Mitt Romney's candidacy has a magical ability to increase its percentage of the votes cast in every voting precinct in the nation. The amount that his percentage of the vote goes up is directly dependent on the TOTAL NUMBER OF VOTES CAST IN THAT PRECINCT.
This precinct-size dependent slope anomaly becomes especially compelling and conclusive because it is observed across many states and counties and favors the same candidate, regardless of its rank in the official vote count in that state.
I didn't believe it so I went to the Ohio Secretary of State's website and
downloaded the raw precinct-by-precinct datafile. Yes, it is true, Mitt Romney did proportionally better in each of Ohio's precincts according to the size of the precinct's numbers of votes cast!
From the Comments below:
So I am supposed to believe that, for all states observed, the single most determining factor whether a precinct votes overwhelmingly more republican than the statewide totals is. . .
the total number of votes cast within a precinct?
here is the video with the paper that broke the story.
First, I read this report that shows that Mitt Romney's vote lead in key states increased at a rate that was proportional to the size of the vote precincts. In ALL cases, he won a proportionally LARGER percentage of the vote if the precinct reported a larger vote total.
Nose Counting
The idea of examining large precinct results came via a link to a report written by Francois Choquette and James Johnson. Choquette became curious about South Carolina primary results in the February Republican contest. There a poll observer noted an unusually big gain of votes for Mitt Romney in larger precincts than in smaller ones. Choquette wanted to know why?
He examined and applied all of the normal statistical markers to see where a variance might occur: income level, population density, race, urban vs. rural, even party registration numbers. He found no correlation to explain why Romney votes trended upward while Paul and Santorum votes trended downward -yet only in large precincts.
So, I decided to read
the referenced report. The report is dated August 13, 2012.
It listed showed vote totals, as a percent of the total vote, listed according to precinct size (like I did, independently from the Ohio data below). In the report they analyzed the states of. . .
Iowa
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New Hampshire
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Oklahoma, Alabama, Louisiana, Arizona (all showing increases in Romney's percentage proportional to the size of the precinct).
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and
Wisconsin
Well, this just didn't make sense to me! I mean, there is nothing in the laws of physics or politics that says a specific candidate should, AT A CONSTANT RATE, gather higher and higher percentages of the vote according to the number of votes cast within a precinct.
And then it became obvious, on a national level, the votes are being switched.
It is easier to hide the vote switching when more votes are cast within a precinct.
well, I wanted to be sure it wasn't faked,
here is their Ohio Reported Values
Here is mine, taken from the Ohio Secretary of State's Official Website
so, if the total votes cast in a precinct was 35, Mitt Romney's average percent of the vote total was 32.14 percent.
As the size of the average precinct increased to 225 votes, Mitt Romney's average percent of the total vote increased to 35.43% of the total vote.
Once the Largest precincts were added to the final state total, Mitt Romney's average went up to 37.964% of the total state vote (just narrowly beating out Rick Santorum).
Here is what happens if you sort the precincts by the largest to the smallest precincts.
In the 500 largest Ohio precincts, Romney won 42.3% of the total republican vote
Once the final totals are made Romney won 37.964% of the total republican vote
In 2008 in the 500 Largest Precincts in Ohio, John McCain had 53.66% of the total votes cast and Obama had only 45%.
9:43 AM PT: Updated with 2008 Ohio President Vote Totals
by request, here is the scatterplot of Ohio 2008 McCain
By request, this is McCain's 2008 average vote take from precincts by quintile (the fifth largest precinct down to the fifth smallest precincts with average take from each of the groups)
2010 democratic incumbent Y axis is percent of precinct vote, x axis is size of votes in precinct
Here is the Republican Challenger who won
2010 strickland vs. Kasich