I wrote this diary yesterday and had some great feedback from the community about what a better graphic would look like to show the surprising (and as-yet inexplicable) GOP bias that large voting precincts have in many states.
I did most of my own analysis on Ohio. And Lately, the 2010 Election. I was wondering if anybody here wants to look at this graphic and tell me what they see in it, I can't really figure it out myself. . .
So the premise of this work is based on a paper that showed (apparently) a strong bias toward Mitt Romney for large voting precincts all over the country. If you would like to read the paper yourself you can find it here: http://www.themoneyparty.org/...
It turns out that this bias is also favored toward the GOP for general elections. Especially in Ohio.
So, through our conversations in the previous diary I thought it would be best to show the following graphic:
The bottom title should say, "Kasich by Precinct" I wanted the graph area to look as squarely as possible to allow easier analysis.
Each individual dot represents one polling location in the state of Ohio.
The data in the graph is the total votes for Kasich (x axis) in a given precinct and the total votes for Strickland (y axis) for that same precinct.
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What it shows me is that Strickland got a lot more votes than Kasich in the smaller polling locations (precincts with fewer people showing up on election day) and that there were many of these locations that voted only for Strickland.
(by the way, I checked the data and found that the vote counts looked right for those precincts and that these were all extremely democratic regions of the state)
It also shows me that in polling locations where Kasich did well, Strickland still got "some" of the votes from that location.
Finally, the big bulge down and to the right shows that in the precincts where Kasich won more than 400 votes, Strickland won a significantly smaller number of votes.
And this is what turned the election around for him.
what do you think? does this mean anything to you?
Here is another way to look at the same data.
All of the precincts are shown in quintiles or "fifths". So the first group is the 1/5th of all precincts that had the highest number of votes cast in it. then the next largest 1/5th and so on. You can see clearly that the republican candidate did extraordinarily well in the larger precincts than he did in the smaller ones.
finally, the locations of these precincts, here is the list of the 100 largest precincts in the data:
COUNTY NAME PRECINCT_NAME
Franklin WORTHINGTON 03-A
Franklin WORTHINGTON 03-B
Lucas MONCLOVA 2
Franklin BEXLEY 01-B
Wood 102 Bowling Green 3-E
Franklin COLUMBUS 20-A
Montgomery CV-O
Butler WEST CHESTER TWP 29
Montgomery KT 3-C
Franklin GROVE CITY 03-A
Franklin UPPER ARLINGTON 06-D
Franklin COLUMBUS 84-A
Montgomery WS-G
Hamilton WYOMING E
Hamilton DELHI Q
Franklin UPPER ARLINGTON 05-E
Butler LIBERTY TWP 23
Franklin GAHANNA 04-B
Hamilton WYOMING A
Franklin DUBLIN 03-A
Franklin WESTERVILLE 04-B
Franklin REYNOLDSBURG 02-A
Franklin COLUMBUS 28-E
Delaware POWELL H
Warren CLC-T-EA
Hamilton ANDERSON I
Delaware POWELL G
Delaware CONCORD B
Montgomery CV-E
Medina MONTVILLE TWP C
Franklin COLUMBUS 72-E
Franklin COLUMBUS 69-I
Franklin UPPER ARLINGTON 03-B
Montgomery KT 2-E
Medina MONTVILLE TWP B
Franklin WESTERVILLE 03-A
Montgomery WS-K
Franklin GRANDVIEW E
Coshocton 018 KEENE-MILL
Montgomery VD-H
Montgomery HAR-L
Miami 046 BETHEL SOUTH CENTRAL
Hamilton ANDERSON J
Franklin GROVE CITY 03-C
Warren HAM-T-NM
Montgomery CV-L
Lorain 150 N RIDGEVILLE 3-D
Franklin COLUMBUS 21-B
Hamilton GREEN W
Hamilton HARRISON E
Clark MFLD 2
Montgomery KT 1-H
Delaware GENOA E
Lake CONCORD TWP I
Lorain 028 AVON LAKE 1-C
Richland JEFFERSON TWP. A (BELLVI
Montgomery KT 2-B
Summit NFLD CTR TWP C
Putnam OTTAWA TWP. WEST/GLANDORF
Hamilton MIAMI TWP B
Franklin COLUMBUS 63-C
Franklin GROVE CITY 03-B
Hamilton GREEN E
Fairfield BL-B
Hamilton MARIEMONT B
Franklin JEFFERSON E
Montgomery CV-G
Lorain 016 AVON CITY 1-D
Licking ETE SWL
Hamilton MIAMI TWP D
Lucas SPRING 17
Franklin BEXLEY 02-B
Hamilton COLERAIN L
Hamilton WYOMING B
Franklin COLUMBUS 53-A
Franklin GAHANNA 04-D
Clark MR-2
Miami 040 TIPP CITY E
Warren HAM-T-NMA
Wayne 040 WOOSTER 4-G
Butler LIBERTY TWP 21
Clermont Pierce Township B
Delaware BERKSHIRE B
Montgomery TR 3-B
Darke 36TWIN
Lorain 013 AVON CITY 1-A
Lorain 060 ELYRIA CITY 3-F
Hamilton SPRINGFIELD U
Licking UTA
Licking HR D
Hamilton GREEN X
Miami 071 SPRINGCREEK
Trumbull HOWLAND TWP N
Hamilton GREEN QQ
Clark MR-5
Lucas SPRING 19
Wood 660 Perrysburg Twp. North
Hamilton COLERAIN Q
Hamilton MONTGOMERY B
Montgomery MIA-E
Clermont Miami Township Z
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In these 100 largest precincts in the state of Ohio in 2010 the Republican Candidate (Kasich) won 61.2% of the total votes cast in these precincts while the Democratic Incumbent (Strickland) won only 35.3%, with the rest going to third party candidates.
So, not sure what to make of all this, is there anything that you see in it?
Note: it looks like most of these polling locations are suburbs and unincorporated townships, could have higher republican demographics.