Hibernation

This election season was different from the last two, in that the majority of the results were consistent with the results I was working for here at Blue Bexley - Nancy Garland won in the 20th Ohio House District, helping to give Democrats a majority in that body. Issue 5 passed, and the most predatory of lending schemes in Ohio is no longer being perpetrated. Barack Obama, of course, is our next president (and my faith in the legions of volunteers and donors he inspired was borne out). David Robinson did not manage to unseat Pat Tiberi, which is disappointing. Of course, if Pat were to actually be defeated, what would I blog about?

Ay, there's the rub.

The primary objective of Blue Bexley has always been to provide analysis, opinion, and original reporting that focuses on the aspects of reality that would influence the election of Democrats to the offices on the Bexley ballot (local, state, and federal). I've argued for a pro-partisan view of politics, because parties set the legislative agenda, and 'liberal Republicans' and 'conservative Democrats' only get to vote on legislation approved by the caucus more generally. For example, putting a gay-friendly Republican in the Ohio House instead of a quietly homophobic Democrat might seem like the right thing to do if you're a single issue gay-rights voter, but in actuality, a non-discrimination bill makes it to the floor if the Dems have a majority, and doesn't if they don't. Once Dems have a majority, you can lobby and confront individual office-holders. Until then, it doesn't make a difference.

I keep saying "until then." I should say "until now." Democrats have a strong working majority in both the U.S. House and Senate, they're now set to be running the executive branch in D.C. and Columbus, and have gained a majority in the Ohio House. The Ohio Senate is still GOP turf, but their agenda-setting capabilities have been overwhelmed by the Democratic control everywhere else.

So, um, that's that.

The two secondary objectives of BB have been to provide expanded coverage of the interplay between policy, politics, and the Bexley community, and to fulfill the promise inherent in the old joke that Everyone is Entitled to My Opinion.

Coming out of this election, I'm looking at a blog that is less focused on getting Ted Strickland re-elected and more focused on pushing Ted hard on his so-far-underwhelming response to funding and quality disparities in Ohio schools, his knee-capping of the Sick-Law initiative, his power grabs on behalf of the executive branch, etc. A blog that focuses on the details of competing proposals for a new Bexley Public Schools levy. A blog that wonders if the fact that Rusty Klesla is the only original Blue Jacket on the team makes him more or less likely to be the defenseman who gets dealt. A blog that can't help itself and starts trying to raise funds for Jennifer Brunner's 2010 race.

And though it might not be easy to explain or to understand, I'm not sure I'm up for writing that blog. So for now, I'm taking a few months off. If I come back, it may be to continue Blue Bexley. It may be to pivot Blue Bexley. It may be to shut down Blue Bexley and try something new.

By all means, if you can't live without my opinion on something, shoot me an email. I'm not expecting my inbox to overflow, though. Thank you to all who have emailed me, as well as to all of you who have read Blue Bexley regularly, and those who have stumbled upon the site by chance and came back once or twice. I've had a very small but still noticeable influence on electoral politics in Central Ohio this year, and that was always my first metric for the blog's success. Without y'all, that never could have happened.

I hope you and your families enjoy the upcoming holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, from Veteran's Day tomorrow, to Inauguration Day Jan 20.

-Jason aka bonobo

Franklin Co., where vote totals are more like guidelines or suggestions...

In 2004, I got the blogging bug. I posted a diary on DailyKos that showed one Gahanna precinct with more than 4000 votes for W, several times the number of registered voters. This got picked up and started a buzz that ultimately helped fuel the stolen elections meme (I'm sorry about that, but it most certainly would have happened without me).

(I pored over numbers from several BOE's, and I'm pretty sure that Bush's margin was in 2004 was far less than the 118,000 that went on the books officially. I'm also pretty certain that Bush's margin was closer to 118,000 than to 0, and that Bush carried Ohio more substantially than Kerry carried Wisconsin, for example.)

I bring up ancient history, because Franklin County is home to one of the closest congressional races in the country (Kilroy/Stivers), and has a state house race (Marian Harris's race in the 19th), where the margin is currently listed as 40 votes out of more than 65000 cast. It is imperative that the count be accurate, yet what do we get?

1) Franklin County is alone in reporting "overlap" numbers, meaning that for congressional races in which the majority of voters reside in Franklin County, Franklin County puts the votes from all counties in the district into its "county totals." This practice fooled everyone from CNN to ONN into reporting totals that double-counted Union and Madison in the 15th and double-counted Delaware and Licking in the 12th. This confusion was so pervasive that the SOS results website, which was the only major vote count site to have the totals accurately reflect the unofficial results, was 'corrected' yesterday to show the inaccurate results consistent with everyone else. Way to go, Franklin BOE.

2) After having an embarrassing glitch in which the unofficial count included precincts with more votes than voters in 2004, that would never happen again, right? Wrong. Three precincts in the unofficial canvass had more votes than voters this year. This casts doubt on every single one of the precinct-level totals reported. I am not exaggerating or engaging in hyperbole. Let me explain:

The official explanation is that votes "were counted twice." As an example, Worthington 3-D originally had 633 votes counted for 534 registered voters. As you can tell by the odd number of votes cast, we're not looking at a simple doubling of all the precinct's votes. We're looking most likely at a doubling of the machine-votes from election day. The corrected total listed for that precinct this morning is 411 votes, meaning that 222 votes were double-counted.

Now imagine a precinct with 1000 registered voters, 600 of whom voted, 400 of whom voted early/absentee/paper ballot. Now imagine that the election day machine votes were double-counted. The report would show 800 votes (400 + 2*200), for a turnout of 80%. When turnout is listed at 119%, you look for a problem and fix it. When turnout is listed at 80%, you applaud civic engagement.

If these get missed, it will have the effect of slightly amplifying e-day machine voting, and diluting early/absentee/paper voting. If a race has a 40,000 vote margin, this won't matter much. With a 400 vote margin, or a 40 vote margin, it could make the difference.

Out of curiosity, you might ask, are there any precincts that show unexpectedly high turnout that could reflect such a situation? I'll throw out a candidate:

UA Ward 1		2006 turnout	2008 turnout
UPPER ARLINGTON 1-A		52.7%	91.1%
UPPER ARLINGTON 1-B		57.8%	74.1%
UPPER ARLINGTON 1-C		42.4%	75.2%
UPPER ARLINGTON 1-D		50.4%	75.6%
UPPER ARLINGTON 1-E		61.2%	84.2%
UPPER ARLINGTON 1-F		54.6%	83.4%

UA Precinct 1-A had average-to-below-average turnout compared to other UA ward 1 precincts in 2006, yet had far-and-away the highest turnout in 2008. In fact, after having good (but not remarkable) turnout in 2006, they had the highest turnout of any of the 854 precincts in Franklin County in 2008. Perhaps they had a couple of really good precinct captains, but perhaps the BOE might want to double-check...

And in case you're wondering, Obama is listed as winning UA1-A 449-390, but Stivers is listed as leading Kilroy 471-321.


Of course, all of this probably pales in comparison to what's going on in the provisional balloting, which is apparently concentrated in certain precincts (inferred by the opposite pattern, where turnout is unexpectedly low given past turnout and turnout in nearby precincts, e.g. Cols 12-B, Cols 42-B, Cols 51-D,Cols 84-G, Dublin 1-F, Prairie-J, Marble Cliff, etc.).

Some of this is due to random variation and the perfectly mundane influence of unknown events, but...

I guess we'll know more next week.

The more things change

The 2008 numbers are nowhere near final, so the tables below will change a bit when all is said and done, but they probably won't change enough to alter whatever interpretation you project upon them. In 2000, there was a hard fought presidential election in which Ohio was a swing state. In the 12th District, the Republican-held seat was open following the retirement of John Kasich. State Rep. Pat Tiberi, the Republican, faced off against Franklin Co. Commissioner Maryellen O'Shaughnessy, the Democrat. Bush won Ohio, and Tiberi took the 12th, losing in Franklin, but running up the score in Delaware and Licking Counties.

In 2008, 4 term incumbent Pat Tiberi outspent his opponent David Robinson 10-1, leading to all major pundits rating the seat "Safe Republican" until the days immediately preceding the election. Robinson was completely unknown before the campaign started, and even began the primary battling a party-endorsed candidate. It was once again a Presidential year, with Obama taking Ohio this time.

How did these very different situations play out?

2008	F	D	L	Tot
Rob.	101140	24221	15620	140981
Tib.	95419	59623	34201	189243
3rd	5873	2589	1504	9966
2008	F	D	L	Tot
Rob.	49.96%	28.02%	30.43%	41.44%
Tib.	47.14%	68.98%	66.64%	55.63%
3rd	2.90%	3.00%	2.93%	2.93%
2000	F	D	L	Tot
O'S.	87255	15594	12223	115072
Tib.	79289	36539	23414	139242
3rd	5793	1658	1259	8710
2000	F	D	L	Tot
O'S.	50.63%	28.99%	33.13%	43.75%
Tib.	46.01%	67.93%	63.46%	52.94%
3rd	3.36%	3.08%	3.41%	3.31%

Either Franklin Turnout Blew, or

There are a buttload of outstanding paper/provisional/absentee ballots.

Total Franklin County votes cast 11/04: 533,575
Total Franklin County Votes cast 11/08: 490,035 (as of current unofficial FCBOE results)


UPDATE: According to one well-placed source:
"Franklin County BOE is still processing 100K paper ballots. In addition, we are still awaiting their report on provisional ballots."

If that's accurate, then 15-20% of the Franklin vote has yet to be tallied.

What in the hell is going on with the numbers in OH-12???

Every media outlet has a different set of numbers, and most of them don't even make sense. The Franklin County BOE is showing what would appear to be more than 500,000 votes cast in the race (paper + machine), which is obviously ridiculous. The numbers on the pdf labelled 'Franklin County pre-election absentee and election day paper' are the same numbers that the SOS is reporting for all votes from all methods across all three counties (and that Franklin reports elsewhere as the unofficial final result). Assuming that those are the best numbers, the end result was 56-41, but I'm gonna wait for some clarification and precinct level numbers (the Franklin county 'results by precinct' document isn't). Why can't Franklin report the numbers from just Franklin? If they were hoping to avoid confusion, reports of 60% Tiberi totals in the media are a pretty good sign they've failed in that objective.

I will say, there aren't 15 points for Robinson hiding anywhere in this mess. Congratulations to Mr. Tiberi on another victory.

Nancy Garland appears to have won her race by 700 votes, which is a landslide compared to the 12 vote margin Marian Harris is reported as having in the 19th. Congratulations to the Garland campaign, who worked their butts off these last several months. My fingers are crossed for Marian.

I unfortunately have neither the time nor the energy to pursue my curiosity on these matters, but I'll update if and when that changes.