Paul Supporter Alleges Inaccurate GOP Results Mean Santorum, Not Romney, Winner of Iowa Caucus

By Brad Friedman on 1/5/2012 9:31pm

Paul Supporter Alleges Inaccurate GOP Results Mean Santorum, Not Ro...

Thanks to the transparent, open counting process at Tuesday's night's Iowa GOP Caucuses, and a Ron Paul supporter who was paying close attention to the results, we may now be learning that Rick Santorum, not Mitt Romney, actually won the "First-in-the-Nation" Iowa Caucuses this week.

According to a report tonight from television station KCCI NewsChannel 8 in Des Mo..., Edward True, a supporter of Paul's says he participated in the counting at the Washington Wells caucus in Appanoose County and wrote down the results he witnessed there on a piece of paper which he posted to Facebook that night. Later, in comparing his totals to the precinct results made available on the Iowa GOP website [CSV version here], he noticed that Romney is shown as receiving 22 votes at that precinct, rather than the 2 that True recorded him as receiving that night at the caucus.

If True is correct, and if not other anomalies are discovered in the coming days, it would mean that Santorum will have won the Iowa Caucuses by 12 votes, rather than lost it to Romney by 8, as reported by the GOP in the early morning hours on Wednesday...

According to KCCI:

Edward True, 28, of Moulton, said he helped count the votes and jotted the results down on a piece of paper to post to his Facebook page. He said when he checked to make sure the Republican Party of Iowa got the count right, he said he was shocked to find they hadn't.
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True said at his 53-person caucus at the Garrett Memorial Library, Romney received two votes. According to the Iowa Republican Party's website, True's precinct cast 22 votes for Romney.

"This is huge," True said. "It essentially changes who won."
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True --- who said he's a Ron Paul supporter --- hopes it was a simple mistake.

"I imagine it's a good possibility that somebody instead of hitting 2 might have hit 22 by accident," True said. "I hope so."

But he said he won't stop talking about it until the state --- by his count --- gets the numbers right.

"Numbers that I personally witnessed being counted and assisted in counting and am certain are right," he said.

"The story on Romney getting extra votes as a result of a typo looks credible IMO," tweeted Nate Silver of New York Times tonight. "Romney did very badly in other precincts in that county."

Indeed, according to the Iowa GOP's posted results, out of 13 caucuses in Appanoose County, Romney received double-digits at only one other caucus beside Washington Wells. He is said to have received 20 votes at Vermillion Douglas Sharon, but other than those two sites, Romney received just 45 at the other 11 caucus sites combined...

In KCCI's video report (which does not appear to be embeddable, but is available on their story page), reporter Amanda Lewis notes that True also points to a discrepancy in the number of voters at his caucus, in addition to one more question that The BRAD BLOG has been able to solve.

As Lewis explains: "True said that there was one other mistake. The Iowa GOP reports there were a total of 79 votes cast at his caucus, but only 53 people attended that night, he said. He said 20 of the non-existent votes went to Romney, but he has no idea where they counted an additional 6."

Well, we've figured out where those "additional 6" seem to come from. True's hand-written tally [see graphic at right] fails to include former Louisia Governor Buddy Roemer who, according to the GOP's numbers seen above, received 6 votes at the Washington Wells caucus. Those 6, plus the alleged extra 20 given to Romney, would bring the total number of votes to 79. That still fails to explain the difference, however, between True's assertion of 53 voters, versus the GOP's reported 79.

Other than the missing Roemer tally and the Romney discrepancy, all of True's numbers appear to match the GOP's.

We've not been able to find True's Facebook page as of yet, so can't confirm that he, in fact, posted those results there that night, but we'll presume for now that KCCI was able to confirm as much prior to their report. (Though why they couldn't find Roemer's 6 votes listed in the Iowa GOP totals --- which they even show in their video report --- is another matter.) http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9044&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_...

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Permalink Reply by P.J.Kelley on January 6, 2012 at 6:54am

The total number of voters shoul be a seperately checked tally. How many actual ballots were used, or how many heinies were in the voting pool. The
they seem to be adding votrd to determine the actual number of voters without an actual headcount casts doubt on the votong process used in the whole state.

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Permalink Reply by truth on January 6, 2012 at 8:57am

The chairman of the Iowa Republican Party issued a statement Thursday night in response to a story from the Des Moines CBS affiliate, KCCI, which reports there was a 20-vote discrepancy in rural Appanoose county, which is located along the Missouri line.

Full statement below from Strawn:

"Iowa GOP rules provide for a two-week certification process for each of the 1,774 precincts. The Iowa GOP will announce the final, certified results of the 2012 Iowa Causes following this process. Out of respect to the candidates involved, party officials we will not respond to every rumor, innuendo or allegation during the two week process. That said, Iowa GOP officials have been in contact with Appanoose County Republican officials tonight and do not have any reason to believe the final, certified results of Appanoose County will change the outcome of Tuesday's vote."

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/06/10001836-aint-over-...

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Permalink Reply by P.J.Kelley on January 6, 2012 at 10:27am

Let me try again, because before I had just woken up and can't type on a phone anyway.

There should be a tally of total voters. The numbers of votes should match this list. If it doesn't, there is a problem.

The total number of voters should not be determined by the number of votes for individual candidates without reference to a 'Master List' detailing exactly how many ballots were cast.

Let me give a real world example. If you own a movie theatre, and your ticket sales are $100 dollars total at $10/ticket, you had 10 customers, right? Well, not necessarily. People might have come in, and the ticket seller had just kept their cash and not told you, or passed out incorrect change by accident.

If you saw this as a possibility, ie., you felt there was some motivation for a miscount, either by human error or on purpose, you might physically count the number of fannies in the seats while the movie is showing, or count the people walking into the theatre, or, as in Iowa, have someone like this True fellow monitoring the "ticket seller", or vote counter.

I am not speculating about anything in Iowa. I am just saying that determining the actual total number of voters solely by number of votes for individual candidates without reference to a seperate physical total is an unbelievably irresponsible way to do it, and if this system is statewide, or. God forbid, nationwide, one wonders why the votes needed to be tabulated in a "secure location" at all. It would have been just as easy to rig the vote right on the spot. Why not just give Romney 220 votes? For that matter, I'm feeling generous. Let's make it 22 million extra.

True could be debunked in 3 seconds, if they had a headcount of voters, or so it seems. I've studied statistics a lot, but this isn't statistics. This is arithmetic.

Should True have kept his mouth shut about it? Should Joe Paterno have kept his mouth shut about that kid getting raped in the shower by a football coach?