I'm in Pasco County, FL, which is considered Republican. Republicans control almost every county office from the Board of Commissioners, to the Sheriff's Office, to the Supervisor of Elections. We use the ES&S touchscreen machines with no paper trail.
In 2000, using certified recount totals from CNN, Gore got 69,576 votes (50.35%) to Bush's 68,607 (49.65%). Admittedly, those percentages only use Gore's and Bush's numbers and don't include votes for third-party candidates. In any case, voter registration numbers from around that time -- October 23, 2000 to be exact -- indicated there were 90,201 Republicans (40.68%), 88,876 Democrats (40.08%) and 42,680 Other (third parties and non-affiliated voters) (19.24%). Source:
http://www.pascovotes.com/pasnote5.htmIn 2004, Kerry received 84,729 votes (44.39%) to Bush's 103,195 (54.07%); these numbers are also from CNN and the calculated percentages account for votes for third-party and write-in candidates. As of the day of the election, there were 107,005 Republicans registered (40.07%), 99,621 Democrats (37.30%) and 60,438 Others (22.63%). Source:
http://www.pascovotes.com/ The most recent census data I could find for my county was for 2003. There were an estimated 388,906 residents in 2003 vs. 344,765 in 2000. By racial makeup, in 2003, 342,106 (87.97%) were White (non-Hispanic) vs. 312,989 (90.78%) in 2000. White (Hispanic origin): 25,912 (6.66%) vs. 19,048 (5.52%). Black: 10,704 (2.75%) vs. 7,531 (2.18%). The remaining 10,184 residents in 2003 (2.62%) are classified as Asian, Pacific Islander, Hawaiian Native, Native American, Alaskan Native and multiracial vs. 5,197 (1.52%) in 2000. I calculated the percentages for this category using the overall number of residents as the divisor and the same goes for the age category below.
By age, there were 92,926 residents (23.89%) aged 65 and older in 2003 vs. 92,235 (26.75%) in 2000. 60-64: 21,140 (5.44%) vs. 18,925 (5.49%). 55-59: 22,270 (5.73%) vs. 18,985 (5.51%). 50-54: 22,884 (5.88%) vs. 20,897 (6.06%). 45-49: 24,973 (6.42%) vs. 21,111 (6.12%). 40-44: 27,489 (7.07%) vs. 23,365 (6.78%). 35-39: 25,130 (6.46%) vs. 23,753 (6.89%). 30-34: 22,546 (5.80%) vs. 19,723 (5.72%). 25-29: 18,831 (4.84%) vs. 15,791 (4.58%). 20-24: 21,120 (5.43%) vs. 13,593 (3.94%). 15-19: 22,305 (5.74%) vs. 18,298 (5.31%). Source:
http://fl.rand.org/stats/popdemo/popraceage.htmlThe most recent income data I could find was from 2002 from the Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce. That data showed 13% of households made less than $15k; 17% made between $15,000-$24,999; 36% made $25,000-$49,999; 19% made $50,000-$74,999; 8% made $75,000-$99,999; 6% made $100k+. The median household income in 2002 was $37,641. The most recent year before that I could find was 1999 and the median income then was $38,819; couldn't find a breakdown by income bracket though. Sources:
http://www.tampachamber.com/pdfs/2004tampahllsbrgh-mrktgd.pdf and
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/12/12101.html I'm not a statistician, a mathematician, nor do I work in anything that involves using a lot of numbers because I suck at math. But my question is, in light of the demographics of the county remaining relatively constant from 2000-2003, a slight decrease in percentage terms of Republican registrations from 2004 to 2000 and a less than 3% decrease in Democratic registrations for the same period, and only about 7,400 more registered Republicans than Democrats in 2004 vs. 1,325 more Republicans than Democrats in 2000, how did my county go from a slight majority for Gore in 2000 to an almost 10 point difference between Kerry and Bush this year? There were 16,804 more registered Republicans in 2004 than in 2000, and 10,745 more Democrats this year than four years ago, but Bush received 34,588 more votes this year than he did in 2000 vs. Kerry receiving 15,153 more than Gore. In other words, Bush got 2.28 more votes this year for every one vote Kerry received above Gore's total in 2000. Given the above stats, how did more than two-thirds of these new votes find their way to Bush?
If there's nothing to this, someone please tell me, but I do not trust these paperless machines. I was constantly thinking a week before the election that no matter which method I used to vote (i.e., absentee ballot vs. early voting vs. voting on Election Day) I have no assurance my vote would be counted and kept wondering if all I would be doing Tuesday was go through the motions.
On edit: Forgot gender stats. In 2003 there were 201,446 females (51.80%) vs. 180,554 (52.37%) in 2000. Males: 187,460 (48.20%) vs. 166,803 (47.63%). Source:
http://fl.rand.org/stats/popdemo/popraceage.html