A day after the City of Milwaukee reported a primary election turnout above 80,000 - more than a quarter of the city's registered voters - a Journal Sentinel analysis found that the number might be inflated by tens of thousands. [. . .]We need answers, and accurate ones. Did the city over-report turnout, or under-report votes?
By the city's calculation, only about half the ballots cast in Tuesday's primary actually included votes in the hottest races - those for sheriff and attorney general. For example, the city reported 78,801 ballots cast in the attorney general race in primaries for the two major parties, but vote totals for the Democratic and Republican candidates combined amounted to only 40,971. By that count, 37,830 ballots did not include a vote in the race - a number that political observers regard as obviously flawed.
In the same manner, the city reported 65,581 ballots cast in the Democratic primary, but only 35,182 votes recorded for the party's sheriff candidates. [. . .]
"We need to understand what is going on here," [State Elections Board Chair Kevin] Kennedy said. "The city needs to do this (review) in a systematic way."
But Kennedy said voters should not conclude that thousands of votes are missing or unaccounted for in Milwaukee. His initial review suggested a computer error involved only total votes, not individual candidate votes.
I did note in a comment to my results post this morning that the turnout, particularly in the Milwaukee County Sheriff's race, seemed way off from 2002. David Clarke had only about half the votes this year that he did in 2002, and Bobot also could barely get half of what Clarke's 2002 challengers did, combined. I brought this up to dispell the myth of Republican crossover voters pushing Clarke over--more likely, it was low Dem turnout, I said.
But if the city of Milwaukee is under-reporting votes right now, the Sheriff race may not be over. It may be time for a full recount by hand, no?
No comments:
Post a Comment