Mock the vote: Unscientific but interesting

Mock the vote: Unscientific but interesting

One of the more fun things I do at my job in the election office is our mock election. Every year we go out to the county fair, set up our voting equipment, and let people cast a mock ballot. We run the preliminary results a few times during the fair. It's voter education and it's fun.

Now, this isn't scientific. We let everybody "vote" - little kids, non-citizens, you name it. The newspaper always runs a picture of a little kid voting. We do make folks sign in and promise to vote only once - to my mind, if you try to cheat in a mock election at the fair you need to seriously consider getting a life. We knock our socks off to include the third parties.

We've been doing it a few years and it lets you compare July 2004 apples to July 2000 apples (even though in November we count oranges).

Our county fair runs a bit more rural and Republican than the county as a whole. Our county is traditionally the most Democratic in the state; in 2000 we was number one in the state for both Gore AND Nader and dead last for Bush (59-34-6). We even had a precinct where Bush ran THIRD behind Nader!

Here's some key numbers from the fair so far (noon of the last day) compared to the final 2000 stats. (My analysis only looks at the top three; complete results for the fair are here and here for 2000. And these are the real 2000 numbers.)

Bush: 42% in 2000, 42% in 2004. Exactly the same. 2000 actual vote: 34%.

Gore: 45%. Kerry: 56%. 2000 actual vote: Gore 59%.

How did that happen?

Nader 2000: 8.3%, on the way to 6% of the actual vote.

Nader plus Cobb 2004: 1.2%.

That's right: 1.2%. Even though it's a silly old mock election that doesn't mean squat, more than 3/4 of the Nader and/or Green vote has shifted to the Democrats.

How many Green apples will vote Kerry in November when all the oranges are on the table?

UPDATE: Final numbers show no major change. Kerry 56.5, Bush 41.2, Nader + Cobb 1.3.