I saw a diary by Dr. Squid and I decided to add my own bit on raw vote numbers. In my case it was to analyze and put the lie to any accusation of fraud in the result of the election. I know there's been so much yelling about fraud from the right wing that it's easy to tune out, and it seems to have settled down since the Tuesday but it's sure to raise its ugly head again soon.
What I wanted to know was, if you order states by the margin of winning as a percent of votes cast in the state for Romney and Obama then how many (and which) states could have swung the other way with Obama still winning. The results may surprise you.
Continued under the squiggle...
The states with the smallest percentage win that could have gone to Romney without affecting the outcome were Florida, Ohio, and Virginia. Colorado would have tipped the result to Romney.
In some sense the states aren't a surprise - they are the known swing states. What surprised me is that all three could have gone the other way without altering the results.
Looking at the margin, Florida is the closest. To change the outcome over 26,000 votes would have had to change. The other swing states would need over 50,000 votes changed each - representing ~1 to 2% of their electorate.
Continuing, even if the necessary states had swung to Romney by the same number as decided the election for Obama, Obama would still have won the popular vote by over 2.6 million votes (not that it would matter in that instance).
That's the objective evidence.
My conclusion is that any hypothesis that Obamas reelection was somehow fraudulent or undeserved is rejected by the evidence. But there are certainly conservatives and Tea Party "independents" who are making those statements and are not shy about doing so. Searching for '"obama won by fraud" 2012' on google returns 1,270 results. Variations on this return hundreds of millions of hits.
So are Republicans pursuing any charges of fraud seriously? Or will any declarations of fraud be simple rhetoric (you have to love Trumps meltdown ;-)? I'd argue that even if fraud had occurred (which I strongly contend did not happen) the margins are at a scale that would have been detected or could be discovered after the fact.
On the other hand, if the charges of voter suppression for political purposes leveled by Democrats are true it would have significantly increased Obamas legitimate winning margin.
By the way, the numbers came from the Huffington Post election site. Some were still changing as I extracted the data. I double checked the data so I hope I didn't inject any errors.
State |
Abbr |
Obama Votes |
Romney Votes |
Elec Votes |
Obama Margin |
Margin % |
Running EV Total |
District of Columbia |
DC |
222,332 |
17,337 |
3 |
204,995 |
85.533% |
3 |
Hawaii |
HI |
303,090 |
119,494 |
4 |
183,596 |
43.446% |
7 |
Vermont |
VT |
199,259 |
92,700 |
3 |
106,559 |
36.498% |
10 |
Rhode Island |
RI |
274,342 |
155,355 |
4 |
118,987 |
27.691% |
14 |
New York |
NY |
3,873,680 |
2,225,482 |
29 |
1,648,198 |
27.023% |
43 |
Maryland |
MD |
1,527,686 |
904,970 |
10 |
622,716 |
25.598% |
53 |
Massachusets |
MA |
1,900,575 |
1,177,370 |
11 |
723,205 |
23.496% |
64 |
California |
CA |
5,658,572 |
3,685,045 |
55 |
1,973,527 |
21.122% |
119 |
Delaware |
DE |
242,547 |
165,476 |
3 |
77,071 |
18.889% |
122 |
Connecticut |
CT |
905,467 |
623,605 |
7 |
281,862 |
18.434% |
129 |
New Jersey |
NJ |
1,960,744 |
1,383,233 |
14 |
577,511 |
17.270% |
143 |
Illinois |
IL |
2,916,811 |
2,090,116 |
20 |
826,695 |
16.511% |
163 |
Maine |
ME |
397,754 |
290,437 |
4 |
107,317 |
15.594% |
167 |
Washington |
WA |
1,356,831 |
1,032,590 |
12 |
324,241 |
13.570% |
179 |
Oregon |
OR |
905,831 |
714,194 |
7 |
191,637 |
11.829% |
186 |
New Mexico |
NM |
408,312 |
331,915 |
5 |
76,397 |
10.321% |
191 |
Michigan |
MI |
2,490,290 |
2,097,107 |
16 |
393,183 |
8.571% |
207 |
Minnesota |
MN |
1,544,861 |
1,321,508 |
10 |
223,353 |
7.792% |
217 |
Wisconsin |
WI |
1,613,950 |
1,408,746 |
10 |
205,204 |
6.789% |
227 |
Nevada |
NV |
528,801 |
462,422 |
6 |
66,379 |
6.697% |
233 |
New Hampshire |
NH |
368,529 |
327,870 |
4 |
40,659 |
5.838% |
237 |
Iowa |
IA |
816,429 |
727,928 |
6 |
88,501 |
5.731% |
243 |
Pennsylvania |
PA |
2,907,448 |
2,619,583 |
20 |
287,865 |
5.208% |
263 |
Colorado |
CO |
1,238,490 |
1,125,391 |
9 |
113,099 |
4.784% |
272 |
Virginia |
VA |
1,905,528 |
1,789,618 |
13 |
115,910 |
3.137% |
285 |
Ohio |
OH |
2,697,308 |
2,593,789 |
18 |
103,519 |
1.956% |
303 |
Florida |
FL |
4,169,972 |
4,117,602 |
29 |
52,370 |
0.632% |
332 |
^^ Obama |
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|
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vv Romney |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
North Carolina |
NC |
2,178,388 |
2,275,853 |
15 |
-97,465 |
-2.188% |
206 |
Georgia |
GA |
1,761,761 |
2,070,221 |
16 |
-308,460 |
-8.050% |
191 |
Missouri |
MO |
1,215,031 |
1,478,961 |
10 |
-263,930 |
-9.797% |
175 |
Indiana |
IN |
1,140,379 |
1,412,591 |
11 |
-272,212 |
-10.663% |
165 |
South Carolina |
SC |
845,756 |
1,049,507 |
9 |
-203,751 |
-10.751% |
154 |
Arizona |
AZ |
784,554 |
977,431 |
11 |
-192,877 |
-10.947% |
145 |
Mississippi |
MS |
526,671 |
671,832 |
6 |
-145,161 |
-12.112% |
134 |
Montana |
MT |
200,489 |
264,974 |
3 |
-64,485 |
-13.854% |
128 |
Alaska |
AK |
91,696 |
121,234 |
3 |
-29,538 |
-13.872% |
125 |
Texas |
TX |
3,294,440 |
4,555,799 |
38 |
-1,261,359 |
-16.068% |
122 |
Louisiana |
LA |
808,496 |
1,152,460 |
8 |
-343,964 |
-17.541% |
84 |
South Dakota |
SD |
144,988 |
210,541 |
3 |
-65,553 |
-18.438% |
76 |
North Dakota |
ND |
124,490 |
187,586 |
3 |
-63,096 |
-20.218% |
73 |
Tennesee |
TN |
953,043 |
1,453,097 |
11 |
-500,054 |
-20.782% |
70 |
Alabama |
AL |
793,620 |
1,252,453 |
9 |
-458,833 |
-22.425% |
59 |
Kansas |
KS |
427,918 |
678,719 |
6 |
-250,801 |
-22.663% |
50 |
Kentucky |
KY |
679,340 |
1,087,127 |
8 |
-407,787 |
-23.085% |
44 |
Nebraska |
NE |
289,154 |
462,972 |
5 |
-173,818 |
-23.110% |
36 |
Arkansas |
AR |
389,699 |
638,467 |
6 |
-248,768 |
-24.195% |
31 |
West Virginia |
WV |
234,925 |
412,406 |
5 |
-177,481 |
-27.417% |
25 |
Idaho |
ID |
212,560 |
420,750 |
4 |
-208,190 |
-32.873% |
20 |
Oklahoma |
OK |
442,647 |
889,372 |
7 |
-446,725 |
-33.537% |
16 |
Wyoming |
WY |
68,780 |
170,265 |
3 |
-101,485 |
-42.454% |
9 |
Utah |
UT |
229,463 |
671,747 |
6 |
-442,284 |
-49.077% |
6 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total votes |
61,173,727 |
58,167,248 |
|
|
|
|
|
Obama margin |
3,006,479 |
-3,006,479 |
|
|
|
|
|
Romney win by same margins |
2,621,581 |
-2,621,581 |
|
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