So more updates on FL-13, central location of the most egregious case of 2006 election screwups (fraud? theft? You decide), and former district of Katherine Harris (I am shocked-shocked!-to find election fraud in this establishment).
As I'm sure you all know, 18,000 ballots in Democratic Sarasota County were cast which registered no vote for the FL-13 race. These ballots were filled out for other races, but not the House race, the hottest one on the ballot.
There have been numerous anecdotal examples of people complaining about machine malfunctions.
Now the Orlando Sentinel has published an article indicating that on those, specific 18,000 ballots, the Democratic ticket did exceptionally well, far better than it ran statewide.
More below the fold.
To recap: there are about 18,000 ballots in Sarasota County, Florida which registered no vote for the FL-13 Congressional race. Nobody knows why, though we all have suspicions. This "undervote" is about 15% of the total vote, which is unheard of; in the rest of the district, the undervote was about one-sixth of that.
Since the 18,000 votes did register choices for other offices on the ballot, it's easy enough to spot trends in terms of which party those 18,000 ballots tended to support.
Guess what we found, kids?
In other races on the ballot in Sarasota county, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis, who lost the election 52-45, won by an equivalent seven-point margin, 49-42.
Democratic AG candidate Skip Campbell, who also lost the election, defeated Bill McCollum on "The 18,000", by a margin of 10 points, 46-36.
CFO candidate Alex Sink, who actually won her election, crushed her opponent on the 18,000, 53-34.
Even the weakest of the statewide Dems, Ag Commissioner candidate Eric Copeland, won on the 18,000, and he lost badly in the election. Copeland won by a margin of 551 votes, which as you know, is more than 369 votes, which was the margin by which Buchanan "won".
I cannot say whether this election was stolen by the Republicans, bad software, or something else.
But I can say that if these 18,000 ballots which did not register a vote for Florida-13 had registered votes (provided they are not, as Vern Buchanan claims, the result of 18,000 people not giving a shit), that Christine Jennings undoubtedly would have won the election.