Precinct-Level Data for IA, ME, MN, NV and NH

So far in this primary season, we have seen caucuses in Iowa, Nevada, Minnesota, Colorado and Maine. There have been primaries in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida and Missouri. Because these events are organized and run by each state's Republican Party leadership, there is an incredible amount of heterogeneity between the different states.

This makes things difficult for someone who wants to obtain precinct-level data for every single precinct in each of those 9 states, but that is my task. After some painstaking googling, and a decent quantity of repetitive keystrokes and mouse-clicks, I am now confident that I have ALL of the publicly available precinct-level data for Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada and New Hampshire. Finally! And yes, I know that Maine's results should be adjusted after the Feb 18 caucuses.

Okay, so I can't confirm or deny (yet) the claims of the poster at Daily Paul regarding South Carolina, but I can look at some other states and see if there's a similar trend. In other words, as precinct size increases, does Dr. Paul fare increasingly worse or Mr. Romney fare increasingly better? That is the only question I am asking for now.

Because each state has a unique set of considerations, I think it's best if I consider the results from each state separately, and I won't be able to do that until later this weekend. However, I must give a teaser: the early results appear to be VERY interesting!

For example, about 43% of the 6520 precincts from these 5 states had 20 or fewer votes. Dr. Paul won 20.5% of those precincts, while Mr. Romney only won 19.3% and Mr. Santorum won 27.2% (Mr. Gingrich won 6.7%). These precincts represent a total of 25,324 voters, or 5.5%.

Now let's consider the 10.5% of precincts with more than 100 voters. Dr. Paul won 20.1% of these precincts, Mr. Romney took a whopping 56.9%, Mr. Santorum dropped to 20.7% and Mr. Gingrich captured a paltry 1.5%. These precincts represent an incredible 318,741 voters, or 69.9%.

Hmm ... just a guess, but I think that the Santorum camp may find this preliminary data to be fairly interesting.

My first state-specific post will deal with New Hampshire, and the graph below is certainly intriguing. It shows the relationship between vote percentage and precinct size for both Dr. Paul and Mr. Romney in New Hampshire.

South Carolina GOP primary - questions raised

A few months ago, the Wall Street Journal published an article about the recent party elections in Russia. Because Putin's ruling Russia United party appeared to fare particularly well in precincts with high voter turnout, 100,000 Russians marched against Putin over the controversy.

Could something similar be happening in the GOP primaries and caucuses right here in America? Surely not ... right?!

Yesterday (Feb 17), I ran across a posting at Daily Paul, which as a disclaimer is run by Ron Paul supporters. The poster suggested that something similar to what was seen in Putin's Russia may have happened in the South Carolina GOP primary last month. This person had been studying the Greenville County precinct-level election data (available here) and found something rather unusual: "Ron Paul averaged 24% in precincts where less than 250 people voted; he averaged less than 12 percent in precincts with more than 800." Dr. Paul would have captured about 20% of the Greenville County vote based on the smallest 35 precincts but ended up with only 17.2%. The opposite trend was seen when looking at Mr. Romney's vote; that is, he fared much better on a percentage basis in the larger precincts than in the smaller ones. The poster suggested that it is possible that someone could have taken votes from Dr. Paul and given those votes to Mr. Romney, possibly accomplished via manipulation of the software installed on the voting machines.

This study, which I found very interesting, raised a number of questions in my mind, and I think I know what the questions are. I also think I know in what order they must be answered:

1. Is there convincing empirical evidence, backed up by sound statistical reasoning, that Mr. Romney's percentage of the vote in a precinct is directly proportional to that precinct's size (One could ask a similar question regarding Dr. Paul)? This question must obviously be asked of statewide results and not just in South Carolina. This is the topic of my next post.
2. If the answer to #1 is an irrefutable "Yes," then is there a mechanism (other than election fraud) which can sufficiently explain these effects? It has been suggested that, because older voters tend to favor Mr. Romney over Dr. Paul, these voters may also live in disproportionately larger precincts. Another possible explanation is that smaller precincts are more rural and thus Dr. Paul may poll better in rural areas. I would submit that it will be very difficult to show that the answer to this question is clearly "No."
3. However, if the answer to #2 is "No," and we have truly exhausted all other possible explanations for this phenomenon, it is at this point that we must consider jumping down the rabbit hole to explore worlds unknown. I sincerely hope that this line of questioning will not lead me to be asking questions such as, "Who is that man behind the curtain?"

I am concerned that definitively answering the first question above may take several weeks, but I will pursue it until I am certain of the answer.