Freekeenenews - Keene Voter Turnout Lower Than Originally Reported According to City Clerk

2012 Keene Voter Turnout Drops to 69% from 76%

Email from city clerk Patty Little reveals calculation errors in their original results.  I had originally contacted the clerk's office when the votes for the race I was in just weren't adding up right according to their official campaign report. Here’s her email explaining what had gone wrong:

Hi Ian, I have had a chance to review your questions and have attached an updated spreadsheet of election activity. We decided that our previous spreadsheet was confusing because the number of absentee ballots was already included in the total ballotscast figure…and also inaccurate because the “formula” was accounting for absentee ballots twice. In addition, to clarifying the layout of the spreadsheet, we’ve updated some of the actual figures based upon corrections made to the Secretary of State and the correct “formula.”

Anyway, these corrections indicate that there were 12,699 total ballots cast. If you assume that each ballot had the race for State Rep. District 16 – that would indicate that there was a possibility of 25,398 votes for this race. With candidate Weed at 7623, candidate Burridge at 5591 and yourself at 1490 and 42 write-in votes, this leaves 10,652 blanks. This number differs from what was indicated on the tabulator tape as “blank” votes by 99 votes. We believe, but have no way to verify – that the discrepancy between these two number reflect two things: (1) not all of the ballots had the office of State Rep. District 16. There are certain types of “UOCAVA” voters that can only vote in Federal offices so their ballot did not contain the State offices. (2) when election officials are hand counting what is called an auxiliary ballot (a ballot that the scanner cannot read) they are focused on counting votes for candidates and are not even thinking about “blank” votes that result when a voter either doesn’t vote for 2 candidates, or they vote for 1 candidate or they over vote by voting for 3 candidates.

Ian, I appreciate that you’ve questioned our numbers because this exercise has revealed that our spreadsheet contained inaccurate formulas.

Josiah Bartlett Center - Pensions, Voter Turnout, and the Bond Bank

Weekly Update from the
Josiah Bartlett Center

Keeping you up to date on our latest research
on the issues impacting New Hampshire

New Study on Pension Fund Investments

The New Hampshire Retirement System’s 0.7% investment return for fiscal year 2012 was jumped on by some as a sign the system had failed because it had not met the assumed rate of return of 7.75%. As pointed out in an earlier piece, for FY12, the System’s returns were about par for the course in comparison to other state pension systems.

Taking a wider historical view, this is true both in comparison to the stock market as a whole and in comparison to other pension systems... Click here to keep reading

Primary Day

 

Gardner Predicts 168,000 voters

New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner is projecting 168,000 voters to cast ballots in next week’s Direct Primary elections. Gardner expects 102,000 Republicans and 66,000 Democrats to vote, in person or by absentee ballot to determine who will be on the November General Election ballot. Click here to keep reading.

JBC Report

Projecting Voter Turnout

Grant Bosse examines voter turnout in NH Primaries, and reports on Libertarian Gary Johnson winning ballot access in the Granite State in November. Click here to keep reading.

Municipal Bond Bank Downgrade Update

Continuing Coverage

The financial adviser to the New Hampshire Municipal Bond Bank doesn’t think last week’s downgrade will make it more expensive for cities and towns to borrow money. Click here to keep reading.

RNC - Union Leader: NH Primary set record for GOP turnout

Note:  Gardner said that 60,996 voted in the Democratic primary, far short of the 75,000 he had predicted. Of those, 49,480, or 81 percent voted for President Barack Obama. He noted that in 1996, when Bill Clinton was running for reelection uncontested, there were about 93,000 votes cast in the Democratic primary, which was 82 percent of the votes cast.

Primary set record for GOP turnout

Union Leader

John DiStaso

January 12, 2012

http://goo.gl/KbD9w

A GOP RECORD. Voter turnout Tuesday set a record for a Republican presidential primary but fell short of the Democrats' turnout record set four years ago.

The Secretary of State's office released county, city and town summaries showing that 247,223 votes were cast for candidates on the Republican ballot.

That's a turnout of 45 percent of the 546,411 names of Republican and undeclared voters on the Jan. 4 checklist.

Democrats are not eligible to vote in the GOP primary, just as registered Republicans cannot vote in a Democratic primary. Undeclared, or independent, voters can vote in either primary.

As of Jan. 4, there were 314,278 undeclared voters and 232,133 Republican voters on the checklist, Secretary of State Bill Gardner said.

Gardner said that when the few blank ballots cast in the GOP primary are counted, the number will be closer to the 250,000 he had predicted, but will fall just short.

Still, said Gardner, it's a record for a Republican presidential primary. The previous high in a Republican primary came in 2008, when 241,039 GOP votes were cast.

Gardner said Democrats set the record for turnout in 2008, when 288,672 votes were cast.

Gardner said that 60,996 voted in the Democratic primary, far short of the 75,000 he had predicted. Of those, 49,480, or 81 percent voted for President Barack Obama. He noted that in 1996, when Bill Clinton was running for reelection uncontested, there were about 93,000 votes cast in the Democratic primary, which was 82 percent of the votes cast.

That's better than the 78 percent George W. Bush received in 2004, when he received 69,414 votes

Obama, by the way, received 282 write-in votes on the GOP ballot.