Saturday, May 28, 2005
3 Million Plus Votes Missing?
At Daily Kos, David G. Mills has a diary entitled "Census Statistics Indicate Vote Count Was Significantly Off" which links to a press release from the US Census Bureau.
From the press release:
"Sixty-four percent of U.S. citizens age 18 and over voted in the 2004 presidential election, up from 60 percent in 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today. Tables from a November survey also show that of 197 million citizens, 72 percent (142 million) reported they were registered to vote. Among those registered, 89 percent (126 million) said they voted. In the 2000 election, 70 percent of citizens were registered; and among them, 86 percent voted."
"The data are from the November 2004 Voting and Registration Supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS). Statistics from surveys are subject to sampling and nonsampling error. The CPS estimate of overall turnout (125.7 million) differs from the “official” turnout, as reported by the Clerk of the House (122.3 million)."
As David G. Mills asks, "Where did 3.4 million votes go?"
And just so you know...I didn't add the quotation marks to the word "official" in the excerpt from the press release. The US Census Bureau did.
A few Daily Kossers have noted that this disparity has happened before...and that if 2004 is significant then Clinton's two victories should also be questioned. But it's always been my opinion that this isn't a new thing. I'm not looking at this through partisan eyes. Since the Democrats have done little-to-nothing as a whole about election reform since 2000, it's safe to assume that the Republicans aren't the only ones cheating.
This graph - from the same Daily Kos thread - was made by acerimusdux:
| year | Census Survey | Official Tally | Overestimate | Percent |
| 2004 | 125,749,602 | 122,300,000 | 3,449,602 | 2.82% |
| 2000 | 110,827,123 | 105,594,024 | 5,233,099 | 4.96% |
| 1996 | 104,958,842 | 096,389,818 | 8,569,024 | 8.89% |
| 1992 | 113,824,292 | 104,600,366 | 9,223,926 | 8.82% |
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