| Subject: one mystery solved |
| From: Rick Hasen |
| Date: 11/16/2003, 3:44 PM |
| To: election-law |
Following up on this post, Laura Elms and Samantha Luks have an explanation for the 0 turnout results in Alameda and Plumas counties (Kern's figures are not available on their website). It is not a conspiracy but rather incompetence in geting information from the county to the Secretary of State. They report that if you download the precincts file from this link on the Alameda County site, there are figures showing undervotes and overvotes showing a 0.8% residual vote rate (most undervotes, but a few overvotes). Similarly, from this link, Elms and Luks calculated a 1.1% residual vote rate in Plumas.
We'll have to wait to hear from the Kern officials when they open for business tomorrow.
Of course, though this solves one mystery, it leaves open the questions of other disparities, such as the nearly double residual vote rate for Los Angeles County compared to the statewide average (which of course would be much lower if we took Los Angeles out of that average).-- Rick Hasen Professor of Law and William M. Rains Fellow Loyola Law School 919 South Albany Street Los Angeles, CA 90015-1211 (213)736-1466 (213)380-3769 - fax rick.hasen@lls.edu http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html http://electionlawblog.org