Yeah well, the official election results for this county in 2004, as officially reported by the Tennessee SoS and this site, are obviously wrong.
Census 2000 population - 7954
2005 Census estimate - 7538
2000 Presidential vote cast - 2224
2004 Presidential vote cast - 4740. I beg your pardon?
Since the error might be with 2000 rather than 2004 (one figure reflects a very low turnout, the other a very high but possible turnout, after all) I checked 1996 next:
1996 Presidential vote cast - 1982
Since I have an elephant's memory, I remembered that Lake was reported as having flipped to Bush, and indeed as having seen one of the biggest dem-to-rep swings in the nation on election night, and this was reversed a couple of days or weeks later.
So I went looking for the provisional figures, and found them
here.
So, provisional totals:
Rep 1317, Dem 1039, other 14, total of 2370
Final totals:
Dem 2634, Rep 2078, other 28, total of 4740. I beg your pardon?
I checked with the SoS, they had the same figures as Atlas. I checked with the SoS for the no. of votes cast in John Tanner's reelections to the House...
2000 1918
2004 4126. I beg your pardon?
Oh, and
2006 1370
And then I noticed that every figure, in both the presidential and the house contest (there was no senate contest) in 2004 is divisible by 2. I checked the precinct results, and the same holds. I checked the State House and State Senate races - including the precinct results (Lake has only 4, plus early and absentee voting), and the same holds.
I conclude that every single vote in every contest in Lake County in 2004 was accidentally counted twice.
Which leaves the question - do the final tallies for the presidential race also reverse the Dem and Rep totals? Or was it the provisional figures that did that?
Ie, who won Lake County?