private pilot, ham radio nut, inventor, and puppet master. He's a grandfather many times over, but not yet a great grandfather. Happy birthday Dad, you will always be my hero.

Election Day

UPDATE BELOW --- READ THAT TOO!!! <thanks - the management>

Related Post-Election Analysis is Here

Since I am a resident of Virginia, which is inexplicably once again a 'battleground' state, I feel compelled to offer commentary on this election day. I should disclose that, knowing that I would by unavailable today, I performed my civic duty Saturday morning at the county headquarters building, thanks to the oddly named "in person absentee voting". There were no lines, and it took me all of 10 minutes. Most of that time was taken up by removing my bike from the rack on the back of the Jeep so I could get to the trunk where I keep my spare set of reading glasses which were required to fill out the absentee voter form once I got to the voting area.

There were four very bored looking poll workers and a supervisor, who seemed way too happy to see me. I got the feeling they had been sitting there for hours with nothing to do. While I was glad that I could zip in and zip out, I was a little dismayed that more of my fellow citizens weren't taking advantage of the easier voting. This was in sharp contrast to what I saw last election where the line at this very same absentee voting location stretched all through the lobby and out the door. On the other hand, I remember that a lot of those people looked like Obamabots, so perhaps it's a good thing they weren't there.

Now looked at from and old white bigot's viewpoint, the main race for Governor here should not be much of a contest. On one hand you have Cuccinelli, who, as Attorney General has solid conservative credentials on fighting Obamacare, immigration reform, and upholding the rights of of the state in the face of Federal overreach. On the other hand you have McAuliffe, a Cintonista transplant who is corrupt as the day is long and an admitted gun grabbing democrat. A clear choice, that most right thinking Virginians won't have to think very hard or long about.

And that really is the question here. How many right thinking Virginians are left, and will their votes count. Ok, that is really two questions, so i'll take them one at a time. First how many right thinking Virginians are left in the state. Now if you look at official demographics, you would say that the proportion of right leaning voters in the state really hasn't changed substantially from when conservatives swept into office back in 2010. However, with the lax enforcement of immigration laws, the population of illegal immigrants has virtually exploded in Virginia. When you factor this explosion against the federal enforced relaxing of voter ID requirements, you have to expect that a great number of those folks will do what they can to ensure a illegal immigrant opponent does not get the governor's seat. My proof? While, as noted above, the absentee voter location at the county complex located out by the semi-pro ball field was virtually deserted Saturday, the same cannot be said for the voting location at the county office building located in downtown Manassas, just a few blocks from the largest poor Hispanic enclave in northern Virginia. Notional, I know, but something worth thinking about.

Yes, I did say two questions there. The second and more infuriating issue is whether or not their votes will be counted. I have done some more than cursory investigation into the electronic voting process in Virginia, and there is much to be concerned about. The foreign origin of the voting machines, coupled with a lack of adequate testing and verification of the actual voting system, compounded by electronic security measures at the poll locations that are laughable, all indicates to me that if this system is not already compromised it would be truly miraculous. You want anecdotal evidence? I give you the fore mentioned polling location I visited at the county complex.

The location itself is in an exterior office, on a ground floor, facing the parking area. While the shades are down, a mere ten feet from the voting machines is a exterior glass window where anyone can walk up to and set up an attack laptop. But that would be largely unnecessary if an attacker managed to gain access to the voting room itself under the guise of some other legitimate purpose, like say voting, since the supervisor running the polling location did not ask to see my phone / android / etc. or instruct me to turn it off. Thus, getting a dork device within close physical proximity of a voting machine is virtually assured. This is a violation of very basic electronic security practices. Even if this were not a problem, then consider that the poll workers themselves were not practicing the most basic of electronic security measures. I observed that every one of them had a cell phone of an android / iphone class, though admittedly I could not tell if they were on. I did observe that one worker had a fully powered tablet inartfully hidden under the table where the machines used for poll check were located. While she may have just been playing "candy crush" or "angry birds", she just as easily have been dorking the PCs used to verify legitimate voters or the results of their votes. Finally, there were communication lines running from the check in tables to the voting machines themselves. While this may have been necessary, it would seem to me that in a secure system, the voting machines should be unconnected to any machine while actively used in the voting process.

How likely is it that voting in Virginia has been compromised? I intend to let the numbers speak for themselves. When the day is done, and all the votes are counted, I will do a numerical analysis of the numbers and publish the results here. Then I will let you judge for yourselves. I dearly hope that I am wrong. Stay tuned...

UPDATE: 
Well that went about how I expected. Any one else get that deja-vu feeling like we had in 2012? Yeah - me too. For those of you that weren't around for the previous incantation of this blog, you are in for either the most boring post in the world, or the most fascinating one, depending on your perspective and tolerance for painful math stuff. Due to the complexity (and since I have a real job where I have to make money and stuff), it will take a few days for me to pull it together. Here's a little preview...

Suppose for a minute that a thief breaks into your house while you are off on vacation. You know that they were there because, well, your stuff is all gone. The bad news is that there is not really much you can do now, but tally up your losses and file file your insurance claims. That being said, you would like to catch the bastards who did it - after all they took your stuff!

Now suppose this election is kinda like that. You know there was a break in because there is a corrupt monkey moving into the Governor's mansion. The question is was there a crime here, or are your fellow citizens really as stupid as they appear on paper? Well stealing an election is not like some guy jimmying a window and grabbing the silverware. The things they are stealing are votes. In the final analysis, votes are really just numbers. The neat thing about numbers is it's really hard to manipulate them without leaving a fingerprint of the operation you used to transform them to your will.

So, my thesis here is this. If some nefarious entity employed some devious means to thwart the will of the people of Virginia and manipulated the vote, then there should be fingerprints of that manipulation hiding in plain sight in the numbers. If those fingerprints are not there, then, as the title of the blog implies, I would have once again gone astray and wasted a few days of number crunching to no purpose other to discover that my fellow Virginians really are that stupid. Either way, I believe it is an exercise worth pursuing.

I am totally aware that if the results of my analysis reveals such fingerprints, then the end result will be no different. With the tiny influence of my blog, there really is not much I can do to change the system. I will cross that bridge if I get to it. So until then I invite you to relax and enjoy life. Do something that takes you away from the internet and politics for a while. Then when your ready, come back here and read through what I come up with. After that, we'll figure out what to do about it together.

About those racist old white guys...

No, this is not about radio personalities or (shudder) Fox News. No, this is about those other racist white guys - in Greece.

I unfortunately count myself as one of those guys that got roped into watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I will admit that I don't remember much about the plot line, or even really who the actors or actresses were. If you really care you can go to the link above, and look it up. I don't really... There are three things I remember about that movie. The first and second have nothing to do with my point here, so of course I will write about them first.

As I remember it, there is a scene where the partriach is walking the family dog, and they see the full and magical moon. He looks up and cries 'la luna!'. It becomes something of a theme throughout the movie, that the crazy moon drives much of the love crazy actions throughout the movie. Every once in a while, when I see a full moon, I smile and think of that movie, that scene.

The second is a scene where the mother is asking the daughter if she loves the man she is about to marry. When the daughter yes the mother says something like, "too bad, he'll drive you crazy". That has always seemed about right to me, no matter what side of the fence you are on.

The third thing I remember about movie was the manic pride the father had for his mother country. He had filled his front yard with replicas of famous Greek statues, and festooned his yard with Greek flags. So to anyone who saw that movie, the existence of a political party in Greece that has fascist tendencies modeled on the 'master race' principles of the Third Reich is really not that much of a shock. What is surprising is that the whole Greek financial crisis matured to where it is today without a mention of any this in any press. But it got me to thinking, how did such a group come to be? What makes a cultural pride morph into a something nasty? Most importantly, what is the difference between them and say, any other group of old white guys that causes a different outcome?

My supposition here is that pride in race or culture is essentially what caused these types to go astray. So they question comes to mind, if it happened there, why didn't it happen here? After all, weren't all of our founding fathers essentially white guys? It's been a long time since I had American History, so, embarrassingly, I had to admit that I really didn't know that much about the ancestry of our founding fathers. In my defense, I doubt the founding father's ancestry was well covered in the social crucible that was the public school system for Memphis in the late 70s. I therefore decided to look it up. Just for fun, I thought i'd pass on what I found:

George Washington: Father: Augustine Washington, born in Westmoreland, VA in 1694. Grandfather: Lawrence Washington, militia captain and member of House of Burgess, born in Westmoreland, VA in 1659. Great Grandfather: John Washington, born in Pruleigh, Essex in 1633, owner of a estate in South Cave, East Yorkshire and emigrated in 1658.

John Adams: Father: John Adams Sr. - fifth generation descendant to Henry Adams who emigrated from Braintree, Essex in 1638.

Thomas Jefferson: Father: Peter Jefferson, a planter and surveyor. Possibly of Welsh descent but I was unable to find any definitive linkages on a cursory look.

James Madison Jr: Father: James Madison Sr, a tobacco planter that grew up on a plantation. His great grandfather was a sea captian, Issac Madison, who was born in London England in 1590.

Ben Franklin: One of twenty children of Josiah Franklin, a businessman from Ecton, Nothhamptonshire, England. His father was a blacksmith and a farmer there.

Thomas Paine: Son of Joseph Pain (later Paine), a Quaker, and mother Frances (an Anglican) <gasp - a mixed marriage>, who hailed from rural Norfolk, England.

Patrick Henry: Father: John Henry (not the railroad guy), immigrant from Abberdeenshire, Scotland.

Alexander Hamilton: Probably the most interesting heritage of the group of otherwise cookie cutter old white guys. He was born out of wedlock  to an otherwise married women of partial French Huguenot descent, Rachel Faucette in Charlestown, on the island of Nevis, which is the capitol island of the Leeward Islands. His father was a scoundrel named James Hamilton, the fourth son of a Scottish laird from Grange Ayrshire. There is a real romance novel in there somewhere...

To get back to my main point, even though all these guys were from differing backgrounds, but uniformly English and white, they didn't found this country on their background or heritage. No, they borrowed liberally from what they understood to be best way to run a country, and forged this country anew out of whole cloth woven from the threads of the writings from the greatest thinkers throughout the ages (some of whom might have been Greek). That's why bigotry and race pride will always be fringe and foreign to us, as long as we have the courage to keep our principles pure. It is only when we allow ourselves to be torn down by class and envy, do we lessen ourselves and become, well, like the Modern Greeks.

Listening to Dear Leader... November 3, 2013 Edition

Once again I was intrigued by what Dear Leader had to say in his weekly radio address. So without further adieu, President Choom:

Hi, everybody

Ok - right away i'm getting this really weird vibe. Am I the only one already thinking about another guy who likes to pretend to be a doctor:

 Moving along...

On Thursday, I addressed a conference for business leaders from around the world.  And my pitch was simple:  Choose America.  Invest in America.  Create jobs in America.

Because American exceptionalism is at such an all time low now that we need foreign investors to keep us afloat.

It speaks to my top priority as President: growing our economy, creating good jobs, strengthening security and opportunity for the middle class.

So that whole Obamacare thing was what? Another priority? Um, not to split hairs Mr. President Choom, but you say 'top priority' like it's one thing, then go on to list two things. Do you want to grow the economy or create good middle class jobs?  I am thinking most economist would not agree they are necessarily the same thing. I mean look at the stock market. The DOW has continued to grow throughout this economic disaster, indicating a 'growing' economy, even while actual unemployment has hit an all time high. Speaking of employment:

Over the past three and a half years, our businesses have created over seven and a half million new jobs.  And this week, the Treasury confirmed that since I took office, we’ve cut our deficits by more than half.

New jobs? I'll let this article do the actual analysis for that old canard.  But basically the population grew by seven million, five of which were new 'immigrants', and six million workers stopped looking for work. Let me do a little advanced math on that:

X = 7.5million jobs - ((5 million immigrants + 2 million natives) + 6 million give ups)

X = -5.5 million jobs (to stay even)

The deficit works the same way. But that's math, and math is hard.

But we have more work to do.  We need to grow and create more good jobs faster.  That’s my driving focus.  And I’ll go anywhere and do anything to make it happen. 

Faster than the actual negative growth - I agree. Wait a minute - I thought this was your driving focus:

Jumping down a little:

I was glad to hear the Republican leader in the Senate say this week that they won’t pursue another government shutdown or threaten another default on our debt.  Because we shouldn’t be injuring ourselves every few months – we should be investing in ourselves.

Let me interpret that a bit:

Jumping down a bit more:

Think about it.  We can keep wasteful corporate tax giveaways that working folks don’t get – or we could close those loopholes and use that money to pay for things that actually create jobs.

Let's see. We are back to the concept that corporations are people, and are getting 'cuts' that normal taxpayers don't. Not mentioned here is that corporations, like say Walmart exist to create profit for their shareholders, who mostly are retirees investing as groups in money markets. Now a 'closing of loopholes' mean that such corporations have two choices. To reduce the profits they give investors, or increase their prices. It is not unreasonable to expect that they will do both. Contrast this with a basic increase of taxes on an individual, like what is in the shiny new Obamacare law. When people have to pay more taxes, then they necessarily start cutting down on what they are spending. See? It's the basic difference between spending and earning. I know <sigh>, math.

Priorities. Choices.  That’s what this is about.  And the stakes for the middle class couldn’t be higher.  If we don’t pick the right priorities now, make the right choices now, we could hinder growth and opportunity for decades, and leave our children with something less.

Humm. It's like this economy just dropped dropped out of thin air onto this administration. No bad choices were made in the last 5 years that put us in this hole. It was the deficit fairy:

 Jumping ahead again:

Building new roads, and bridges, and schools, and airports – that creates jobs.

I'm pretty sure all that takes government money, which comes from taxes, which hinders growth. Besides, what happened to all those shovel ready jobs you already created? Since money pretty much grows on trees, I am thinking that this just might work! Or we could create jobs the old fashioned way... whatever that is...

Because in America, our economy doesn’t grow from the top-down.  It grows from the middle-class out.  

I am thinking that you probably should consult with Mooch on this. Middle America's growing middle is the real problem here, and it is definitely growing from the middle out.

And as long as I am President, our national mission will remain building an America where everyone belongs

Like the millions of folks who are streaming across our borders who are not actually Americans. That sounds so, er, Presidential.

 Thanks, and have a great weekend

Meh - weekends are overrated. Give me some freedom and and a taste of justice, and i'm all good:

Hero of the Week

No, I am not ripping off my betters... this is completely  different! Though I will admit, that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. For the record, no one admires Denny and his blog more than I! If I ever make it down to Georgia, I will be bringing that guy a 5th of Jack. We can swap stories about PDP-11's. Yes - I will be making this a regular feature here on Saturdays - or so that's the plan...

My hero for this week is this guy:

He's Tennessee State Senator Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown) who handed Sillybus a "Websites for Dummies" book and got someone to snap a picture of her hilarious old shrew response:

http://www.nationaljournal.com/health-care/sebelius-explains-how-obamacare-isn-t-like-tickle-me-elmo-20131101

This is exactly how to deal with these people. Know your facts so they can't dance away, then hoist them by their own petards. This picture will be the icon for the failed Obamacare implementation, and it's Sen Kelsey who made it happen. Congrats Senator! You are my Hero of the Week! Revel in both of my reader's admiration!

CRIPPLEANCHE!
Welcome GOC Readers! Denny told me he was going to send few of you all over here and here you are. As long as your here, take a look around, kick the tires, and see if you may want to add a bookmark for a really slow news day. If you are reading this as a result of some other link, let me turn you on to a blog that's always honest and thought provoking - Grouchy Old Cripple.