There was a thread some time back about Orange County and inconsistencies in their posted spreadsheets which showed a last minute jump for Bush of 8400 votes. I have no idea whether anyone ever provided an explanation for it. Below is some of the material from the earlier research on this. It goes chronologically. I later found that the jump towards Bush came from absentee ballots. I still have not seen an explanation for this though. Maye someone can tell me whether this was ever explained or whether these is still an issue.
PAST THREAD MATERIAL
FIRST POST – THE 8400 VOTE BUSH JUMP
Orange County Florida Results Appear Incorrect
The Florida Division of Elections official tally has John Kerry winning in that county by a vote of 193,217 for Kerry 192,390 for Bush. This gives Kerry a very tight 827 vote margin in that county. These figures are also found on the CNN voting results web site. (Links below)
These results are inconsistent with the Orange County elections web site. That site contains a precinct by precinct breakdown of the vote in Orange County. The totals are not included on that page, but it is very easy to import the figures into an Excel spreadsheet. When I did this, the totals for Orange County add up to 183,990 for Bush and 193,217 for Kerry. This gives Kerry a 9,227 vote margin of victory in Orange County.
There is certainly an inconsistency in these results which needs some explanation. Somehow, between the County and the State Elections Division, the numbers changed drastically in Bush’s' favor by exactly 8,400 votes. (It seems a little bit odd that the number is exactly 8,400)
To summarize the results:
County Web Site: 193,217 for Kerry 183,990 for Bush (9,227 vote margin)
State Election Total: 193,217 for Kerry 192,390 for Bush (827 vote margin)
Links:
Orange County Unofficial Results:
http://www.ocfelections.com/Public%20Records/2004_Media_Kit/Page.htmState of Florida Results:
(State Site)
http://enight.dos.state.fl.us/(Good Summary When 98% in)
http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htmSECOND POST – IDENTIFIED JUMP CAME FROM ABSENTEE BALLOTS
8400 Vote Orange County Bush Jump – Absentee Ballots
A final spreadsheet of the precinct by precinct breakdown has been posted for Orange County which pinpoints where the 8400 vote jump for Bush likely came from. It appears that it came from absentee ballots. This still begs for explanation why there was a huge last minute jump in absentee votes for Bush (and for some other Republican candidates)
The new spreadsheet is at:
http://www.ocfelections.com/Public%20Records/2004_Media_Kit/2004%20General%20Official%20Results.htmThere was a huge jump in absentee votes going to Bush between the first posted spreadsheet and the final posted spreadsheet. (Kerry only got 1.5% of them) There could be a reasonable explanation for this, but here are the numbers:
FIRST SPREADSHEET NUMBERS FOR ABSENTEE PRESCINCT
28,568 (BUSH) 28,975 (KERRY)
FINAL SPREADSHEET NUMBERS FOR ABSENTEE PRESCINCT
37,568 (BUSH) 29,091 (KERRY)
ABSENTEE VOTES ADDED FOR EACH CANDIDATE BETWEEN THE FIRST AND FINAL SPREADSHEETS
8,549 (BUSH) 137 (KERRY)
So between the time that the first spreadsheet was posted and the final spreadsheet was posted, Bush tallied 8,549 Absentee Votes and Kerry only tallied 137 Absentee votes. Perhaps there is a difference in the order that they counted absentee ballots; i.e. more that favored Kerry were counted early on and of the remaining 8686 absentee ballots to be counted and added to the tally, Kerry only got 1.5% of them.
This is just playing with numbers, but if you subtract the 8400 votes (described below and in past thread) from the Bush total additional Absentee votes that were added between the first and last spreadsheet results, you get the following additional absentee votes for each candidate:
149 (Bush) 137 (Kerry)
Somehow that balance seems more reasonable to me. But like I said, there is probably some reasonable explanation for this.
BACKGROUND - SOURCE OF THE ORIGINAL 8400 VOTE APPARENT DISCRPENCY
Here is the history from an Internet onlooker’s perspective. There may be a logical explanation of what is actually going on in Orange County, so I don’t want to put the tin-foil hat on until we get some reasonable explanation which might certainly exist.
The first thing that I saw online was a spreadsheet showing the precinct by precinct results from Orange County. There was no addition of the total votes for each candidate. When I downloaded the spreadsheet and summed the columns for Bush and for Kerry, I got the following totals for each:
183,990 (Bush) 193,217 (Kerry) (9227 Vote Difference)
That spreadsheet is still online if anyone wants to go and download it. Someone in the last thread confirmed the numbers. The file is an onscreen spreadsheet and it takes forever to load even on broadband. But here is the link to the spreadsheet:
http://www.ocfelections.com/Public%20Records/2004_Media_Kit/Page.htmThe next thing that I found was the first state rollup of the votes from Orange County that appeared on the Florida Board of Elections Web Site. Those totals showed the following:
192,390 (Bush) 193,217 (Kerry) (827 Vote Difference)
It appeared odd to me that the Kerry total remained the same as the total that I got from the spreadsheet (193,217). The difference between the spreadsheet total found on the Orange County web site is exactly 8400 votes added ONLY TO THE BUSH TOTALS.
How can it be that 8400 votes got added only to Bush on the rollup?
Someone in the last thread on this mentioned that it could be absentee ballots or provisional ballots. But that begs the question of why the addition of votes was added only to the Bush column. Even if Kerry would have lost each badly, I would think that he would at least have gotten some votes from these sources. Additionally, the spreadsheet contains at the bottom a separate precinct (902) for absentee ballots and shows 29,731 for Bush and 28,643 for Kerry.
So to me at least, absentee and provisional ballots do not account for the difference.
Subsequent to the spreadsheet numbers and the FBOE numbers that appeared from the first rollup, Orange County posted the totals in PDF form that indicated the following numbers:
191389 (Bush) 192030 (Kerry) (641 Vote Difference)
Now the numbers have been updated on the state site and currently are as follows:
192,539 (Bush) 193,354 (Kerry) (815 Vote Difference)
I would expect the minor deviations that appear between the initial state results, the initial county (pdf) results and the final numbers. That doesn’t concern me. But where did the 8400 vote jump all in Bush’s favor come from between the initial spreadsheet and the initial results posted on the FBOE site?
(With the latest updated spreadsheet that has been posted, there is now an answer to this question. The huge Bush jump is attributable to absentee ballots. But it is still not explained why the jump occured)
THESE JUMPS ALSO HAPPENED IN FAVOR OF OTHER REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES EXCEPT FOR THE COUTY PUBLIC DEFENDER
TOTAL ABSENTEE BALLOTS CAST
Comparison Between 1st and final spreadsheet data
Presidential Race – Orange County
1st Spreadsheet Total Absentee Ballots
57,543
2nd Spreadsheet Total Absentee Ballots
66,190
# of New Absentee Ballots
8,686
Bush – 8,549
Kerry – 137
US Senate Race – Orange County
1st Spreadsheet Total Absentee Ballots
58,374
2nd Spreadsheet Total Absentee Ballots
64,570
# New Absentees – 6,196
Of The New Absentees -
Castor – 55
Martinez – 6141
County Public Defender – Orange County
1st Spreadsheet Total Absentee Ballots
59,796
2nd Spreadsheet Total Absentee Ballots
59,801
# New Absentees – 5
Of The New Absentees -
Gillespie (Rep) – 0
Wesley (Dem) - 5
Clerk of Courts – Orange County
1st Spreadsheet Total Absentee Ballots
54,158
2nd Spreadsheet Total Absentee Ballots
61,080
# New Absentees – 6,922
Of The New Absentees -
Gardner Lydia REP – 6,917
Johnson Mary I. DEM- 5
Sheriff – Orange County
1st Spreadsheet Total Absentee Ballots
55,840
2nd Spreadsheet Total Absentee Ballots
62,850
# New Absentees – 7,010
Of The New Absentees -
Beary Kevin REP– 7,005
Staly Rick DEM - 5