[EL] Cayuga County, NY election returns?

[Richard Winger]

Dear Mr. Stewart, that's an excellent observation (although the blanks for president are 14% in Cayuga County, not 20%).  I see that in Nov. 2008, Cayuga County had 3.5% blanks for president, as compared to a statewide total of 1% blank for president, so even in 2008, Cayuga County was odd.

I just looked on the Cayuga County Board of Elections web page but it doesn't have data about blank votes, nor data on how many voters cast a ballot.  Then I phoned them and the man confirmed that the figures reported by the State Board of Elections are the same figures the county sent in.  The county's canvassing report includes the number of blank ballots, which are extremely large for president and even larger for US Senate.  But the county didn't post that data on the county web page.

The man at the Cayuga County Board thinks that voters just didn't like the Republican nominee for president and therefore large numbers of them left it blank.  I didn't think to ask him why the number of blanks would be so large for US Senate.

I then telephoned the State Board of Elections to see if it can shed any light on this, but everyone is either out today or at lunch.

Richard Winger

415-922-9779

PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147

--- On Wed, 12/12/12, Charles Stewart III <cstewart at mit.edu> wrote:

From: Charles Stewart III <cstewart at mit.edu>
Subject: [EL] Cayuga County, NY election returns?
To: "Election Law (Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu)" <Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>
Date: Wednesday, December 12, 2012, 9:54 AM

Does anyone on the listserv know why Cayuga County, New York reported that 20.6% of the votes cast for president were blank, compared to 0.7% statewide?  The election returns posted on the New York Board of Elections web site don't indicate that this is one of the counties that is regarded as "Provisional."  The next-highest county is 3.1% (Allegany).  The reported blank pct. for the U.S. Senate race is also unusually high (20.6% for the county compared to 5.9% statewide).

I'm happy to take the answer off-line.

Charles

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles Stewart III
Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science 
Housemaster of McCormick Hall

Department of Political Science
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology
E53-449
30 Wadsworth Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts   02139

Office:  617-253-3127


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