Lake Co, Tennessee

[minionofmidas]

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?

[Alcon]

Haha, wow.  Nice.

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

I remember seeing the Lake County result on election night and thinking that something must be wrong if a Republican actually won Lake County.

That being said, it's not out of the question this year.  I don't think it will be a 1972-ish swing, but I could see a 55-45 McCain result here.

[True Democrat]

Did anyone ever contact Lake County or the Tennessee government about this?

[Alcon]

Did anyone ever contact Lake County or the Tennessee government about this?

It would be pointless.  They've certified.  They would likely be totally unwilling to fix it.

[Nym90]

I remember seeing the Lake County result on election night and thinking that something must be wrong if a Republican actually won Lake County.

That being said, it's not out of the question this year.  I don't think it will be a 1972-ish swing, but I could see a 55-45 McCain result here.

You know the area better than I, but Wikipedia says it's 31 percent black, so unless McCain gets over 80 percent of the white vote here (which obviously Republicans in the past have come nowhere near getting) he ain't gonna win it at all, much less 55-45.

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

I remember seeing the Lake County result on election night and thinking that something must be wrong if a Republican actually won Lake County.

That being said, it's not out of the question this year.  I don't think it will be a 1972-ish swing, but I could see a 55-45 McCain result here.

You know the area better than I, but Wikipedia says it's 31 percent black, so unless McCain gets over 80 percent of the white vote here (which obviously Republicans in the past have come nowhere near getting) he ain't gonna win it at all, much less 55-45.

Didn't realize there were that many blacks... the county is desperately poor.  I went there once with a Sunday School class to visit a Methodist nursing home there.  I gotta think McCain is going to do way better than Bush did though.

[memphis]

The county is a Dem lock. Mondale got 57%. Not that it matters. It's one of the least populous counties in the state. Those election votes certainly are fishy though.