Well I learned some rather surprising things today, one of them being that our voter turnout percentages have been wrong for decades, and the other, which I will get to later. I'll elaborate on what I mean by the voter turnout numbers.
The media and many other sources have claimed that in the 2000 election, we only had a 51% voter turnout. What was not mentioned is that it was 51% of all people in the United States of and over 18 years old. This includes: prison inmates that are not eligable to vote, patients in mental hospitals, immigrants, illegal immigrants, citizens that aren't registered to vote, and I'm sure there's more.
This false percentage is one of the things giving us a bad wrap world-wide. That such an established, respected (it used to be at least) counry that is the world's largest superpower can have such a poor turnout. Only 51% would not show for much and that people in the United States don't care.
In 2000, the V.A.P. or Voting Age Population, released by the census bureau, was 205 million people and the number of voters was 105 million people. The Population of Eligabable Voters, another product of the census burea, was said to be 156 million eligable voters in the United States. Subtract 156 million from 205 million and you come with the amount of uneligable voters that were used, which comes out to be a whopping 49 million people that couldnt vote.
The right number we should be matching up the 105 million people that voted to should be the 156 million eligable voters. If you do the math, you'll come up with a 67% voter turnout. I think that is damn good amount of people when the country and economy were doing extremely well. It gave the voters less motivation to go out and vote too, and that was in 2000.
Four years have now passed and it is almost 2005 now and we still do not have the election results. We had a much higher voter turnout this presidential election due to it being so incredibly heated, motivating people to go out and vote for their pick for pres. But there is one thing I can guarantee you, and that is when the official results are released, the numbers will be misconstrued and the media and news sources will be using the wrong numbers once again. I think the real percentage of voter turnout would be around 72-75%? Something like that.
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To continue on a similar subject, but different note, I got wind today that a "three prong" lawsuit is in the works against the State of Ohio claiming widespread voter fraud.
Cliff Arnebeck, the Attorney representing the Alliance for Democracy, claims he has evidence of fraud and he's confident when the votes are recounted, Ohio will go Kerry. And as of this morning, the NY Times reports that Kerry and Edwards have officially joined the effort!
Now I am a Kerry supporter, and I actually worked a little bit for the campaign in terms of fundraising activities, but I am doubtful that this lawsuit will be successful. I believe Bush had a 136,000 vote lead over Kerry. That is one LARGE number to overcome. I believe Kerry would need over 50% of that number to gain those 20 electoral votes, so that is something like 69,000 or 70,000 votes going to Kerry. I could be wrong, after all, it is 3:52 AM. Hooray to insomnia.
As much as I hate Bush, I still think he is going to come out in the end with Ohio's official recount figures. I will be following this topic as closely as possible, due to my improbable hope that Kerry can actually take Ohio and win the election.
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