Happy President’s Day! In honor of the past-serving presidents, there was a proposal put forth in 2004 by Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) that would place images of the Presidents on the obverse side of the $1 coins with the image of the Statue of Liberty on the reverse side. There would be four per year in order of service (not including those Presidents who are still alive).
The bill (H.R. 902) passed the House on April 27, 2005, passed the Senate in November of 2005, and was signed into law by President Bush on December 15, 2005. The US Mint will present the new 2007 $1 coin design candidates at a public meeting on February 28, 2006. Expect the new George Washington coin early next year. A new coin will enter circulation every three months depicting each successive President (and yes, Grover Cleveland will have two!) – (see the chronological list of Presidents).
The New York project (first discussed in this weblog entry) has made a lot of progress. The township maps and data are now complete for all counties for the general elections of 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004. The precinct data is now complete for all counties outside of the five New York City Boroughs for those four elections (New York City Borough precinct data is complete for 2000 and 2004). This was no small task as most counties required hand-entry of precinct data. In addition, the further complication of New York’s fusion system added an average of four more ballot lines per election. Overall this required a lot of number typing. For example, the counties of Erie, Monroe, and Nassau had a total of 2,897 precincts in 1992 (only to grow larger by 2004). With the exception of Monroe in 2004, all three of these counties required manual entry of the data between 1992 and 2004 from the canvass books (they are legal size documents about 3 cm thick). Total precincts for New York in 1992 are 9,764 (outside of NYC).
The New York township map for 1992 is partiularly interesting. Perot was very strong in Western New York, winning numerous towns in Chautauqua, Cattaraugus, Erie, Wyoming, and Niagara counties (Perot finished second in Wyoming and Cattaraugus counties and a very close third in Niagara County). Perot also had a strong showing in central New York in an area up the I-81 corridor from Binghamton through Northern Jefferson County, having won a number of towns in the region. Perot placed well-enough in this region such that in most towns, the winning candidate received less than 40% of the vote. Bush was strong through the the Adirondacks, perifieral Catskills, and the Genesee River Vally counties (Steuben , Allegany, Livingston, Ontario, Yates, Genesee, Orleans, Wayne). Clinton had strong support in New York City and the large upstate cities (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Albany), in the northern tier (St. Lawrence and Franklin Counties), Ithaca, and the central Catskills (Ulster and Sullivan Counties).
County-level township maps for all counties in these four years are now available on-line to members. Township data and precinct data is also available on-line to members. There are also detailed spreadsheets with boundary codes that include both unfused and fused data for the Presidential vote at the precinct, township, and county level. See the store page if for purchasing information on the spreadsheets.
The latest book to incorporate material from the Atlas is Anthony Fairfax’s The Democratic Trend Phenomena. The paperback book is an analytical work with a decent amount of statistical mathematics with the goal of proving a predictable trend in the popular vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate.
From the Author: “The goal of forecasting the outcome of U.S. presidential elections has been around for decades. However, the belief is that predicting, especially the popular vote, with a high degree of accuracy is difficult due to different national or even local conditions that change with each election (e.g. economic, social, political, and global changes).”
“Nonetheless, over the last three decades there exists a little known exception to the rule pertaining to forecasting presidential elections. The exception is that the popular vote for the Democratic candidate for president has trended in a predictable pattern since 1980. If the election of 1976 is disregarded the trend is revealed to actually begin in 1972.”
“This unique predictability has been deemed by the author as, The Democratic Trend Phenomena. This book describes the cause of the phenomena, measures the accuracy, and outlines the future effects.”
On the acknowledgements on page ix: “Additional thanks to David Leip who provided critical election data during the development of this book”
The map depicting the results for President in the state of New York by township for the 2004 General Election is now complete. New York is one of the states that allocates all ballot types to the appropriate precinct. Therefore, the results by city and township are exact.
The image shown to the right has 218 municipalities won by Kerry (22%) and 779 by Bush (78%). There were no ties in 2004. Kerry’s best municipality is Bronx Borough with 82.8%. Kerry received the lowest percentage in the Town of Jasper (Steuben County) with only 17.21%. Bush’s top location is the Town of Morehouse (Hamilton County) with 81.6% (71 votes to Kerry’s 15). Bush’s worst locality is the college city of Ithaca (Tompkins County) where Nader picked up 3.1% leaving Bush with only 15.5%. Some interesting statistics:
Kerry Municipalities: Average Votes Cast: 23,227; Median Votes Cast: 4,331
Bush Municpalities: Average Votes Cast: 2,994; Median Votes Cast: 1,212
As was evident in 2000, Bush carries many more of the rural, low-population townships, while Kerry scores solidly in the cities. To wit, in Kerry’s top 10 are four of the New York City Boroughs, the cities of Buffalo and Albany, as well as the City of Mount Vernon (Westchester county). These seven municipalities cast almost 2.5 million votes for President and rack up a margin of 1,354,849 votes for Kerry (this is, remarkably, about 3,000 votes more than Kerry’s state-wide margin of 1,351,713). The remaining three in the top 10 are the City of Ithaca, the surrounding the Town of Ithaca, and the relatively small Town of Woodstock (of 1960s fame in Ulster county) with 4,072 ballots cast. By contrast, Bush’s top 10 have an average total votes cast of 490 with names that are not widely known (All in Hamilton, Allegany, and Steuben Counties).
A larger township map as well as township data are available to members (New York by City and Town). In addition, the county-township maps are also available to members on each of the New York county summary pages such as my original home county of Ononadaga! Enjoy.
Today is election day 2005. Although an off-year for most (meaning that there are not many high-profile positions up for election), there are a number of important local offices to be filled as well as initiatives around the country to be voted on. Two of the bigger elections are the Gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey. The results of these elections will be availalbe in the special Gubernatorial section following the release of the returns (see NJ and VA).
Upon a suggestion from Alcon, I have created swing maps by county between the 2000 and 2004 elections. These maps describe the change in margin percentage (i.e. the difference between the Democratic vote percentage and the Republican vote percentage) between the 2000 election and the 2004 election. The maps may be found on the state summary pages (example). These maps show the change in support on a percentage basis for each county between the successive elections. In the New Jersey map to the right, the margin in every county swung towards Bush. The very light blue represents a change of < 5%, the light blue between 5% and 10%, the blue between 10% and 15%, and the dark blue 15% to 20% (see the Atlas Master Key for complete color and margin assignments).
(edit: 20051101) A second set of maps have been produced that show the county “trend” between the 2000 and 2004 elections. The trend map differs from the swing map in that the margin change is normalized to the nation-wide margin change (i.e. MarginCounty2004 – MarginNational2004 – (MarginCounty2000 – MarginNational2000) where each Margin is (VoteD – VoteR)/TotalVote). So, as an example, consider Hunterdon County, New Jersey:
Year
VoteD
VoteR
TotalVote
Margin
Margin%
County
2004
26,050
39,888
66,680
13,838
20.75%
2000
21,387
32,210
56,455
10,823
19.17%
Swing
4,663
7,678
10,225
3,015
1.58%
National
2004
59,028,439
62,040,610
122,300,762
3,012,171
2.46%
2000
51,003,926
50,460,110
105,417,258
543,816
0.52%
Swing
8,024,516
11,580,500
16,883,504
3,555,987
2.98%
County Trend 2000 to 2004
(County Swing – National Swing)
1.40%
To calculate the swing in Hunterdon County, subtract the margin percentage in 2000 from the margin percentage in 2004 -> an increase for the Republicans of 1.58%. Therefore the swing map shows Hunterdon County for Republican by < 5%. The trend is a normalization of the county margin change based on the national margin change. The trend is calculated by subracting the national margin swing from the county margin swing. Since the margin for Republican nationwide increased by 2.98% and the margin in Hunterdon County swung a smaller 1.58% towards the Republicans, the trend in Hunterdon County is 1.40% towards the Democrats. The map therefore shows Hunterdon County for Democratic by < 5%.
Feedback is welcome on all aspects of the feature (color selection, number of bins, whether it is useful or interesting, etc.).
Marilyn Bose, Julie Hosch, Belma Huebner, Don Kass, Don Racheter, Dorothy Schlitter, Wanda Sears… these names don’t ring a bell? They won the election for Presidential Electors in the state of Iowa in 2004. These are the candidates the citizens of Iowa actually voted for when they cast their ballot for George W. Bush for President in the 2004 General Election. As stated in Article II Section I of the United States Constitution that Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress. Today, all states except two (Nebraska and Maine) appoint an entire electoral slate through the use of a state-wide popular vote. The aforementioned exceptions in Maine and Nebraska vary only slightly from this model, choosing electors based on the Congressional District Method.
Some 3,400 Presidential Electors nation-wide have been added to the Atlas database and the election results for Presidential Electors is accessible via the link on any state summary page (Example: Iowa Electors 2004). Electors included are all those pledged to a candidate that was ballot-qualified in at least one state (electors for qualified write-in candidates that had no ballot access are not included).
The Chicago metropolitan area, including Cook County and the surrounding five counties (Lake, Kane, McHenry, DuPage, and Will) dominates the state with 65.5% of the population. Winning this region goes a long way towards adding the state’s 21 electoral votes to one’s column. With the well-documented rural-urban split of support between Republicans and Democrats, Illinois poses a particular challenge for Republicans to overcome the heavily urban Chicago area. In 2004, Kerry won Illinois handily (55% to 44%), carrying Cook County 1,439,724 to 597,405 – a margin of almost 850,000 votes (41 percentage points!). Bush won the net returns from all the remaining Illinois Counties 1,748,541 to 1,451,826, a margin of about 300,000 votes – a figure that falls well short of overcoming Kerry’s 41 point margin in Cook County.
The trend in Illinois is also not good for the Repulicans. Although Bush increased his percentage in Illinois as a whole between 2000 and 2004 from 42.6% to 44.5% (or 1.9 points), this figure is a full point below his national average (to 50.7% from 47.8% or 2.9 points). In Cook County, Bush’s share of the vote fell one half of a percentage point to 28.7%. The decrease in popularity coupled with an increase in turout added almost 100,000 votes to the Democratic margin between 2000 and 2004. In addition, Bush lost six of the suburban townships in 2004 that he won in 2000 (he didn’t win any that he lost in 2000). Only two townships increased Bush’s margin between 2000 and 2004 (Orland and Lemont – two of the furthest townships from Chicago – in the southwest portion of Cook County).
The Atlas is in the proces of adding additional precinct and township data for Illinois in 2004. DuPage, Kane, Lake, and Sangamon are now available (in addition to Cook) for those interested in further study.
The previous entry highlighted a number of the top recommendations put forth by the Commission on Federal Election Reform. Section 6 deals with Election Administration; the report recommends five specific actions (abbreviated):
The reconstitution of election management institutions on a nonpartisan basis to make them more independent and effective. U.S. Election Assistance Commission members and each state’s chief elections officer should be selected and be expected to act in a nonpartisan manner, and the institutions should have sufficient funding for research and trainig and to conduct the best elections possible.
Congress should approve legislation that would add a fifth member to the U.S Election Assistance Commission, who would serve as the EAC’s chairperson and who would be nominated by the President based on capability, integrity, and nonpartisanship.
Shates should prohibit senior election officials from serving or assisting political campaigns in a partisan way, other than their own campaigns in states where they are elected
States should make existing election bodies as nonpartisan as possible within the constraints of each states’s constitution. Among the ways this might be accomplished would be if the individuals who serve as the state’s chief elections officer were chosen based on their capability, integrity, and nonpartisanship. The state legislatures would need to confirm these individuals by a two-thirds majority on one or both houses.
Each state’s chief elections officer should, to the extent reasonably possible, ensure uniformity of voting procedures throughout the state, as with provisional ballots.
Overall, I find this to be one of the most important recommendations: confidence in fair election administration can not be maintained if staunch partisan officers are in charge of the elections. Such a situation consitutes an obvious conflict-of-interest.
The Commission on Federal Election Reform, a twenty-one member commission co-chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker III, has released its report, Building Confidence in U.S. Elections.
The commission was organized by American University’s Center for Democracy and Election Management and hearings began on April 18, 2005 with the goal of putting forth a set of recommendations to raise confidence in the electoral system. The report, released on September 19, 2005, “recommends a modern electoral system built on five pillars: (1) a universal and up-to-date registration list, accessible to the public; (2) a uniform voter identification system that is implemented in a way that increases, not impedes, participation; (3) measures to enhance ballot integrity and voter access; (4) a voter-verifiable paper trail and improved security of voting systems; and (5) electoral institutions that are impartial, professional, and independent.
The document puts forward 87 specific recommendations; the top items are:
The implementation of a universal voter registration system where states (instead of local jurisdictions such as county or township) are responsible for the accuracy and quality of voter lists. This recommendation includes the proposal of a distributed database in which the registration lists can be shared interstate.
Creation of a uniform system of voter identification based on an identification card. This includes the recommendation that states issue free photo-id cards in an affirmative role to those without a driver’s license
Addition of measures to increase voter participation by asking states to assume a greater responsibility to register citizens, make voting more convenient, offer more information on registration lists and voting, host civic education programs, and more.
The inclusion of an auditable backup on paper for electronic voting systems in order to provide confidence that ballots cast using these machines are counted accurately.
The strengthening and restructuring of the system by which elections have been administered in the country through a reconstitution of the EAC and state election agencies on a non-partisan basis.
In addition to the main points, there are many other specific recommendations, including:
A proposal that the media improve coverage of election by providing longer candidate discourse – at least five minutes – each night in the month preceding the election
Ask that media voluntarily refrain from projecting presidential election results until polls close in the 48 contiguous states
States provide unrestricted access toll legitimate domestic and international election observers.
Changing the Presidential Primary schedule by creating four regional primaries
For states to certify their presidential election prior to the “safe harbor” date. In addition, for states to enact new statutes to ensure that its resolution of all election disputes are given conclusive effect by Congress under United States Code
Overall, the report has an extensive and relatively comprehensive list of very practical changes. Further entries will discuss some of these in more detail.
The latest book to incorporate material from the Atlas is Anthony Fairfax’s The Democratic Trend Phenomena. The paperback book is an analytical work with a decent amount of statistical mathematics with the goal of proving a predictable trend in the popular vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate.
for $10.17.
The image shown to the right has 218 municipalities won by Kerry (22%) and 779 by Bush (78%). There were no ties in 2004. Kerry’s best municipality is Bronx Borough with 82.8%. Kerry received the lowest percentage in the Town of Jasper (Steuben County) with only 17.21%. Bush’s top location is the Town of Morehouse (Hamilton County) with 81.6% (71 votes to Kerry’s 15). Bush’s worst locality is the college city of Ithaca (Tompkins County) where Nader picked up 3.1% leaving Bush with only 15.5%. Some interesting statistics:
