Looking through Politico.com at the vote totals for townships across New Hampshire, Londonderry stands out. Why? Because "Other" received 11% of the vote. And "Other" crossed partylines since he/she received almost 11% GOP vote as well.
Look at the results:
Democrats
Clinton - 1,958 votes (36.5%)
Edwards - 780 votes (14%)
Gravel - 6 votes (.1%)
Kucinich - 40 votes (.75%)
Obama - 1,803 votes (33.5%)
Richardson - 155 votes (3%)
Other - 627 votes (11.7%)
And the same thing happened on the GOP side:
Republicans
Giuliani - 418 votes (7%)
Huckabee - 544 votes (10%)
Hunter - 19 votes (.3%)
McCain - 1,757 votes (31%)
Paul - 288 votes (5%)
Romney - 1,989 (35%)
Thompson - 52 (1%)
Other - 618 (11%)
If you then look at New Hampshire's own state election results you will see the full statistics and "other" names on the ballot but none of these were popular choices.
I'm not making any accusations here folks, I'd just like to really know who this "other" is and how in world did they get 627 votes on the Dem side and 618 for GOP? What names appear on those ballots? Thats a significant amount of votes.
The vast majority of townships average between 1-3% for 'other', and the ones that are higher usually have low total vote counts.
Any insights?
Update: Thanks for your feedback - it would appear that these anomalies are reporting errors on politico.com, which quotes AP as their source. However the true way to verify these totals is not to assume a reporting error but to request from a total number of ballots cast in Londonderry district to verify that these 1200 or so votes were just an AP apparition.