Dear Maine GOP: 1+1+1 does not = 4. Official results are wrong

Two super alert citizens, Frank Pearson and John Washburn, each hit me with spreadsheets about the same time, proving that Maine’s caucus results don’t even add up. As the precise John Washburn says, “their spreadsheet lacks internal integrity.”

Because of the relatively open, public process, we’ve all been treated to a public display on lack of election integrity. I’m hearing whimpers of “bring in the voting machines” from news outlets like The AP, but we all need to remember that with the machines, the public can’t see the counting process and wrong totals cannot be detected by the public.

You’ve probably already heard they decided to just not count Washington County, with 6,876 registered Republican voters, and that
the “winning” result announced by the GOP for Romney was only 194 more than Ron Paul.

Registered voters in each Maine County by party as of Feb. 13, 2012: http://www.maine.gov/sos/cec/elec/2012/21312r-e-active.txt

You’ve probably also heard that they reported “zero” for all the Waldo County locations that voted, even though the results were called in timely.

You’ve probably even heard that the state GOP ordered caucus locations to keep the count secret, but that Belfast took a vote to NOT hide the count and instead to announce it out loud, and that the actual Belfast votes were not at all what the state GOP reported for Belfast.

But you may not yet have heard that even for the counties they DID list votes for, their own numbers don’t even add up!

FOR EXAMPLE:

In Penobscot County, City of Bangor, the GOP results which you can see here:
http://www.mainegop.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/me_gop_caucus_results.pdf

they have these numbers:

Mitt Romney: 26
Ron Paul: 36
Rick Santorum: 9
Newt Gingrich: 4
Other: 2
Total: 0

Add ’em up yourself. The total is 77.

In Penobscot County, town of Alton, they added 2 votes for Ron Paul and 1 vote for other (no other candidates show any votes), and came up with a total of zero.

In Cumberland County, town of Gorham, you be the teacher and the GOP can be your third grade student. The numbers are:
Romney 24
Paul 23
Santorum 8
Gingrich 4
Other 0

The state GOP added these up and came up with 56.

I think all third grade teachers will agree that the total is not 56, but 59.

CUMBERLAND COUNTY, SOUTH PORTLAND:
Romney 29
Paul 28
Santorum 19
Gingrich 9
Other

The GOP adds these five number to achieve a sum of 81. Washburn and Pearson came up with 85, and so do the rest of us.

KENNEBEC COUNTY, CITY OF AUGUSTA:

Romney 18
Paul 17
Santorum 3
Ginrich 0
Other 0

The state GOP reports these 38 votes as “40”.

KNOX COUNTY, TOWN OF CAMDEN:
Romney 19
Paul 6
Santorum 2
Gingrich 5
Other 0

The Maine Republican state math guru reports “28” as the total for
what is actually 32.

KNOX COUNTY, TOWN OF FRIENDSHIP:

Romney 2
Paul 2
Santorum 3
Gingrich 1
Other 0

They get “7”, I get “8”, don’t you?

PENOBSCOT COUNTY, TOWN OF DIXMONT:
Romney 1
Paul 0
Santorum 1
Gingrich 0
Other 1

According to the Maine Republican Party, 1+1+1=4

PENOBSCOT COUNTY, NEWPORT:
Romney 9
Paul 6
Santorum 6
Gingrich 1
Other 0

They report “21” when we can all see this adds to 22.

SOMERSET COUNTY, CAMBRIDGE:

Romney 0
Paul 0
Santorum 5
Gingrich 3
Other 1

Maine GOP math sums these nine votes up as “8”

YORK COUNTY TOWN OF ELIOT

Romney 20
Paul 12
Santorum 3
Gingrich 6
Other 2

They add this up to “44” but it is only 43.

All in all, the erroneous addition adds up to exactly the nice round number of 100 votes.

Given the fact that any spreadsheet has a nifty “sum” function, either the sum was correct and the numbers were fudged with after the fact, or they don’t know how to calculate, and check, a simple row of five numbers.

But hey, why sweat the details? Even after all this, here’s what’s still on their official Web site:

 

Originally posted at http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/show.cgi?8/81922, which you should visit for more data.