Soon after the 2004 presidential election fiasco, I began to delve into the emerging data. Like
Steve Freeman and many others, I was deeply suspicious of the results - especially given the early evening exit polling. I was not one to so easily dismiss exit polls carefully developed by professional statisticians and political scientists who labored under the onus of the supposed failure of Florida exit polls in 2000. As with most others with a statistics background, I found the near-uniform shift in results all in favor of Bush to be more than highly unlikely.
I was also stunned that Bush comfortably won the popular vote, given his administration's record. Although the MSM dismissed the exit polls, they reported that massive evangelical turnout was responsible for Bush's margin of victory - based upon unquestioned polls. I wanted to find the needle in the haystack. My gut told me that the numbers were manipulated.
Black Box Voting had warned as much. I also felt that investigating Ohio or Florida would be too direct an assault. Instead, I chose to look at the padding of the popular vote. Where did this occur? In areas that were so pro-Bush that it was unlikely to be questioned. The Great Plains. The Deep South. Selma provided the key. It calls into question the entire "Evangelical Turnout" explanation, thus Bush's popular vote victory, and most certainly, Ohio.
As a historian, a political junkie, a numbers cruncher, and a person with DEEP Southern roots, I chose to look at the South first. The advantages are that in the rural South presidential elections are highly racial in nature. The correlation between race and voting behavior is nearly one. Whites vote for the Republican and African Americans vote for the Democrat. I knew that there were a few dozen Black-majority counties in the South that voted Democratic in presidential elections despite the Southern Republican steamroller elsewhere. Selma just might have the answers.
The Black Belt
The Black Belt is a region that stretches from the eastern Carolinas through south Georgia and south Alabama to the Delta country of Mississippi and across the river to eastern Louisiana and southeastern Arkansas. It is a giant, low-lying crescent with a fertile, black soil which gave the region its name. This soil and a warm climate also proved ideal for cotton cultivation. In the Antebellum South cotton and slavery were synonymous; thus, the Black Belt also became a region with a majority African American population. Selma was the buckle. Up until 1960, nearly every county in the Black Belt had a Black majority. By 2000, after four decades of outmigration, only a few dozen Black-majority counties remained. Selma's Dallas County was one of them.
Map Source: http://www.knightfdn.org/...
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 had profound impacts on the lives of African Americans throughout the South, but especially, in the Black Belt. Of course, White resistance to these acts was often most extreme in Black-majority counties. Two trends emerged across the region. First, African Americans registered almost exclusively as Democrats while Whites, previously solidly Democratic, rapidly switched party allegiance to the Republicans, especially in presidential and statewide races. Second, although it took decades, African Americans finally won city and county elections in those few Black-majority counties that remained. J.L. Chestnut, Jr.'s Black in Selma is an excellent history of this transition. The upshot is that by 2000, especially in presidential races, there was an extremely high correlation between race and voting behavior in Black Belt counties.
Map Derivation: CNN Data
http://www.mob-rule.com/...
My Hypothesis:
In comparing 2000 and 2004 results, if White evangelicals turned out in droves for Bush in 2004 in nearby White-majority counties, then there should have been a smaller, but still evident, bounce for Bush in Black-majority counties as well. A quick look at the phone book under "Churches" or a walk down Main Street will show that in counties with Black majorities, there are still quite a large number of White evangelicals. One would expect that White evangelicals in Black-majority counties would have voted similarly as those in neighboring White-majority counties.
I went to the data for Selma. No bounce at all. In fact, Bush did a little worse in 2004 than in 2000. I though that this might be a single exception. So I decided to look at Greenville, Mississippi - in another Black-majority county. No bounce again. Albany, Georgia - Pine Bluff, Arkansas - Orangeburg, South Carolina. Across the board - in areas where African Americans were the majority of voters, where they held most city and county elective offices, where Democrats controlled city and county governments - there was no increase in the Bush vote. Where did the 30% to 40% of White voters go?
There are three trends operative here. Four of the five cities have 60% Black majorities. Two of these, Selma and Greenville, show no increase in voter turnout and an INCREASE in Kerry's vote compared to Gore's. And Kerry is a Yankee. The two other cities, Albany and Orangeburg, do show a significant increase in voter turnout but, again, an INCREASE in Kerry's share of the vote. Given that 60/40 Black majorities have historically translated to nearly 50/50 because of lower African American voter turnout, one would expect at least the same percentage for Bush in 2004. Even in Pine Bluffs, where the racial balance is roughly even, Bush only showed a small increase.
Similar patterns prevail in smaller Black-majority counties throughout the region. These counties, as well, show no evidence of White evangelical voters supporting Bush. Only in those counties with White majorities and Republican controlled offices, such as Tallapoosa County, Alabama, does this magical Bush effect become apparent.
This suggests to me one of three possibilities:
1. White evangelical voters in Black-majority counties behaved significantly different that White evangelical voters in adjacent counties. This implied that a significant portion of White evangelical voters in Black-majority counties share political, cultural, and social attitudes with Black voters. Local elections in these counties indicate this is patently false.
2. Democratic officials in Black-majority counties altered the vote count - reducing the Bush vote to or below 2000 levels.
3. Those responsible for altering votes counts nationwide chose not to operate in Black-majority counties with African-American/Democratic city and county officials.
I welcome Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s challenge of the Ohio results. But it is a lot more than just Ohio. The patterns revealed in Selma and the Black Belt in the Deep South suggest that the Bush campaign manipulated vote totals nearly everywhere in the United States.