Specter Wins 51-49 Republican Senatorial Primary: live thread

4/27/2004 | self

[rudy45]

My apologies if a thread already exists. I did a search on "Toomey" and found nothing.

I arrived at my polling area (suburban Philadelphia) at 6:45 am to hand out palm cards. The weather is terrific this morning, but turnout (I thought) was light (I had to leave at 9:15, but will be back).

Actually, I have a good feeling about Pat.

[steveegg]

Someone here had said now Collins, Snowe and Chaffey will shape up too, because they saw the power of W in helping Spector win over Toomey.

Has Specter shaped up? I don't think so. Will he shape up? If anyone beleives that, I've got a bridge in Milwaukee's crumbling, soon-to-be-rebuilt Marquette Interchange to sell you (heck; I'll even include the dismantling for free).

[nickcarraway]

THis is true unless we get a 60-seat filibuster-proof majority. Or unless we get the courts to declare that judicial appointment votes are not filibuster-able.

And how likely are either of these? The next Democrat president is going to be appointing a lot of judges.

[AuH2ORepublican]

"THe worst thing Toomey could do if he has an desire for political future is call for recount and allege misconduct at the polls... he'll just wind up looking like Sore/Loserman and destine himself to being his districts congressman at best for the rest of his political life."

---

Unless, of course, there actually was a mistake in the tabulation, such as occurred in Bucks County (but was later corrected in the county website, although not yet in the Secretary of State's website). But I agree that if the tabulations are correct Toomey shouldn't go fishing for hanging chads.

BTW, Toomey does not have a House seat to fall back on. He limited himself to three terms and liked up to his pledge.

[KQQL]

I never said Spector has shapped up , the only thing I was saying was; Collins, Snowe and chaffeee chances of shapping up are less than than Spector.

SPECTOR OWES HIS SEAT TOO W, let's see what happens.

[AuH2ORepublican]

liked = lived

[steveegg]

I never said Spector has shapped up , the only thing I was saying was; Collins, Snowe and chaffeee chances of shapping up are less than than Spector.

What's less than "none"?

SPECTOR OWES HIS SEAT TOO W, let's see what happens.

I'll go out on the world's shortest limb and say that, if Specter survives November, conseravtive judges get torpedoed in committee instead of via fillibuster (in short, no real difference from now).

[Krodg]

To: BCrago66 HA...my vote has never meant squat. In every election I've voted in either my candidate or the other have overwhelmingly won. If Bush loses by one vote, then blame me. I'll bet you $1 million that won't happen. As to "my vote" supporting "our military", that's hogwash. My vote does nothing unless you assume Kerry will have all of them killed and Bush is perfect. HA! Just look at the last two weeks BS in Fallujah..."talking" with idiots? Showing "constraint" and weakness to people that see that as a door to attack more? Does Bush learn anything? Rumsfeld? I'm all for our efforts, but I'm tired of good Marines dying while politicians play their games. Just watch, today's attacks will be stopped by Thursday as they go back to "talking". Go ahead, flame me. I'm resolved this forum isn't about debate any longer. 757 posted on 04/27/2004 9:22:08 PM PDT by Fledermaus (Ðíé F£éðérmáú§ ^;;^ says, "Why are Republicans such wimps?")

< Post Reply | Private Reply | To 720 | View Replies | Report Abuse > http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1125338/posts?page=757

It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the truth to com

notbush (183 posts) Wed Apr-28-04 03:11 AM Response to Reply #1

3. Or he may have been a DUer

trolling......

Would I do that???????

notbush (183 posts) Wed Apr-28-04 04:03 AM

Response to Reply #8

9. Or he may have been a DUer

trolling.......

No....I'd never do that.

ttp://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x511765

[TaxRelief]

I've gone through the numbers, I assume Toomey has, too.

Toomey should call for a recount. There are several reporting errors including Bucks County and Phila County. Could be interesting.

[TaxRelief]

Philadelphia County seems to have about 6000 extra votes for Spector

[Josh in PA]

Would not suprise me one bit if Spector dug up 20,000 votes..

I drove by the local cemetary today and noticed several hundred mounds of dirt next to each tombstone.

[calcowgirl]

The numbers on the official state website seemed to have many of those discrepancies when comparing to the county sites. But... I would assume the other websites that were reporting poll results (eg abc) were tallying the info from the counties. If so, there aren't enough discrepancies to swing the ultimate result.

Regardless, a full accounting is in order. For the life of me, I can't understand how the state info got so messed up. Must be that Voting Modernization project, lol.

[Krodg]

Check out this post

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1125338/posts?page=1147#1147

[Once-Ler]

And may I point out YOU called Ann Coulter "...just another dumb broad."

I was just being flippant. Ann writes columns and books. She doesn't have responsibility for what she writes. The President and Senator Santorum enforce and set laws and policy that affect our lives. Ann is way low on my list of respectable endorsements.

[TaxRelief]

I would assume the other websites that were reporting poll results (eg abc) were tallying the info from the counties.

Now there's the catch. Some of the counties (like Philadelphia County) don't have their own boards. They send you to the state site for the info. No way to keep an eye on them, that way.

[calcowgirl]

There are new numbers up at the DOS site

The Bucks county #'s are getting much closer... but still don't match the County site.

Unofficial 2004 General Primary Results
United States Senator

***99.19% of the statewide voting districts currently reporting*** 

*** Election results were last updated at 05:02:25 PM on 04/28/2004 *** 

Candidate Votes 

 HOEFFEL, JOSEPH M. (DEM)   589,613 
 
 TOOMEY, PAT (REP)          526,840  

 SPECTER, ARLEN (REP)       538,499 
 
 

[Libertina]

I'm really sorry to hear he lost, everyone. :(
I was routing for him and you. He's got the momentum to come back and win big in 4 years, but in the meantime, I expect GW to keep him towing the line.

[WKB]

Wow. Didn't know that God himself had checked in on this particular primary. Must be awesome for you to know the Will of God down to this level of detail.


You make it very obivous you know NOTHING about the Will of God. That is a shame.

[AuH2ORepublican]

"Toomey should call for a recount. There are several reporting errors including Bucks County and Phila County. Could be interesting."

---

These are the county-by-county results: http://web.dos.state.pa.us/perl/elections/elec_results/dsf/county2.cgi?eyear=2004&etype=P&office=USS

Some of these numbers seem wrong. Delaware County has too large of a turnout in the GOP Senate primary---see http://www2.co.delaware.pa.us/eb/april_2004/electionresults.asp and click on any township, since all are linked ot the countywide results. Over 66,000 voted in the Delco GOP Senate Primary, while only 56,000 voted in the GOP AG primary and 15,000 voted in the county's Dem Senate primary. And even stranger, the conservative Bruce Castor actually beat Tom Corbett in the county's AG primary by 31,919 to 24,470, while Specter beat Toomey 36,903 to 29,229. Could an extra 10,000 votes been mistakenly added to Specter's count? That would help explain things.

In Westmoreland County, 27,976 people voted in the GOP Senate primary, as opposed to 21,431 who voted in the uncontested Dem Senate primary. This 1.3:1 ratio is much lower than that in other Republican counties in Western PA; Indiana County was 1.8:1, Crawford County was 2.8:1, Clarion County was 2.1:1, Venango County was 3.3:1, Somerset County was 2:1, Jefferson County was 2.5:1, Butler County was 2.5:1, Armstrong County was 1.6:1, and even Dem-leaning Mercer County and Erie County were 2:1 and 1.5:1, respectively. Given that Westmoreland County seems to be missing some GOP primary votes (even though all of its precincts have reported), and that Toomey carried Westmoreland over Specter by more than 2:1, could there be a tabulation error that would give Toomey more votes?

Those two counties jumped out at me, but there could be some other curious results. If I were Pat Toomey, I would have someone look into any possible mistabulation of votes. If it happened in Bucks County and netted Toomey 78,000 votes, maybe it also happened in Delaware, Westmoreland or some other county and will net Toomey enough votes to beat Specter.

For the record, I'm not talking about a recount, just a correct tabulation. If after a correct tabulation Toomey is still behind by over 10,000 votes, a recount would not be a good idea, since the chances of success are close to nill and it would unnecessarily bring additional animosity to the GOP primary (and Specter has brought enough animosityin it by himself). But let's make sure people added the votes up right.

[mbraynard]

Hiya,

FEw things in response:
1) There is almost always undervote in lower profile races. People go in to vote for their high profile guy and leave the rest of the ballot blank (explaining why the senate primary total has more than the AG race).
2) Castor did well in Deleware because it's in the same media market/region of the state that he is a very sucessful district attorney. The Castor/Corbett campaign wasn't really a left-right battle as much as a 'successful guy who can win the general'-'has-been guy that got the party endorsement' battle.
3) The ratios you site. Sure about the registration totals for Westmoreland? Also, there were other down ballot races that, if on the D side ,could have boosted the ratio in favor of Democrats in that area. Also, one of the Dem AGs may be particularly popular there.

[AuH2ORepublican]

"1) There is almost always undervote in lower profile races. People go in to vote for their high profile guy and leave the rest of the ballot blank (explaining why the senate primary total has more than the AG race)."

True, but it seemed like the spread was larger in Delco. Maybe instead of a spread of 10,000 it should have been 5,000 or so, which could mean that there was a mistabulation of 5,000 votes. Maybe there's nothing wroing with the Delco results, but I'd give them a closer look if I were Toomey, especially since the GOP machine in Delco (the "War Board" I believe it's called) is probably not much different from the one in Bucks County.


"2) Castor did well in Deleware because it's in the same media market/region of the state that he is a very sucessful district attorney. The Castor/Corbett campaign wasn't really a left-right battle as much as a 'successful guy who can win the general'-'has-been guy that got the party endorsement' battle."

Well, it appeared to be a right-left battle in some circles, but you're probably right that Delaware County's location helped Castor. But if Castor was so popular in Delco because he is a next-door neighbor, why did 10,000 Republicans vote in the Senate primary and not the AG primary? I'd still look into the Delco results.


"3) The ratios you site. Sure about the registration totals for Westmoreland?"

---

I stand corrected about Westmoreland's voter registration. While it voted for Bush in 2000, it still has close to 1.7 registered Dems for every registered Republican, a lower ratio of Republicans than most if not all of the Western PA counties I mentioned. See http://www.dos.state.pa.us/bcel/cwp/view.asp?a=1099&q=443600 , which numbers are from April of 2004, so they should catch most of the Westmoreland conservatives who have switched from Dem to Republican as the Dems move further left. But adjusting for the county's GOP registration numbers, GOP turnout still seems a bit low in Westmoreland, although not as low as I originally thought, and I'd still look into it.


"Also, there were other down ballot races that, if on the D side ,could have boosted the ratio in favor of Democrats in that area. Also, one of the Dem AGs may be particularly popular there."

---

Those are certainly possibilities, although the Dem AG race was split 36.6%-36.4%-26.9% among the three candidates, and there weren't any contested congressional primaries in the county (other than the Dem primary in the portion of the county lying in the 4th CD, but very few people voted in that one). You may be right and I might be making mountains out of molehills, but I've seen too many tabulation errors in other elections (heck, in this one too, in Bucks County) to believe that those results shouldn't be scrutinized.