“Question: If each voter turned in 2 cards, and 2 cards equals 1 vote, then where are 531 votes? 123,591 times 2 is 247,182, but 247,713 cards were cast. If a voter chooses the blank fill in space, would not that vote be counted and added to the tally? So what happened to 531 votes?”
Every election, people choose not to vote (or waste their vote with a Mickey Mouse write in)on some ballot questions. The so-called “down-ticket” races in a Presidential year almost always have fewer votes than are cast for President, or other high profile races. Because a ballot can include LOTS of local questions (city and/or county races, local referenda, special districts, state legislature) in addition to federal and statewide offices, people tend not to cast a vote on issues or candidates unfamiliar to them.
In Florida, our local counts are public, and I have been a party or candidate observer many times. The way people take the time to vote, and then deliberately spoil their ballot with drawings, or essays, or choosing cartoon characters, always astounds me. But it isn’t evidence of fraud.