Re: turnout - active vs registered voters vs population....

[Neal McBurnett <neal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Nov 08, 2004 at 04:27:37PM -0700, Peter or Alison Richards wrote:
>    Is this the chart you are referring to, in your explanation below.

Yup.

>    Another question - why does one chart say '230 of 230' precincts, and the
>    lower chart says '227 of 227' precincts ?
>    How many precincts are there in Boulder County ??

I think there were some "federal" precincts for folks from out of
state or something, ineligible to vote in local elections.

I wish the clerk's office would include the turnout as part of each
race rather than separate them so far from each others.
Explanations of these common questions should also be included.

-Neal

>    Bye,  Peter Richards
>     
>     
> 
>                             Boulder County, Colorado
>                          2004 NOVEMBER GENERAL ELECTION
>                                 November 2, 2004
> 
>              Unofficial Results for Election - 11/5/2004 7:18:07 PM
> 
>      ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>    Registration and Turnout        
>    Completed Precincts: 230 of 230 
> 
>                            Reg/Turnout Percentage 
>    Total Registered Voters      176224 
>    Precinct Ballots Cast         84912      48.2% 
>    Early Ballots Cast            41687      23.7% 
>    Absentee Ballots Cast         27441      15.6% 
>    Total Ballots Cast           154040      87.4% 
> 
>    Registration and Turnout        
>    Boulder County-All Precincts    
>    Completed Precincts: 227 of 227 
> 
>                            Reg/Turnout Percentage 
>    Total Registered Voters       13245 
>    Precinct Ballots Cast          6745      50.9% 
>    Early Ballots Cast             2707      20.4% 
>    Absentee Ballots Cast          2261      17.1% 
>    Total Ballots Cast            11713      88.4% 
> 
>     
>     
>    On Mon, 8 Nov 2004 16:10:56 -0700 Neal McBurnett <neal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>    writes:
>    > > >BTW - looks like we had an 87% plus turn out of the 176,140
>    > registered
>    > > >voters. Pretty cool, if it is real.
>    >
>    > Argh.  These numbers are all hopelessly misleading.  You need to
>    > know
>    > that registered voters that haven't voted recently become
>    > "inactive",
>    > but remain eligible to vote for several more years.  (I can't find
>    > the official rules on that right now - can someone help?)
>    >
>    > The number that appears on the Boulder County results page
>    >  http://www.co.boulder.co.us/clerk/elect/2004%20General/Frame.htm
>    >
>    > that says "Total Registered Voters" is nothing of the kind.
>    > It is really "active registered voters".  The county says they
>    > report this because it is required by law.
>    >
>    >  1-10-105. Official abstract of votes cast - certification by
>    >  secretary of state
>    >
>    >  ...  The abstract shall contain the following information: ...
>    >
>    >  (c) The reconciled total number of active, registered voters in
>    > each
>    >  county on election day, as determined by the county clerk and
>    >  recorders no later than forty-five days after the election;
>    >
>    >  (d) Based on the total number of active, registered voters, the
>    >  percent of voter turnout in each county; and
>    >
>    >  (e) Any other information that the secretary of state determines
>    >  would be interesting or useful to the electorate or other elected
>    >  officials.
>    >
>    > That is why a turnout larger than 100% can happen, if lots of
>    > inactive voters actually turn out.
>    >
>    > They clarify that there are so many inactive registered voters
>    > (typically folks that have moved - including tons of students in
>    > Boulder) that using that number would be misleading.
>    >
>    > But they don't explain why they mislabel it as "registered voters".
>    > Nor why they don't include information on the turnout of registered
>    > voters.  Nor what I think would be most informative - the turnout
>    > of
>    > the eligible voting age population.
>    >
>    > If you process the data at
>    >
>    >  http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html
>    >
>    > you'll find that from 1964 to 2000, the turnout of registered
>    > voters
>    > in the US dropped from 96% to 68%.  But since the proportion of the
>    > voting-age population that is registered has risen from 65% to 76%,
>    > the turnout of voting-age population has only dropped from 62% to
>    > 51%.
>    >
>    > The turnout was higher this year, so in the US, more than half of
>    > eligible voters voted.  I still want to know what fraction voted in
>    > Boulder County.
>    >
>    > Neal McBurnett                 http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/
>    > Signed and/or sealed mail encouraged.  GPG/PGP Keyid: 2C9EBA60
>    >
>    > On Mon, Nov 08, 2004 at 03:15:19PM -0700, Ralph Shnelvar wrote:
>    > > >BTW - looks like we had an 87% plus turn out of the 176,140
>    > registered
>    > > >voters. Pretty cool, if it is real.
>    > >
>    > > That's not cool.  It's beyond suspicious.
>    > >
>    > > The national average was just under 60%.
>    > >
>    > > To me this indicates near certainty of massive ballot box
>    > stuffing.
>    >
>    >
>