Dr. Ron Baiman: Something Smells Fishy in San Diego - cross post from GDP

Suspiciously high numbers in the runoff election went to third party candidates -- in one case, even more than the candidate got in his own uncontested primary:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2671568&mesg_id=2671568


Be there, or be square.

I count my change when paying for something, even though I trust the cashier and the register have counted it correctly before I.

It's really the best way, even if some people consider the approach "knee-jerk skepticism" bordering on "unhinged" or "conspiracy theory".

:)

Francine Busby is a former republican. Now I really wonder about the quick concession?

The Libertarian candidate in this district received 3.2% in '02 and 1.2% in '04. Here the Libertarian, Paul King, gets 1.5% in a special election, one that didn't have a Green candidate on the ballot. In '04, the Green candidate received 2.2%.

There was an American Independent candidate, Green and Libertarian in '04. They totalled 5%. In '02 with only a Libertarian, he got 3.3%. In this special election there was an American Independent and a Libertarian and they received 5.3% total.

I must be missing something if this is strange or evidence of fraud. Looks like between 3.3 and 5.3% of this district rejects the major party candidates, depending on how many other choices they have. That is a more basic point of reference, IMO, than looking at uncontested primaries and guessing what the attendance figures should be.

I pointed to the pre-election SurveyUSA polls that showed 9% of respondents favoring "other." (Admittedly small N, but that's no grounds for assuming that the actual figure should have been much smaller.)