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NousDefionsDoc
11-09-2004, 11:49
Oh Please (http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041109-122753-5113r.htm)

The idea isn't just a joke; one top Democrat says, "The segment of the country that pays for the federal government is now being governed by the people who don't pay for the federal government."

LOL - talk about having it backwards.

Roguish Lawyer
11-09-2004, 12:16
LMAO! Gee, who do you suppose would win that civil war? :munchin

rubberneck
11-09-2004, 13:39
LMAO! Gee, who do you suppose would win that civil war? :munchin

Even though I am a "Yankee" I would fight like hell on behalf of the red states as would 30-45% of the people who the people reside in blue states but are conservative.

I can't take the story too seriously because O'Donnell is the same arse that repeatedly screamed at and accused John O'Neill of being a liar on Pat Buchanan's show. It seems as if a certian segement of the liberal left has become unhinged and there is no better example then O'Donnell.

Sigi
11-09-2004, 13:49
Let me get this straight. The blue states who created the welfare system, are now complaining that blue states are paying a greater expediture than red states, and now they want to cut those states loose?

But those inner cities are full of poor and minorities, the very backbone of the democrats vote.

:rolleyes:

I have been on two ultra-liberal websites over the past week, and trust me when I say this: this subject is being talked to death on those boards. Ad Infinitum. That and the typical demands for a recount and Kerry sucks for being a quitter.

BMT (RIP)
11-09-2004, 13:51
Does this mean we will not have to export to them the supplies they don't produce?

Guy you had better pack your bag it's about toget dark in Ca.

BMT

Jack Moroney (RIP)
11-09-2004, 14:54
This goes on up here in the Green Mountains all the time. Here is a snippet from this past Sunday's evening newscast:

<<Some say Vermont should become its own country. A conference in Middlebury this weekend -- focused on the idea of Vermont seceding from the U.S. A grassroots organization -- known as the Second Vermont Republic -- sponsored the convention. Organizers say the U-S government is not sustainable and only got worse with the re-election of President Bush. ((2:22 And so for Vermont, it's let's get on with considering some real possibilities, while we've got options and we do have options at this point there's a lot of discussion about legality, constitutionality, could Vermont survive as independent entity economically?)) Thomas Naylor is a former professor at both Duke University and UVM>>

The truth of the matter is that this state would fold without government subsidies for everything from maply syrup to milk.

Jack Moroney-shinning like a scarlet irritation in the center of a field of blue.

Roguish Lawyer
11-09-2004, 15:28
The Dems should get red and we should get blue. For obvious reasons.

Goggles Pizano
11-09-2004, 15:34
I hope they (Liberals) keep up this rhetoric. The more they cry, whine, and wish for a secession the more conservative Democrats will simply leave the party. "Jesusland", that's rich. Sophmoric but rich. LOL!

BMT (RIP)
11-09-2004, 15:48
Maybe the RED states should put "JESUSLAND" on our return address between city and state.

:munchin

BMT

Sacamuelas
11-09-2004, 16:08
Jack Moroney-shinning like a scarlet irritation in the center of a field of blue.

Damn.. he tells the truth. :D

I couldn't force myself to color in all the green forest areas on the map that scary democrat blue

NousDefionsDoc
11-09-2004, 16:17
The origin of the term is from television newscasts that reveal on presidential election night which party's candidate has carried which states in the U.S. Electoral College The U.S. Electoral College is a specific form of an electoral college and is the method by which the President of the United States is chosen. The Electoral College was established by Article Two, Section One of the U.S. Constitution, and meets every four years with electors from each state. The 23rd Amendment to the Constitution has allowed electors from the District of Columbia to cast votes for the election of the president. The electoral process was modified in 1804 with the ratification of Amendment XII.

It should be noted that not all media outlets follow this standard. According to Federal Review's web site, the trend has been towards the use of blue for the incumbent and red for the challenger.

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Red%20state

Jo Sul
11-09-2004, 17:09
I fully support a democrat secession - move them all to the left coast (California) and blow the charges on the appropriate fault lines.

Doc
11-09-2004, 17:46
I fully support a democrat secession - move them all to the left coast (California) and blow the charges on the appropriate fault lines.

I like that idea. Someone make sure they get 18C4V and Guy out first. They've both suffered enough already.

37F5V
11-09-2004, 17:51
Give 'em a nice place to swim in Arizona Bay. These loons are f'ing nuts.

Roguish Lawyer
11-09-2004, 19:02
I like that idea. Someone make sure they get 18C4V and Guy out first. They've both suffered enough already.

Thanks a lot, Doc! LOL

DunbarFC
11-10-2004, 13:53
The winning here in Boston has been epic

I've even had some friends who are not so liberal go over the edge into madness when I brought up the election

And I hear that somewhere in Florida Democrats are seeing a shrink to deal with the loss ?

- A blue stater who wishes he was red

Sacamuelas
11-10-2004, 14:32
The winning here in Boston has been epic
Dude, the guy from boston Lost the election. Now tell your buds to quit their whining and move on. :D Damn yankee Libs are in such denial.

DunbarFC
11-10-2004, 14:44
Dude, the guy from boston Lost the election. Now tell your buds to quit their whining and move on. :D Damn yankee Libs are in such denial.


You have no idea the depths of the denial

Honest to good one of my friends who I have known since high school now refuses to speak to me because I'm a Republican

I told in that case she's isn't coming to the Innaguration with me :lifter

The Reaper
11-10-2004, 15:06
On America Left the other day, the libs were whining that since the voting results did not match the exit polls, there must be fraud with the votes.

Obviously, they missed the class where logic was explained. If your estimate or hypothesis is disproven by the data, then it was wrong. We do not change the voting data to match the exit polls, no matter how much they wish it were so.

What a bunch of wacko crybabies!

TR

Bravo1-3
11-10-2004, 15:09
The whiners know no bounds. The "Letters to the Editor" in our local newspaper (which oddly enough endorsed Bush) have been priceless. Our newspaper has a policy of publishing ALL letters that are in good taste, so it's always a great read. As of late, it's been getting more entertaining than ever with people talking about how listless and depressed they are.

I'm going to wait to see how it pans out before I write a letter that tells them to quit snivelling, FIDO, and Move Out and Draw Fire.

:boohoo

Doc
11-10-2004, 16:05
October 10th was World Mental Health Day. It should have been moved to November 3rd in view of the utter calamity and chaos we abound in.

A short tutorial for those interested. This process can be as short as two minutes for Type A's or four years or longer for liberals. You and you alone determine how long life's struggles will dominate your life.

The grieving process.

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance




I'm Doc and I approved this message.

Jo Sul
11-10-2004, 16:10
You left out a few:

bitching

whining

complaining

Doc
11-10-2004, 16:11
You left out a few:

bitching

whining

complaining

LMAO!

:D

Airbornelawyer
11-10-2004, 17:03
Getting back to the original topic, rather than the general sniveling (snivelling?) of those who lost, the "secession" idea is priceless in its idiocy.

First, it is at its root a statement of the utter contempt liberal so-called "intellectuals" have for anyone too dumb to follow their lead. Not only are you not enlightened enough to appreciate their superior ideas, you are not worthy of their company. But unlike Alec Baldwin and this obnoxious lawyer down the hall from me, it's not enough to talk about leaving the country; you have to take the country with you, or at least the "good" part.

But consider also NDD's quoted text: "one top Democrat says, 'The segment of the country that pays for the federal government is now being governed by the people who don't pay for the federal government.'" So now the Democrats are opposed to redistribution of wealth? Will they now support a flat tax, since progressive taxation means that a majority of lower income voters elect those who tax a minority of higher income voters? (In case you were wondering, the top 1% of taxpayers pay 33.7% of taxes, the top 10% pay 65.7% and the top 25% pay 83.9%). The Democrats for years have postured as the party of the little guy against the fat cat Republicans and their tax breaks for millionaires. Now that the little guys elected the wrong party, some Democrats are saying "fuck the little guys! let's take our fat cat states somewhere else." The hypocrisy is mind-boggling.

Finally, of course, there is the breakdown behind the blue state/red state thing. The secessionists want to claim that their states are footing the bills for the red states, but as noted, the bill is not footed by regions, but by income. Those making over $50,000 per year supported Bush 56% to 43%. Those making over $100,000 supported Bush 58% to 41%. So maybe the GOP is the party of the fat cats, at least if a truckdriver and his schoolteacher wife who together make over $50,000 are fat cats.

The particular truckdriver/schoolteacher combo I'm thinking of are a little on the heavy side, but they seem happy with that. They also live in upstate New York. So do a lot of Republicans and others who voted for Bush. And I bet they represent a disproportionate source of all that tax money the blue states are feeding to Washington's teats for the red states to suckle on.

The utter idiocy of this secessionist talk is the contradiction described above - so-called liberal Democrats arguing that political power should be proportionate to how much or how little money one contributes to the government. If votes were weighed based on how much one paid in taxes, or if the franchise were taken away from welfare recipients or anyone who receives more from the government than he contributes, what are the odds that a Democrat would get elected to any position more reponsible than city dogcatcher?

BTW, if the blue states want to secede, presumably the red counties will get to secede from the blue states? Below is New York's county-by-county breakdown, showing GOP strength in both wealthy suburbs and poorer rural areas, while the Dems are confined to urban areas, the college town of Ithaca and the border with Quebec (where voters get much of their news from Montreal).

Airbornelawyer
11-10-2004, 17:07
Now that the little guys elected the wrong party, some Democrats are saying "fuck the little guys! let's take our fat cat states somewhere else." That'd be this guy, BTW:

Airbornelawyer
11-10-2004, 21:14
Same goes for Maryland and Michigan and Washington. If the blue counties want to make their own liberal paradise, fine, but we keep the red ones.

The Reaper
11-10-2004, 21:42
That'd be this guy, BTW:

Nothing wrong with him that a nice cold bitch slap of reality (like Boot Training at Parris Island) wouldn't cure.

TR

Razor
11-10-2004, 22:41
AL, where'd you find those by-state county maps?

Guy
11-11-2004, 09:36
RL,

Wait until you see the Red-vs-Blue in CA. I'm trying to find it now.

Airbornelawyer
11-11-2004, 14:41
AL, where'd you find those by-state county maps?
I made them.

Roguish Lawyer
11-11-2004, 14:56
RL,

Wait until you see the Red-vs-Blue in CA. I'm trying to find it now.

Yeah, he really did badly. There was very little time and money spent here, and it shows. He only won 60% in Orange County and did pretty poorly in San Diego. Meanwhile, Kerry gets 83% in San Francisco.

CA never was part of the plan.

The Reaper
11-11-2004, 15:08
I made them.

AL:

You slay me. :D

If I am ever tried, I will take my defense team from here.

If you are going to Hell, might as well enjoy the ride.

TR

pulque
11-11-2004, 15:35
On America Left the other day, the libs were whining that since the voting results did not match the exit polls, there must be fraud with the votes.

Obviously, they missed the class where logic was explained. If your estimate or hypothesis is disproven by the data, then it was wrong. We do not change the voting data to match the exit polls, no matter how much they wish it were so.

What a bunch of wacko crybabies!

TR

back to the non-topic of the thread. From what I have seen, most examples of documented large scale e-voting failure (in the range of 1000-4000 votes) favored President Bush. eg, Columbus Ohio, Craven County NJ.

It is worth tracking differences between counties that use e-voting (optical-scan and touch screen) compared with paper voting. The trend doesn't appear to match.
example:
http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm
http://ustogether.org/election04/florida_vote_patt.htm

Overall, I don't believe we change the voting data to match the exit polls. My personal hypothesis right now is that as the number of people utilizing absentee ballots climb, the exit poll becomes less accurate.

Airbornelawyer
11-11-2004, 16:06
back to the non-topic of the thread. From what I have seen, most examples of documented large scale e-voting failure (in the range of 1000-4000 votes) favored President Bush. eg, Columbus Ohio, Craven County NJ.

It is worth tracking differences between counties that use e-voting (optical-scan and touch screen) compared with paper voting. The trend doesn't appear to match.
example:
http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm
http://ustogether.org/election04/florida_vote_patt.htm

Overall, I don't believe we change the voting data to match the exit polls. My personal hypothesis right now is that as the number of people utilizing absentee ballots climb, the exit poll becomes less accurate.
You might want to look for a more objective source than Kathy Dopp's ustogether.org.

Example (http://www.ustogether.org/database/ObjSubPg.php?article_id=97&info_category=COMPARISON):

Clinton Record

Worked with UN, NATO and/or allies to bring peace to Kosovo, Bosnia, Northern Ireland and East Timor, promoted Middle East peace process, reduced North Korean nuclear threat through Framework Agreement and saved Mexico from currency crisis.

Bush Record

Cowboy unilateralist diplomacy, no interest in Middle East peace process, increased North Korean threat through Axis of Evil and pigmy comments, ignored Argentinean-Brazilian currency crisis.

pulque
11-11-2004, 16:14
You might want to look for a more objective source than Kathy Dopp's ustogether.org.

Example (http://www.ustogether.org/database/ObjSubPg.php?article_id=97&info_category=COMPARISON):

negative. Objectivity is always a concern, but I do not expect a scientist to be politically objective. The study may still be valid. Guess what? She even includes a link to critisisms of her study.

Roguish Lawyer
11-11-2004, 16:18
Exit polls are not reliable indicators anyway, IMO.

Jo Sul
11-11-2004, 16:40
negative. Objectivity is always a concern, but I do not expect a scientist to be politically objective. The study may still be valid. Guess what? She even includes a link to critisisms of her study.

Why would you not expect a scientist to be politically objective? If they present themselves as a scientist (thus implying credibility and evidence based on demonstrated fact) in a political discussion, then objectivity has the same importance as it would in a scientific discussion.

The Reaper
11-11-2004, 16:46
negative. Objectivity is always a concern, but I do not expect a scientist to be politically objective. The study may still be valid. Guess what? She even includes a link to critisisms of her study.

Are you sure she is a scientist?

She seems to be guilty of false assumptions, flawed observations, faulty analysis, an attempt to create data to validate her prejudiced hypothesis, and a failure to recognize that when the data does not agree with the hypothesis, we change our hypothesis, not the data.

Saying that Bill Clinton reduced the nuclear weapons threat from NK and GWB has caused the problem there is a bit prejudiced and myopic. That alone would cause me to question her objectivity and the validity of her theory.

TR

What is the "scientific method''?

The scientific method is the best way yet discovered for winnowing the truth from lies and delusion. The simple version looks something like this:

1. Observe some aspect of the universe.
2. Invent a tentative description, called a hypothesis, that is consistent with what you have observed.
3. Use the hypothesis to make predictions.
4. Test those predictions by experiments or further observations and modify the hypothesis in the light of your results.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until there are no discrepancies between theory and experiment and/or observation.

When consistency is obtained the hypothesis becomes a theory and provides a coherent set of propositions which explain a class of phenomena. A theory is then a framework within which observations are explained and predictions are made.

Roguish Lawyer
11-11-2004, 16:59
I found the map.

Roguish Lawyer
11-11-2004, 17:04
I also found this, which I think is pretty hysterical. It feels pretty good to know that libs are circulating this one! LMAO :lifter

Airbornelawyer
11-11-2004, 17:46
This Dopp does not appear to be a scientist.

And even if she was, she is not a very good one. Her premise regarding
the correlation between voter registration and expected election results is deeply and laughably flawed.

I will only choose one example. Baker County is listed as having a +220.4% Republican to -68.4% Democrat variance from her "expected" to "actual" results. Baker County is identified as an op-scan user. Baker County was also one of 3 counties MSNBC's Keith Olbermann cited as an example of inordinate GOP voting in 2004.

But despite its actual voter registrations, Baker County has a long history of supporting Republican presidential candidates. These are the results for Baker County, Florida for the last seven presidential elections:

1980 - DEM: 2,606 REP: 2,271
1984 - DEM: 1,381 REP: 3,485
1988 - DEM: 1,353 REP: 3,414
1992 - DEM: 1,974 REP: 3,417
1996 - DEM: 2,273 REP: 3,684
2000 - DEM: 2,392 REP: 5,610
2004 - DEM: 2,180 REP: 7,738

Carter was the last Democrat to win in Baker County, and even in 1980, his victory was relatively close when you consider that he grew up about 200 miles away. Kerry's 22% of the vote in 2004 is not dissimilar to Dukakis' or Mondale's 28% and is certainly in line with the trend among southern Democrats (partly slowed by southerner Clinton) away from the Democratic Party's national candidates. Even then, Clinton lost to Dole there 34% to 56%. This trend existed before that evil Republican scanning technology was invented.

I picked Baker County for more than just the statistics above. I know that county far better than any pseudo-scientists or television prima donnas. Probably half the county's population is related to me in one way or another - close or distant cousins or by marriage. My parents are buried there, in the cemetery of Oak Grove Primitive Baptist Church. It is a conservative, God-fearing, gun-owning, pick-up truck driving, farming community (though at one time it was the moonshine capital of the South). It is exactly the kind of place Kerry's and Terry McAuliffe's and Michael Moore's Democratic Party alienates. I'm surprised Kerry even got 22%.

pulque
11-11-2004, 18:21
This Dopp does not appear to be a scientist.

And even if she was, she is not a very good one. Her premise regarding
the correlation between voter registration and expected election results is deeply and laughably flawed.

I will only choose one example. Baker County is listed as having a +220.4% Republican to -68.4% Democrat variance from her "expected" to "actual" results. Baker County is identified as an op-scan user. Baker County was also one of 3 counties MSNBC's Keith Olbermann cited as an example of inordinate GOP voting in 2004.

But despite its actual voter registrations, Baker County has a long history of supporting Republican presidential candidates. These are the results for Baker County, Florida for the last seven presidential elections:

1980 - DEM: 2,606 REP: 2,271
1984 - DEM: 1,381 REP: 3,485
1988 - DEM: 1,353 REP: 3,414
1992 - DEM: 1,974 REP: 3,417
1996 - DEM: 2,273 REP: 3,684
2000 - DEM: 2,392 REP: 5,610
2004 - DEM: 2,180 REP: 7,738

Carter was the last Democrat to win in Baker County, and even in 1980, his victory was relatively close when you consider that he grew up about 200 miles away. Kerry's 22% of the vote in 2004 is not dissimilar to Dukakis' or Mondale's 28% and is certainly in line with the trend among southern Democrats (partly slowed by southerner Clinton) away from the Democratic Party's national candidates. Even then, Clinton lost to Dole there 34% to 56%. This trend existed before that evil Republican scanning technology was invented.

I picked Baker County for more than just the statistics above. I know that county far better than any pseudo-scientists or television prima donnas. Probably half the county's population is related to me in one way or another - close or distant cousins or by marriage. My parents are buried there, in the cemetery of Oak Grove Primitive Baptist Church. It is a conservative, God-fearing, gun-owning, pick-up truck driving, farming community (though at one time it was the moonshine capital of the South). It is exactly the kind of place Kerry's and Terry McAuliffe's and Michael Moore's Democratic Party alienates. I'm surprised Kerry even got 22%.

WRONG. Dopp's study is not about the correlation between voter registration and expected election results. This is about a difference between electronic voting and paper-trail voting. You do not understand the way (O-E)/E is being used in this study. EVEN IF the trend is for registered Democrats to vote Republican, the point is that this happens more often in e-vote or op-scan counties than it does in paper-trail counties.

Roguish Lawyer
11-11-2004, 18:37
Her "study" is downright stupid.

First of all, exit polls are not reliable, period. You need a sample to be random in order to draw reliable conclusions from it, and exit poll samples are not random. Who is willing to take the time to answer questions from an exit pollster?

Second, how are "expected votes" determined? You really think this is a reliable predictor? Please.

She knows nothing about politics and anyone who credits her drivel is a fool.

Just my opinion, of course. YMMV.

[Edit: On reflection, I think the name-calling is a bit rough. But I'm leaving it in. LOL]

Airbornelawyer
11-11-2004, 18:50
This "scientist" is even more ignorant or mendacious than I thought.

Actual voter results are what they are. You step in the booth and pull, press or punch DEM or REP.

Expected voter results are, according to her, the percentage of registered voters for that party times the total votes cast. The variance is then the difference between the actual results for that party and what she expected.

However, she ignores the ratio of registered Republicans and Democrats to voters as a whole. Her numbers thus inflate the margins in counties where most people belong to one of the 2 parties. Look at the percentages in the first 2 columns and add them together. In the counties with low variances, the percentages are around 75% to 85%. In the counties with high variances. the percentages are in the mid-90%.

For example, in the county with the highest variances, Liberty, 96.2% of registered voters belonged to the two major parties. In the county with the second-highest variances, Lafayette, 96.0% of registered voters belonged to the two major parties. Third-highest, Calhoun, 94.3%. Baker? 93.8%.

By contrast, Broward (77.3% for the 2 major parties), Sarasota (79.1%), Hillsborough (76.8%) and Martin (80.0%), had among the lowest variances.

Going county-by-county, there is almost a direct correlation. And that's the case regardless of the technology. For example, the scanning-technology using counties with the lowest variances include Brevard (81.3% R and D), Flagler (78.9%), Hernando (80.1%), Manatee (77.3%) and Volusia (76.7%).

Add in the other discrepancy, which is that the higher variances are also in smaller population rural counties like Baker where conservative registered Democrats routinely vote for GOP candidates (many of these counties also supported Republicans Bob Martinez and Jeb Bush in their gubernatorial bids).

What a load of crap!

pulque
11-11-2004, 18:55
Her "study" is downright stupid.

First of all, exit polls are not reliable, period. You need a sample to be random in order to draw reliable conclusions from it, and exit poll samples are not random. Who is willing to take the time to answer questions from an exit pollster?

Second, how are "expected votes" determined? You really think this is a reliable predictor? Please.

She knows nothing about politics and anyone who credits her drivel is a fool.

Just my opinion, of course. YMMV.

First of all, her study has no data from exit polls. Its from the election results. Why are you fixated on exit polls?

Second of all, expected votes are determined in the following way. Percent Registered * Total Votes.

I do not think that "expected votes" is a reliable predictor. IT ISNT SUPPOSED TO BE A PREDICTOR. What I do think is that there is a trend for "expected votes" to be LESS of a predictor in counties that use e-votes and op-scan. Why can you not understand a simple trend? Are you so certain of new voting technologies that it is not even worth your time to examine the results?

Roguish Lawyer
11-11-2004, 19:03
First of all, her study has no data from exit polls. Its from the election results. Why are you fixated on exit polls?

Well, this is what she said:

Mathematicians are interested in investigating the November 2004 election because if exit polls from various states use the same scientific methodology, then the likelihood of election results being significantly different than exit polls results in half a dozen swing states is very very low.

She thinks there must be a problem with the voting machines, because the exit polls couldn't possibly be wrong. Incorrect assumption.


Second of all, expected votes are determined in the following way. Percent Registered * Total Votes.

I do not think that "expected votes" is a reliable predictor. IT ISNT SUPPOSED TO BE A PREDICTOR.

No? "Expected votes" doesn't mean a prediction of how people will vote? :confused: :rolleyes:


What I do think is that there is a trend for "expected votes" to be LESS of a predictor in counties that use e-votes and op-scan. Why can you not understand a simple trend? Are you so certain of new voting technologies that it is not even worth your time to examine the results?

"Expected votes" is her baseline. If the baseline is flawed, how can the comparison to the baseline be reliable? :confused: :munchin

pulque
11-11-2004, 19:12
This "scientist" is even more ignorant or mendacious than I thought.

Actual voter results are what they are. You step in the booth and pull, press or punch DEM or REP.

Expected voter results are, according to her, the percentage of registered voters for that party times the total votes cast. The variance is then the difference between the actual results for that party and what she expected.

However, she ignores the ratio of registered Republicans and Democrats to voters as a whole. Her numbers thus inflate the margins in counties where most people belong to one of the 2 parties. Look at the percentages in the first 2 columns and add them together. In the counties with low variances, the percentages are around 75% to 85%. In the counties with high variances. the percentages are in the mid-90%.

For example, in the county with the highest variances, Liberty, 96.2% of registered voters belonged to the two major parties. In the county with the second-highest variances, Lafayette, 96.0% of registered voters belonged to the two major parties. Third-highest, Calhoun, 94.3%. Baker? 93.8%.

By contrast, Broward (77.3% for the 2 major parties), Sarasota (79.1%), Hillsborough (76.8%) and Martin (80.0%), had among the lowest variances.

Going county-by-county, there is almost a direct correlation. And that's the case regardless of the technology. For example, the scanning-technology using counties with the lowest variances include Brevard (81.3% R and D), Flagler (78.9%), Hernando (80.1%), Manatee (77.3%) and Volusia (76.7%).

Add in the other discrepancy, which is that the higher variances are also in smaller population rural counties like Baker where conservative registered Democrats routinely vote for GOP candidates (many of these counties also supported Republicans Bob Martinez and Jeb Bush in their gubernatorial bids).

What a load of crap!

The variance issue that you brought up seems valid to me on first glance. Some of the couties with low variance also appear to have less independant voters. Nassau (85.9%) Indian River (81.3%) Lake (81.7%) Martin (80%) Sumter (84.3%). If you want to claim a direct correlation you need to work on it a bit more.

Your second observation has been already been disproven by taking the smaller rural counties out.

Roguish Lawyer
11-11-2004, 19:17
Your second observation has been already been disproven by taking the smaller rural counties out.

:confused:

Taking them out how and why?

Airbornelawyer
11-11-2004, 19:25
WRONG. Dopp's study is not about the correlation between voter registration and expected election results. This is about a difference between electronic voting and paper-trail voting. You do not understand the way (O-E)/E is being used in this study. EVEN IF the trend is for registered Democrats to vote Republican, the point is that this happens more often in e-vote or op-scan counties than it does in paper-trail counties.
Wrong. As noted above, I understand perfectly. The methodology inflates results for smaller rural counties and misreads the data from all counties by ignoring the ratio of registered Democrats and Republicans to all registered voters.

As to the latter:

All counties where more than 90% of voters are Democrat or Republican have variances for Republicans of greater than +150% using her methodology. No county below that 90% threshold has a GOP variance of greater than +150%. The only county below 85% where there is a GOP variance of greater than +100% is Desoto, and 84.7% of Desoto registered voters belonged to one of the two major parties. Below the 80% threshold, the highest variance was in Alachua, with a GOP variance of +54.2%.

The highest Democratic variances are similarly clustered. Gilchrist (89.0% GOP and Dem) and Bradford (89.7%) are the only counties below the 90% threshold which had Democratic variances greater than -50%. All counties where less than 80% of registered voters belonged to the two major parties had positive Democratic variances, while only 4 counties with greater than 80% had positive Democratic variances.

pulque
11-11-2004, 19:31
:confused:

Taking them out how and why?

They took out the smallest and the largest counties. the explanation is here
http://ustogether.org/election04/mitteldorf/Liddle.htm

why? because it might be a valid critisism which disproves the validity of the model. the critisism is that smaller counties are skewing the results because, for example, there is a trend in rural counties to register democrat but vote republican in national elections.

Roguish Lawyer
11-11-2004, 19:34
The methodology inflates results for smaller rural counties and misreads the data from all counties by ignoring the ratio of registered Democrats and Republicans to all registered voters.

But the most important point is that a correlation between the use of these machines and party registration percentage, even if it existed, does not prove that the voting machines cause the variance. I suspect that one could find any number of factors that influence both presidential voting and the decision not to use the supposedly more accurate machines.

This is all a desperate and rather pathetic attempt to prove that the exit polls were right and the actual results couldn't possibly have been. When you start with the result you want, you usually don't get very good science.

But that's just my opinion. What do I know, anyway?

Roguish Lawyer
11-11-2004, 19:36
They took out the smallest and the largest counties. the explanation is here
http://ustogether.org/election04/mitteldorf/Liddle.htm

why? because it might be a valid critisism which disproves the validity of the model. the critisism is that smaller counties are skewing the results because, for example, there is a trend in rural counties to register democrat but vote republican in national elections.

No, the explanation is that they didn't like the results when they used all of the data, so they just used the data that they perceived to be supportive of their conclusion. :rolleyes:

pulque
11-11-2004, 19:41
No, the explanation is that they didn't like the results when they used all of the data, so they just used the data that they perceived to be supportive of their conclusion. :rolleyes:

No, the explanation is that, as AL has pointed out, the methodology inflates results for smaller rural counties. Leave them in, take them out, it has no bearing on the result regardless of whether you like it or not.

Roguish Lawyer
11-11-2004, 19:45
No, the explanation is that, as AL has pointed out, the methodology inflates results for smaller rural counties. Leave them in, take them out, it has no bearing on the result regardless of whether you like it or not.

It has no bearing on the result or it inflates the results? :rolleyes:

You don't think the inflation raises questions about the methodology? Are you really a scientist?

pulque
11-11-2004, 19:51
It has no bearing on the result or it inflates the results? :rolleyes:

You don't think the inflation raises questions about the methodology? Are you really a scientist?

no, I'm a liberal. liberals cant be scientists
:rolleyes:

The Reaper
11-11-2004, 19:58
no, I'm a liberal. liberals cant be scientists
:rolleyes:

I would say that depends on their ability to separate their personal feelings from their scientific efforts.

I am sure that many libs make fine scientists when their field of study is not related to their political beliefs.

Dopp does not appear to be able to separate her wishes from her scientific efforts.

TR

Airbornelawyer
11-11-2004, 20:32
Your second observation has been already been disproven by
taking the smaller rural counties out.Disproven by whom? Where? Here is the data in her tables reordered by the number of registered voters per county. The formatting here does not lend itself to easily reading the data, but note that the highest variances are clustered in the smallest counties. This does not eliminate any county; it merely reorders them.

No GOP variance above 100% occurs in a county larger than Putnam's 45,344 registered voters. No GOP variance above 200% occurs in a county larger than Baker's 12,887 registered voters. The largest variance is in the smallest county. The second largest variance is in the second smallest county. The third largest variance is in the seventh smallest county.

You can cherry-pick the counties all you want, but the trends are clear to the unbiased eye. And if you want to cherry-pick, there are other factors to consider. For example, only three counties with more than 150,000 registered voters had GOP variances of greater than 50%: Hillsborough (51.2%), Duval (56.5%) and Polk (50.4%). Escambia was close at 49.1%. Notice anything about these counties? Polk is a large but rural county in the southerly part of the orange-growing region of central Florida. Hillsborough (Tampa), Duval (Jacksonville) and Escambia (Pensacola) all have large military and military retiree communities. Do you suppose that might affect their voting patterns?

Miami-Dade 1,058,801 31.6% 25.4%
Broward 1,058,069 28.6% 27.5%
Palm Beach 729,575 20.4% 34.8%
Hillsborough 621,201 51.2% 11.0%
Pinellas 590,989 26.5% 30.8%
Orange 531,774 41.5% 23.9%
Duval 515,202 56.5% -9.9%
Brevard 338,195 28.7% 13.7%
Volusia 309,930 33.8% 25.7%
Lee 304,937 24.2% 33.7%
Polk 295,742 50.4% -4.2%
Pasco 265,974 34.8% 18.9%
Seminole 241,230 30.2% 27.9%
Sarasota 240,592 11.6% 45.0%
Manatee 191,635 28.0% 29.1%
Escambia 189,833 49.1% -17.1%
Marion 184,257 34.8% 3.2%
Leon 171,182 40.2% 8.7%
Collier 168,673 22.4% 40.0%
Lake 161,269 26.7% 13.6%
Alachua 142,358 54.2% 11.1%
St.Lucie 137,951 28.6% 26.5%
Osceola 129,487 57.7% 18.8%
Okaloosa 127,455 35.8% -12.7%
Charlotte 113,808 24.0% 34.6%
Hernando 109,656 28.2% 19.0%
St.Johns 109,635 28.7% 8.0%
Clay 106,464 34.7% -9.2%
Bay 101,315 61.1% -28.3%
Martin 98,857 8.8% 51.5%
Santa Rosa 96,359 38.4% -22.5%
Citrus 90,780 37.1% 8.3%
Indian River 81,643 17.3% 30.0%
Highlands 60,176 36.7% -3.1%
Monroe 51,377 27.3% 37.6%
Flagler 47,068 25.2% 26.6%
Putnam 45,344 110.6% -30.6%
Nassau 41,353 48.0% -28.9%
Sumter 40,523 42.9% -10.9%
Columbia 34,282 114.1% -43.1%
Walton 32,777 46.2% -29.5%
Jackson 27,138 178.7% -46.7%
Gadsden 26,884 165.7% -15.8%
Levy 22,617 126.5% -38.9%
Suwannee 21,930 163.1% -55.0%
Okeechobee 18,627 92.6% -27.7%
Hendry 17,144 91.3% -28.3%
Wakulla 15,396 137.8% -37.7%
DeSoto 14,901 128.4% -30.6%
Bradford 14,721 145.8% -51.3%
Washington 14,421 179.6% -58.1%
Baker 12,887 220.4% -68.4%
Taylor 11,481 237.1% -53.0%
Madison 11,371 238.8% -38.7%
Holmes 10,982 261.9% -70.0%
Hardee 10,399 160.7% -53.5%
Dixie 9,676 358.1% -60.7%
Gulf 9,627 148.8% -50.8%
Jefferson 9,300 112.7% -23.6%
Gilchrist 9,035 131.2% -50.9%
Calhoun 8,350 433.2% -56.9%
Hamilton 7,645 268.9% -43.6%
Franklin 7,620 268.1% -47.7%
Union 7,063 297.4% -64.5%
Glades 5,963 132.8% -35.6%
Lafayette 4,309 459.3% -69.3%
Liberty 4,075 712.3% -59.9%

Airbornelawyer
11-11-2004, 20:43
I can discount smaller counties too. Take out all counties with fewer than 150,000 registered voters. That leaves just 20 of Florida's 67 counties, but their 8,169,060 registered voters accounted for 79.3% of the state's total.

1. Miami-Dade 1,058,801 31.6% 25.4%
2. Broward 1,058,069 28.6% 27.5%
3. Palm Beach 729,575 20.4% 34.8%
4. Hillsborough 621,201 51.2% 11.0%
5. Pinellas 590,989 26.5% 30.8%
6. Orange 531,774 41.5% 23.9%
7. Duval 515,202 56.5% -9.9%
8. Brevard 338,195 28.7% 13.7%
9. Volusia 309,930 33.8% 25.7%
10. Lee 304,937 24.2% 33.7%
11. Polk 295,742 50.4% -4.2%
12. Pasco 265,974 34.8% 18.9%
13. Seminole 241,230 30.2% 27.9%
14. Sarasota 240,592 11.6% 45.0%
15. Manatee 191,635 28.0% 29.1%
16. Escambia 189,833 49.1% -17.1%
17. Marion 184,257 34.8% 3.2%
18. Leon 171,182 40.2% 8.7%
19. Collier 168,673 22.4% 40.0%
20. Lake 161,269 26.7% 13.6%

What do we see? Ten (Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Lee, Pasco, Sarasota, Collier and Lake) used E-Touch Voting. Ten (Orange, Duval, Brevard, Volusia, Polk, Seminole, Manatee, Escambia, Marion and Leon) used optically scanned paper ballots.

The greater variances are somewhat clustered in the direction of the op-scan counties, but when you take into account the other factors (rural voters, military voters, percentage of independent voters, etc.) suddenly there is no statistically significant trend that can honestly be correlated with the type of device used to count votes.

BMT (RIP)
11-12-2004, 05:07
I don't want to piss on anyones Post Toasties this early in the mornin' , BUT. Let me throw this out for discussion. If I'm not mistaken the way Fl. election laws are written,in the primary elections you can only vote for a canidate from the party you are a member of. Canidates in most local elections are Democrats and most of the people in a given county are registered Democrats. Elections for city,county council are decided by the canidates record on local issues.
During the general elections you can cross party lines and vote for either party.This beening the case,exit polls and expected votes don't mean squat.

BMT

Roguish Lawyer
11-12-2004, 09:37
no, I'm a liberal. liberals cant be scientists
:rolleyes:

Fair enough. LMAO

Of course, they are in the German sense.

pulque
11-12-2004, 11:29
The greater variances are somewhat clustered in the direction of the op-scan counties, but when you take into account the other factors (rural voters, military voters, percentage of independent voters, etc.) suddenly there is no statistically significant trend that can honestly be correlated with the type of device used to count votes.

very impressive. I have too much "science" to do today to look closely, but will later on. thanks.

Airbornelawyer
11-12-2004, 12:55
If I'm not mistaken the way Fl. election laws are written,in the primary elections you can only vote for a candidate from the party you are a member of. Yes. Florida Statutes, Title IX, section 101.021
Canidates in most local elections are Democrats and most of the people in a given county are registered Democrats.Not entirely, but for the most part. 40 counties have more registered Democrats than registered Republicans. 27 have more registered Republicans than registered Democrats.

Statewide, registered Democrats exceed registered Republicans by 41.5% to
37.8% of all registered voters. 17.5% are registered without a party.

This represents a downward trend against the Democrats in Florida. In 1970, Democrats were 72.4% of registered voters. In 1980, 64.2%. In 1990, this had dipped to 52.2%. By 2000, it was 43.4%. Republicans have gone from 25.4% in 1970 to a peak of 41.9% in 1994. It has slipped to 37.8% today, but as the number has increased and the Democratic percentage has continued to drop, this percentage decline is apparently due to more non-party registered voters.

As for local elections, it depends on the region. Baker County, for example, is in the northeast of the state, just west of Duval County (Jacksonville). It is in the 4th Congressional District. No Democrat even ran against Rep. Ander Crenshaw (R-FL), who received 99.5% of the vote (he received 99.7% in 2002). It is in the 3rd State Senate District, where a Republican won 66% to 34% in 2004 and 55% to 46% in 2002. In 2002, the county voted for a Republican governor, lt. governor, attorney general and commissioner of agriculture, and in State House District 12, the Democrats fielded no candidate, and Rep. Aaron Bean (R-12) defeated a Libertarian candidate 84% to 16%.

pulque
11-13-2004, 17:08
The greater variances are somewhat clustered in the direction of the op-scan counties, but when you take into account the other factors (rural voters, military voters, percentage of independent voters, etc.) suddenly there is no statistically significant trend that can honestly be correlated with the type of device used to count votes.

I don't want to cherry pick, so I'm looking at the 20 counties you selected based on voting population size. I don't discount the idea that there may be specific reasons for the trend regarding the locality and demographics (eg military votes). But I just don't yet see a statistically significant correlation between percentage of otherpartyvoters and variance.

table of those counties ordered by %GOP variance:

Airbornelawyer
11-15-2004, 12:19
I don't want to cherry pick, so I'm looking at the 20 counties you selected based on voting population size. I don't discount the idea that there may be specific reasons for the trend regarding the locality and demographics (eg military votes). But I just don't yet see a statistically significant correlation between percentage of otherpartyvoters and variance.That's what you get for cherry picking the data. The drama of this woman's work is the huge variances - Republicans supposedly getting 2-7 times as many votes as they "should" and Democrats getting half as many or less. As I did by reordering the counties by population on an earlier page, showing that the dramatically large variances were clustered in small-population counties, so I do by reordering all counties by the share of Democrats and Republicans of all registered voters. See attachment.

Note that, as I already stated, all significant Republican variances are clustered at the high end, as are all significant Democratic variances. Also note that the e-touch voting counties are heavily clustered at the lower end.

I have no great idea why this is so. At first glance, it seems counterintuitive. One might expect that the greater variances would be in places where there is greater room to vary, i.e., in counties with larger percentages of independent voters. Instead, outwardly at least, the opposite appears to be the case. One explanation lies outside the realm of statistics. The counties which have the highest party ID are not evenly split between the 2 major parties. The top 15 counties by total 2-party ID - Liberty, Lafayette, Taylor, Madison, Calhoun, Gadsden, Holmes, Hamilton, Union, Gulf, Baker, Jackson, Franklin, Jefferson and Dixie - happen to occupy the 48th, 53rd and 55th through 67th places in the rankings of GOP percentages of registered voters. They also rank 1-15 in Democratic Party registration. In other words, these are not just rural counties with small populations, they are also yellow dog Democrat country. But now, they'll vote for the gray elephant, they just don't join his party.

They are also small counties; they occupy 42nd, 43rd, 52nd-55th, 57th-59th, 61st-64th and 66th-67th places in total registered voters.

In other words, given low GOP registration in these counties, the Republicans really had nowhere to go but up. Given these counties' conservatism, the GOP, especially when pitted against the most liberal member of the Senate, had every expectation of going way up, while the Democrats had an equal expectation to go down. And given the overall small population, any big absolute increase or decrease is going to look even bigger when expressed as a percentage.

BTW, of those 15 e-touch voting counties, 11 have more registered Republicans than Democrats. Consider that, corollary to the analysis above, one of the factors keeping the GOP variance lower in these counties was the fact that with stronger GOP ID already, there wasn't as much room to do better.

Airbornelawyer
11-15-2004, 12:37
In other words, BS in, BS out. A flawed methodology that assumes rather than shows that actual voting patterns should follow voter registrations. An inability or unwillingness to recognize the numerous alternative explanations for the data.

I originally was agnostic on whether Ms. Dopp was ignorant or mendacious. I have since learned that she purports to have an advanced degree in mathematics. Therefore, I am now disinclined to give her the benefit of Hanlon's Razor ("Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity").

BTW, for an even more dramatic illustration of the disconnect between party registration and voting results, and of the power of smaller absolute numbers to make for really dramatic percentage changes, consider Ralph Nader.

In 2000, the Green Party of Florida had 2,728 registered voters, or 0.031% of all registered voters. 5,963,110 votes were cast in 2000. Applying Ms. Dopp's methodology, the Green candidate should have expected to receive 1,859 votes. Yet Nader received 97,488 votes. That is a statewide variance, again applying her methodology, of +5,144.1%.

In 2004, the Reform Party of Florida had 3,872 registered voters, or 0.0376% of all registered voters. As of the first set of unofficial returns, 7,609,810 votes were cast in 2004. Again applying Ms. Dopp's methodology, the Reform Party candidate should have expected to receive 2,860 votes. Yet Mr. Nader, running as the Reform Party candidate in '04, received 32,971 votes. That is a statewide variance, again applying her methodology, of +1,052.8%.

So either (1) Nader's people engaged in massive voter fraud or (2) people voted for Nader who were not registered with the parties whose nomination he carried. Do you suppose it's possible the same might have happened with the President?

Airbornelawyer
11-15-2004, 13:55
BTW, if this all really was part of the Dark Lord Karl of Rove's nefarious designs, he is not very good at this sort of thing.

The formula for the variance is v=(A-E)/E. Therefore, A=Ev+E.

The average GOP variance in the e-touch voting counties was +28.6%. Applying that variable to the total "expected" GOP vote for the op-scan precinct counties gives you 1,719,666 votes. The actual GOP vote for these counties was 1,950,213. The difference, then, is 230,547. Bush's margin of victory in Florida was 381,000 votes. If the secret cabal rigged those machines to win, the secret cabal needs a managerial shake-up, because this difference was not the margin of victory.

BTW, look at these numbers another way. Dopp's "surprising result" is the difference in the variance between e-touch voting counties and op-scan precinct counties and is the result of the DU-fed myth that op-scan technology was produced by companies (principally Diebold) headed by Republicans and therefore must have some secret election-theft chip.

So let us assume the +28.6% variance is the "proper" variance. That means that 1,719,666 votes should be the "expected" vote, i.e., we should expect the GOP to receive 28.6% more than the product of the GOP percentage of registered voters and the total votes cast.

Plugging 1,719,666 into the formula gives you:

(1,950,213 - 1,719,666)
1,719,666

The result is +13.4%.

So, in 52 counties, most of which are rural and more Republican-friendly than the state as a whole, and 8 of which - Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton, Bay, Duval, Brevard and Polk - host military installations, Bush did about 13.4% better than what might be considered the statewide standard. Suddenly the result does not appear so "surprising."

Shark Bait
11-16-2004, 12:01
The Dems should get red and we should get blue. For obvious reasons.
Lets give the Dems yellow, for obvious reasons.

Airbornelawyer
11-16-2004, 14:43
Add another problem with Ms. Dopp's mendacious piece of pseudoscience - results from other states:

Massachusetts:

Total registered voters (as of 10/13/04): 4,098,634
Republican: 532,319 (12.99%)
Democrat: 1,526,711 (37.25%)

Total votes cast: 2,888,083
Bush: 1,067,163
Kerry: 1,793,916

"Expected" votes for Bush=(.1299)(2,888,083) =375,096
"Expected" votes for Kerry=(.3725)(2,888,083)=1,075,790

Variance for Bush=(A-E)/E=(1067163-375096)/375096= +184.5%
Variance for Kerry=(A-E)/E=(1793916-1075790)/1075790= +66.75%

Rhode Island:

Total registered voters (as of 3/2/04 Presidential primary): 639,459
Republican: 64,153 (10.0324%)
Democrat: 240,512 (37.6118%)

Total votes cast: 437,126
Bush: 169,045
Kerry: 259,753

"Expected" votes for Bush=(.100324%)(437126)= 43,854
"Expected" votes for Kerry=(.376118%)(437126)= 164,411

Variance for Bush=(A-E)/E=(169045-43854)/43854= +285.47%
Variance for Kerry=(A-E)/E=(259753-164411)/164411= +57.99%

More up-to-date statistics for voter registration in Rhode Island would probably lower that number somewhat, though perhaps not by much. Using the numbers above gives you a turnout of 68%, which is close to the 70% turnout estimated by Providence media.

So here you have two states where registered Republicans are heavily outnumbered by registered Democrats, and furthermore, two states decisively won by the Kerry campaign (though not as decisively as Gore in 2000, given Kerry's local boy status). Party ID on the whole is rather low, however, with half the electorate in each state unaffiliated with a party.

Given the high number of independents, positive variances are to be expected for both parties. Indeed, with half the electorate unaffiliated, if you assume voters turn out in the same ratios that they registered (which is not necessarily a reasonable assumption), and you assume independents break as affiliated voters do (again not necessarily true), then both parties should have a variance of +100%. In reality, registered independents are less likely to vote than affiliated voters, which would push the variances down, but in a Democrat-dominated state, registered independents will often include people who vote Republican but choose not to label themselves as such. This would tend to push the GOP variance up.

The actual results seem to confirm this, albeit with perhaps larger-than-expected variances. Both parties did better than "expected" but the Republicans did much better, with rural Florida county-type variances.

I have no idea what kind of voting machines they use in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, but that's the point. These outwardly dramatic variances are not uncommon and can be explained by many factors. You don't need nefarious conspiracy theories.

Roguish Lawyer
11-16-2004, 15:55
Pulque:

I think it is time for you to concede.

:munchin

Airbornelawyer
11-16-2004, 16:55
Not to keep beating this into the ground, but I am not a mathematician, so I didn't notice this until now. Someone with an advanced degree should have noticed this a while ago.

Dopp supplies the following data:

a=% of registered voters who are Republican
b=% of registered voters who are Democrat
c=total number of registered voters
d=votes received by Bush
e=votes received by Kerry
f=total number of votes cast

Dopp applies the following formulas:

x="Expected" REP vote=(f)(a)
y="Expected" DEM vote=(f)(b)

REP variance=(d-x)/x
DEM variance=(e-y)/y

Here's the thing: (d-x)/x = (d/x)-1 and (e-y)/y = (e/y)-1

This stands to reason: if I received 150% more votes than I "should" have, then what I have is 250% of what I "should" have. If I received 25 votes, and should have gotten 10, I received 15 more. 15 is 150% more than 10. I have 25, which is 250% of 10. In math terms, (25-10)/10 = 25/10 - 1 = 1.5, which as a percent is 150%.

Bear with me: for the Republican, you now have (d/x)-1. But x=fa. So the formula is (d/fa)-1, which is the same as (d/f)/a-1 . We know what "a" is: the percentage of registered voters who are Republican. But we also know what (d/f) is: the percentage of votes cast for the Republican candidate.

The point is this: skip all the formulas and tables and "actual minus expected over expected" and all that. For each party, all you need is the percentage of the vote its candidate received and its percentage of registered voters. Divide the former by the latter and subtract 1. Express as a percentage.

A convoluted path (you can see why I'm not a math teacher either), but hopefully an easy example:

Republicans were 12.99% of Massachusetts registered voters. Bush received 36.95% of the vote. 36.95% divided by 12.99% is 2.845. Take away 1 and you have 1.845, or 184.5%. Two variables and 1 formula, instead of 6 variables and 2 formulas.

In my equations, the percentages are rounded, which builds in rounding error, but Dopp's builds it in as well, since she gives you the percentage of registered voters for the GOP and Dems rather than the actual numbers.

So while her tables look impressively full of numbers, to reach her conclusions you do not need most of the information provided, and if you really want to rigorously check the numbers, you need information she does not provide (the actual numbers of registered Democrats and Republicans in each county, so you can get a more accurate percentage).

Ironically, some of the extraneous information was useful for debunking her work. Having the total numbers of registered voters allows you to rank them based on size, and shows the strong correlation between smaller counties and higher variances. But note that this number is not used in any of the calculations. Having these totals and the total votes cast would allow us to calculate turnout, which may or may not be useful information, but she doesn't take that step. But turnout - like size (small vs. large county), voter ID (% of independents among registered voters) and demographics (rural vs. urban, military voters, etc.) - is just one more variable affecting the results.

Ms. Dopp is a poor mathematician - extraneous information and overcomplicated calculations to arrive at a result with built-in error - and a poor scientist - she seems intent on forcing the data to fit her hypothesis, regardless of its weaknesses. In the end, she is a poor sport.

NousDefionsDoc
11-18-2004, 11:18
So President Bush won, right? :confused:

DunbarFC
11-18-2004, 11:53
Add another problem with Ms. Dopp's mendacious piece of pseudoscience - results from other states:

Massachusetts:

Total registered voters (as of 10/13/04): 4,098,634
Republican: 532,319 (12.99%)
Democrat: 1,526,711 (37.25%)

Total votes cast: 2,888,083
Bush: 1,067,163
Kerry: 1,793,916

I have no idea what kind of voting machines they use in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, but that's the point. These outwardly dramatic variances are not uncommon and can be explained by many factors. You don't need nefarious conspiracy theories.


There are only 532,000 Republicans in Mass ? Wow. I knew I was in the minority but wow.........

In Mass it varies from town to town and city to city what kind of voting "machines" we have. In the city I live in now you use a scantron type sheet to fill in the arrow next to the candidate you want to vote for.

In Boston proper I believe they use lever based voting machines

In Little Rhodey - you vote how the godfather tells you to vote :cool:

Airbornelawyer
11-18-2004, 12:03
As far as I'm concerned, Ms. Dopp's horse is long since beaten to death, but ...

What have we learned? Dopp, having apparently heard the various Internet conspiracy theories about how Diebold and others were conspiring to rig voting machines, crunched the data the State of Florida was nice enough to provide and organized it by the one variable - type of voting machine - she cared about. Lo and behold! She found something that looked suspicious.

Many others, including - immodestly - yours truly :rolleyes: , looked at her data and noticed anomalies. Those of us actually familiar with the State of Florida and its history and demographics were especially cognizant of these anomalies (I was born in West Palm Beach, Florida and until the age of 16 spent a grand total of 3 days outside of Florida. My family has lived in Florida for generations, stretching back to the Spanish colonial era and the migrations of Seminoles southward).

It was immediately apparent that Dopp ignored or downplayed a long list of demographic factors that might color the results. As previously stated, these included the size of the counties, the nature and level of voter ID and the nature of the counties' populations. It turns out that the salient factors were not the voting machines, but the fact that most of the counties with anomalous results were inhabited by those God-fearin', gun-totin', cousin-marryin', country-lovin' bogeymen of the New York Times editorial page and MSNBC commentators.

Had Dopp been a true scientist, she might have corrected for these factors or at least accounted for them. She might have did what I did, which was correlate the data by those other factors, or she might have established control groups. Any number of alternatives were there. An amateur like myself had no problem (though I've learned a lot about the "formula" feature of tables in Word in the past week). For someone ostensibly holding a Masters in Mathematics, it should have been a cakewalk.

BTW, as far as control groups go, note again several salient characteristics: southern counties with relatively small populations where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by significant numbers. I looked around and many states did not provide sufficient publicly accessible data on voter registration, but at least one did: Louisiana.

In Louisiana, registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 1,515,211 to 651,794, or 56.0% to 24.1% of all registered voters. Louisiana was, however, far from a swing state. Bush won Louisiana with 56.7% to Kerry's 42.2% of the vote. That means the Republican variance was +135.3%, while the Democratic variance was -24.7%.

Louisiana does not have counties, but parishes. Parish results show similar patterns. For example, in tiny Acadia Parish, registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 23,875 to 6,715, or 66.1% to 18.6% of all registered voters. This is somewhat stronger Democratic Party ID than the state as a whole. In Acadia Parish, Bush beat Kerry 63.7% to 35.4%, a wider margin than that that by which he took the state. So the GOP variance was +242.7%, while the Democratic variance was -46.4%. Sounds like one of those Florida counties.

The state of Iowa, by contrast, is relatively evenly divided. Among registered voters, 31.06% are Republicans and 30.84% are Democrats. Bush's margin of victory over Kerry was about 10,000 votes (and Gore's margin over Bush was about 4,000), or less than 1%. Bush won Iowa with 50.02% to Kerry's 49.15%. The GOP's +61.0% variance was virtually indistinguishable from the Democrat's +59.4%.

California is not as evenly divided, as Registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by about 8.3 percentage points. But Kerry's margin of victory (+9.9) was not significantly different from the voter registration margin, so the variances were close: +28.2% for the GOP and +26.4% for the Democrats.

Airbornelawyer
11-18-2004, 12:13
BTW, the difference between the California and Iowa variances is explained by stronger voter ID in the former. Republicans and Democrats together account for only 61.9% of Iowa registered voters, but 77.7% of California registered voters. Thus, while independents in both states split for Bush and Kerry relatively evenly, Iowa had a greater percentage of independents to split.

The Reaper
11-18-2004, 13:27
Ouch!!

That is going to leave a nasty mark!

Who'd a thunk it?

AL, Science Guy!

TR

pulque
11-18-2004, 15:34
Pulque:

I think it is time for you to concede.

:munchin

RL, this isn't a sporting event. It is a conversation which you havent contributed anything to, last time I checked.

pulque
11-18-2004, 17:09
Not to keep beating this into the ground, but I am not a mathematician, so I didn't notice this until now. Someone with an advanced degree should have noticed this a while ago.



The point is this: skip all the formulas and tables and "actual minus expected over expected" and all that. For each party, all you need is the percentage of the vote its candidate received and its percentage of registered voters. Divide the former by the latter and subtract 1. Express as a percentage.

no offense, but this part of what you are doing AL is called hand-waving. I don't have an advanced degree in mathematics either, but there is nothing superior to your method of getting the variances out of the data even if you use less variables. In fact, I do not think it is ironic that Dopp set up her equations that way. O-E/E is the standard way of doing analysis of variance (ANOVA).

Ironically, some of the extraneous information was useful for debunking her work.
Having the total numbers of registered voters allows you to rank them based on size, and shows the strong correlation between smaller counties and higher variances.

I would like to know if you think there is a direct correlation between county size and variance.

Ms. Dopp is a poor mathematician - extraneous information and overcomplicated calculations

not so extraneous, since you seem to have been using the data.

Airbornelawyer
11-18-2004, 21:30
1. Variance does not directly correlate to any specific factor. There are too many variables. The relevance of county size is two-fold. First, given the smaller sample, small absolute changes look more profound when expressed as a percentage. A few hundred extra votes, a drop in the bucket in Broward or Palm Beach, is a big shift in Lafayette or Liberty. Second, Florida's smaller counties tend to be rural counties, which calls into consideration the other factors at play.

2. My simplified formula, as I already noted, may not be the preferred method for statisticians because it introduces rounding error. However, again as noted, Dopp's method also introduces rounding error. Thus, she utilizes a method which adds complexity without necessarily increasing accuracy. While that practice may or may not be standard among statisticians, it is certainly not recommended. In my profession, we routinely make things overcomplicated in laymen's eyes. But the trade-off is that we seek to make them more accurate. Dopp fails on that point.

More? Closer to (my current) home:

New York

Manhattan (New York County):
REP variance: +39.29%
DEM variance: +24.70%

Brooklyn (Kings County):
REP variance: +146.57%
DEM variance: +7.12%

The Bronx (Bronx County):
REP variance: +109.81%
DEM variance: +11.87%

Queens (Queens County):
REP variance: +90.76%
DEM variance: +13.29%

Staten Island (Richmond County):
REP variance: +86.18%
DEM variance: -5.92%

Rockland County:
REP variance: +96.77%
DEM variance: +7.72%

New Jersey

Camden County
REP variance: +238.38%
DEM variance: +117.50%

Essex County
REP variance: +191.73%
DEM variance: +93.26%

Hudson County
REP variance: +318.13%
DEM variance: +60.93%

All the variances in New Jersey are high, because voter ID in the Garden State is low - almost 60% of New Jersey registered voters are unaffiliated. But note the margin between Republican and Democratic variances in these three counties. BTW, I cherry-picked these counties. None are especially rural - Hudson is across the river from NYC, Essex includes Newark and Camden is suburban Philadelphia. But all have far more registered Democrats than Republicans. Kerry carried all three counties by huge margins, much better than he did the state as a whole. But in terms of the actual vs. "expected" variance, the GOP did significantly better than the Democrats.

Hudson County is perhaps the most dramatic. Hudson County is possibly the bluest county in America. Republicans account for just under 7.79% of registered voters. This is lower than Suffolk County, Massachusetts (Boston's county, 8.56%), the District of Columbia (7.86%), San Francisco (11.56%) and the Bronx (7.95%). Bush's 32.6% of the vote in Hudson County thus gave the GOP a huge variance. What can account for that? Rigged voting machines? Or maybe so-called "9-11 Democrats"? Or simply a good showing among all those independents (just over half of the county's voters).

BTW, Suffolk County, Massachusetts?
REP variance: +168.22%
DEM variance: +42.52%

Within Suffolk are four towns - Boston, Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop. Boston accounts for most of the county's population, and the GOP variance there, +150.88%, drove the county. But in Chelsea, it was +252.12%, in Revere it was +296.41% and in Winthrop it was +261.63%. Only four of Florida's 67 counties had a GOP variance greater than Revere Township. Eight counties had GOP variances greater than those of Chelsea and Winthrop. All eight of these counties are smaller than these three townships.

The 205,000 votes cast in Boston (GOP +150.88%) are similar to the 210,642 cast in Polk County (GOP +50.4%) and the 208,410 cast in Volusia County (GOP +33.8%).

How much more do I have to do show that these Florida anomalies are not especially anomalous, much less evidence of something underhanded?

How about Brookline, Massachusetts, not exactly Bush country?
REP variance: +99.44%
DEM variance: +68.08%

Cambridge, Massachusetts?
REP variance: +92.78%
DEM variance: +47.37%

Bush did go to B School there, so maybe that explains it.

Airbornelawyer
11-19-2004, 21:06
As far as I'm concerned, Ms. Dopp's horse is long since beaten to death, but ...

...note again several salient characteristics: southern counties with relatively small populations where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by significant numbers. I looked around and many states did not provide sufficient publicly accessible data on voter registration, but at least one did: Louisiana.

In Louisiana, registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 1,515,211 to 651,794, or 56.0% to 24.1% of all registered voters. Louisiana was, however, far from a swing state. Bush won Louisiana with 56.7% to Kerry's 42.2% of the vote. That means the Republican variance was +135.3%, while the Democratic variance was -24.7%.

Louisiana does not have counties, but parishes. Parish results show similar patterns. For example, in tiny Acadia Parish, registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 23,875 to 6,715, or 66.1% to 18.6% of all registered voters. This is somewhat stronger Democratic Party ID than the state as a whole. In Acadia Parish, Bush beat Kerry 63.7% to 35.4%, a wider margin than that that by which he took the state. So the GOP variance was +242.7%, while the Democratic variance was -46.4%. Sounds like one of those Florida counties.Is it sadism to beat a dead horse? It can't feel pain, after all.

Attached are the results for the entire state of Louisiana.

What seemed to animate Dopp was the notion that "the increase in ACTUAL votes from EXPECTED votes has for REPs than that for DEMs in counties using optical scan voting machines." This surprising result was a GOP variance of +28.6% in the e-touch voting counties vs a GOP variance of +45.8% in the counties using optical scan voting machines (+40.0% if we leave out all counties smaller than the smallest e-touch counties). The statewide variance was +36.9%. This actually isn't a very big difference, especially in the light of all of the other factors discussed previously.

What made Dopp's presentation look dramatic were all of those increases that were "so much higher." In 26 of Florida's 67 counties, the variance was greater than 100%. That is, Bush's actual vote was more than twice what Dopp expected. In 11 counties, it was greater than 200%, or three times what was expected.

As noted above in the quoted text, in the entire State of Louisiana, the variance for Bush was greater than 100%. I cited one parish, Acadia, as an example of how the smaller parishes in the Pelican State, like the smaller counties in Florida, had even larger variances.

Take a look at the attached data for the entire state. Of Louisiana's 64 parishes, 59 recorded a GOP variance greater than 100% and the worst showing was greater than 72%. The variance was greater than 200% in 29 of 64 parishes. Also, in Florida, the Democrats had a positive variance – Kerry received more votes than "expected" – in 28 counties. In Louisiana, in only one parish did Kerry do better than "expected."

As in Florida, numerous factors are at play that some peoples' tunnel vision keeps them from seeing. Democratic Party ID is even stronger in Louisiana than in Florida. Democrats are 56% of registered voters, while Republicans are 24%. Parish by parish, you see margins similar to those in Florida's rural counties – in Cameron parish, which recorded the largest GOP variance, Republicans are only 13.7% of registered voters. Kerry actually won Assumption Parish with 52% of the vote, but because Democrats are over 76% of the parish's registered voters, the Democrats did worse than expected, while Bush did over 300% better.

:rolleyes:

Roguish Lawyer
11-19-2004, 21:46
RL, this isn't a sporting event. It is a conversation which you havent contributed anything to, last time I checked.

You don't concede you were wrong on this one?

pulque
11-22-2004, 12:18
You don't concede you were wrong on this one?

did I mention that my brother is a lawyer?

have you ever heard of having a conversation? you should try it sometime.

Sacamuelas
11-22-2004, 13:35
did I mention that my brother is a lawyer?
have you ever heard of having a conversation? you should try it sometime.

Alright, I just got this thing and want to give it a test run. Let's see what happens..... If it works, I am going to buy the Frontsight model add-on for prevention of future misinterpretations. :D


Hmmm.. it says to insert phrase info here and the results of true meaning will display on the screen.

Roguish Lawyer
11-22-2004, 13:38
Alright, I just got this thing and want to give it a test run. Let's see what happens..... If it works, I am going to buy the Frontsight model add-on for prevention of future misinterpretations. :D


Hmmm.. it says to insert phrase info here and the results of true meaning will display on the screen.

LMAO -- I take back all those mean things I said about dentists! ;)

pulque
11-22-2004, 14:02
Alright, I just got this thing and want to give it a test run. Let's see what happens..... If it works, I am going to buy the Frontsight model add-on for prevention of future misinterpretations. :D


Hmmm.. it says to insert phrase info here and the results of true meaning will display on the screen.

LOL. All these distractions aside, I do apologize to AL for not having any time recently. I believe that I have expressed my admiration for his work already. Alot of his words, as I have already said, amount to handwaving. But there is some good stuff in there that has gotten me thinking (unlike any of y'all).

Here is the BUT. AL uses alot of words but right now it seems to me that they all boil down to a simple thing.. Could it be that the many words funtion to distract and confuse? The one simple thing he is saying, is that there are "other factors" to consider.

I would like to see a valid statistical analysis including these "other factors". That is all. I do not expect that AL will provide the analysis, unless he really digs that dead horse more than I thought possible.

Roguish Lawyer
11-22-2004, 14:21
LOL. All these distractions aside, I do apologize to AL for not having any time recently. I believe that I have expressed my admiration for his work already. Alot of his words, as I have already said, amount to handwaving. But there is some good stuff in there that has gotten me thinking (unlike any of y'all).

Here is the BUT. AL uses alot of words but right now it seems to me that they all boil down to a simple thing.. Could it be that the many words funtion to distract and confuse? The one simple thing he is saying, is that there are "other factors" to consider.

I would like to see a valid statistical analysis including these "other factors". That is all. I do not expect that AL will provide the analysis, unless he really digs that dead horse more than I thought possible.

:p

pulque
11-22-2004, 14:22
FYI, I do not have internet at home, and I dont really have time to focus on these problems at work. It is my intention to stay late after work today to work on this some more. I'm sorry that some of you think that this is a contest. I am propelled by an interest in the numbers, and by an interest in a fair election. I concede that Ms. Dopp may have other interests, eg, she may think that Diebold is cheating on behalf of Republicans everywhere. It is not actually an outrageous idea. Why should we assume that everybody is as moral as we are? Anyways, it is always worth it to make sure that our votes count.

This is sortof unrelated, but personally I think we Americans have too many expectations of instant gratification. I think that these elections should not be called until the votes are counted. Therefore, 1-2 weeks after voting.

pulque
11-22-2004, 16:23
:p


I have officially had enough of your BS, Rougish Lawyer. Congratulations.

Bye.

Sacamuelas
11-22-2004, 16:33
pulqueeeee.... don't go.

RL.. quit being a bully. :p LOL

Pulque-

FWIW, I never thought it was a contest. Hell, I quit reading ALL this thread a LONG time ago. As a matter of fact, I haven't read in depth since the first posts where you and AL starting speaking in Statistics-anese... I just started skimming right over it. I responded to your post only because it was in English, and I thought I saw an excellent opportunity to be funny. I wasn't piling on... come back triple eww... :D

-MWAMG :lifter

Jo Sul
11-22-2004, 16:51
Hmmm . . . I think the moral of the story is something like "don't argue with a lawyer", certainly not two of them.

Airbornelawyer
11-22-2004, 17:50
This is in fact not a conversation. A conversation has at least two parties. You have offered nothing which constitutes logic or analysis on this matter, which you raised and which BTW was a tangent on this thread to begin with.

Do you have anything to offer but insults? I don't know what you mean to imply by "handwaving," but the implication does not strike me as positive. "Could it be that the many words funtion to distract and confuse"? If you are confused, that is your problem. Everything I have posted has specifically addressed the fundamental flaws readily apparent to any objective observer of Ms. Dopp's pathetically inadequate work.

Her assumption, unsupported by any analysis, is that voting patterns should correlate to partisan voter ID as reflected in registration statistics, and further that any large deviations from this assumption must be evidence of something underhanded, for which she focused on voting machines. As I have shown ad nauseam, there is no factual basis to support the first assumption, and as a result, large deviations from her expectations are in fact commonplace.

You want a "valid statistical analysis including these 'other factors'"? Then do it, if you can. If you refuse to accept the obvious and mendacious flaws of Dopp's "analysis" until someone proves to you what the other factors are, then I question your grasp of logic. I and others have demonstrated the myriad flaws in her analysis; I do not need to produce some other alternative glib answer, and if you rely on such reductionism to understand the world, then you have a problem.

But if you want as simplistic an explanation as Dopp purports to provide, here's one: as I have shown repeatedly, the dramatically large variations tend to occur in places with low Republican Party ID as reflected in voter registrations but where Republicans did well (or better than one might expect). These places are primarily those parts of Florida which are part of the South - the conservative, predominantly rural counties of north Florida and the inland agricultural regions stretching down to Lake Okeechobee (the term "Florida cracker" came from the sound of the whips used in the great cattle drives from north Florida down to the Kissimmee River valley and Lake Okeechobee).

The large variations in Florida are heavily concentrated in the predominantly rural counties of north Florida. Every county with a GOP variance greater than +100% is in the north of the state except three - Hardee, Desoto and Glades - which are themselves rural inland counties west of Lake Okeechobee. And they are all smaller counties. The largest of these 26, Putnam County, has 45,000 registered voters, or 0.44% of the state. All 26 together account for 3.66% of Florida voters.

Add in the next 8 counties, those with GOP variances greater than 50%, and you do get a few larger counties. Together, these 8 have 17.87% of Florida's registered voters. This group of 8 includes two more small inland counties around Lake Okeechobee (Okeechobee and Hendry), two somewhat larger, but still heavily rural inland counties (Osceola and Polk), three more north Florida counties (Duval, Alachua and Bay), and Hillsborough County. Two of these, Duval (Jacksonville) and Hillsborough (Tampa) are major urban areas. They are also home to MacDill AFB, Mayport Naval Station and Jacksonville Naval Air Station.

There are eight more counties with a GOP variance higher than the statewide average of 36.9%. Together, they have 11.6% of Florida's registered voters. Five are in north Florida. One (Sumter) is an inland rural county in north-central Florida. One (Citrus) is a small coastal county in west central Florida. The last is the only major urban area in this group - Orange County, home to Orlando.

The last 25 counties are those below the statewide average. Together, they have 66.87% of Florida's registered voters. They include all of Florida's east coast counties below Duval and most of the coastal counties of the southwest coast. Four are inland counties in central Florida. One is in the panhandle.

Looking at the map and Democratic variances, a similar pattern emerges. Of the 14 counties where the Democrat's variance was worse than -50%, all are rural and all but one are in the north of the state (and that one, Hardee, is one of those south-central rural ones). Of the next 15 counties, where the variance was worse than -25%, 11 are rural counties in the north and 4 are rural counties around Lake Okeechobee. Of the next 10 counties, which account for the rest of those where the Democratic variance was negative, all but three are in the north and the other three (Polk, Highlands and Sumter) are inland central Florida counties. Of these 39 counties, only one, Duval, is a large urban county, and, as has been previously noted, Duval is a generally conservative north Florida county home to several military installations and many military retirees.

Again as noted, a salient characteristic of many of Florida's northern and central rural counties is that they have low Republican ID among registered voters. Among those 26 small counties which account for all GOP variances greater than 100%, Columbia County has the highest percentage of Republicans, at 31.3%. In 10 of them the precentage of registered Republicans is below 20%. Conversely, the lowest Democratic Party percentage of registered voters is Columbia's 56.5%. In 21 of these 26 counties, Democrats are greater than 60% of registered voters, in 13 they are greater than 70% and in 4 greater than 80%.

As I noted in comparison to several other states, such a pattern is far from unique. Demographically, Louisiana resembles Florida without all of its larger urban counties. As may be seen with the data I provided, most Louisiana parishes are small and have much higher Democratic Party than GOP party ID. And in most Louisiana parishes, the pattern of variances was similar, if not starker (since Bush did much better in LA than he did in FL), than that of Florida's Southern (in the cultural, not geographical sense) counties. If I can find registration data by party for other Southern states, I will check them too, but I suspect a similar pattern will emerge.

Relatedly, while party ID among registered voters on the whole is lower outside the South, there are similar variances in a number of northeastern and other areas with an analogous demographic. As I pointed out, a number of New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts counties have low GOP ID among registered voters. But because many registered nonpartisan voters and registered Democrats voted for Bush, the GOP enjoyed Florida-like variances in a number of Democratic bastions like Brooklyn, NY and Boston, MA.

As for the small county skewering problem, how about this? Removing all small counties (defined for this purpose as those having less than 103,000 registered voters, or 1% of the state's total) leaves 28 counties. It also removes a lot of the drama. GOP variances, which range from +8.8% to +712.3% for all counties, range from +11.6% to +57.7% for these 28. Democratic variances, which range from +51.5% to -70.0% for the state, are +45.0% to -17.1% for these 28.

When we look at these 28 counties on the map, though, the same pattern emerges as when the smaller counties are included. The higher GOP variances are clustered in the northern and more rural central Florida counties, while the lower GOP variances are in the southern coastal counties. BTW, even large counties can be rural.

Thus, no matter how we look at the data, we see that the pattern we expect to see, based on the demographics of the state and its counties, is in fact the pattern that occurs. And all of this has absolutely nothing to do with conspiracy theories about voting machines.

Roguish Lawyer
11-22-2004, 18:25
RL.. quit being a bully. :p LOL


You have to admit that photo was funny! :boohoo :D

Airbornelawyer
11-22-2004, 20:33
As stated, these high GOP variances occur where Republican voter ID is low, but Republicans do (i) well because of the region's conservatism (a factor in many Southern states' counties) or (ii) better than "expected" simply because they are starting from a small base (a factor in a number of liberal-leaning counties such as Boston's).

Southern states are one obvious example where the yellow dog Democrat has become a Reagan Democrat and now a Bush Democrat. I have already shown how the Florida data fits that and added Louisiana to the mix. Here is one more example: West Virginia.

West Virginia is not a Southern state, but it is a state with strong Democratic Party leanings which has trended Republican in recent elections. Thus it fits the characteristics I have identified.

And what do the numbers tell us?

Statewide, the Democratic Party variance was -25.74%. For the GOP, it was +87.60%. Twenty-six of the state's 56 counties had GOP variances of greater than 100%, with the highest being Logan County's +458.33%. No county had a negative variance. For the Democrats, two counties had positive variances, with the highest being Grant County's 14.73%. All the rest were negative.

As for voter ID, here are the 12 counties in the state with the highest GOP variance, and the percentage of voters who are registered Republicans:

Logan - 8.14%
Mingo - 9.10%
McDowell - 8.20%
Webster - 12.03%
Boone - 11.15%
Wyoming - 19.16%
Gilmer - 19.84%
Clay - 19.14%
Braxton - 17.70%
Lincoln - 17.95%
Fayette - 16.83%
Summers - 19.81%

Here are the percentages of registered Democrats for these same counties:

Logan - 88.41%
Mingo - 87.35%
McDowell - 85.55%
Webster - 81.96%
Boone - 83.49%
Wyoming - 74.68%
Gilmer - 72.20%
Clay - 74.66%
Braxton - 76.20%
Lincoln - 76.27%
Fayette - 73.50%
Summers - 72.80%

And the GOP variances for these same counties:

Logan - 458.33%
Mingo - 375.23%
McDowell - 360.49%
Webster - 285.70%
Boone - 269.22%
Wyoming - 197.99%
Gilmer - 194.48%
Clay - 181.88%
Braxton - 178.74%
Lincoln - 178.32%
Fayette - 175.75%
Summers - 172.29%

One more set of unsurprising results.