I do have a blog. Click on my name to sample it.

But I wished to involve myself in Virginia politics so I sought out blogs that were more specific on this subject then were mine.

Stupid me.

Hey, quake at the involvement of my vote in recent elections. Although I am only one man with one vote (and a few voters in my family that listen to my opinion) I have recently been pretty successful in getting those I voted for elected.

Now, up until you included guys like me in the conversation, just how successful were you? If you exclude me from the conversation I might have to swing the other way.

Like drunks coming out of the bar, we must swing from one side to the next. I’ve been voting Democratic recently, but if liberal Dems get drunk on their success I can swing Republican to teach them a lesson.

Reality (sometimes, not always) follows my vote. I think my vote is a better barometer then yours.

An interesting case is, of course, the Georgia Senate run-off election. In the general election, there was 65% turnout, but in the run-off, only 35%. If that missing 30% cared about the Senate election, why didn’t they vote?

I do not know whether such surveys have been done. It would have been nice if Virginia had done such surveys before deciding that just having more voters is better, even if those voters may not be informed.

So in 2004, the tally would have been:

Flier Precincts:
Oberndorf…1244…48.63%
Dean……..1314…51.37%

City-wide:
Oberndorf…21,533…52.32%
Dean……..19,625…47.68%

In 2008, the tally would have been:

Flier Precints:
Oberndorf…6703….40.19%
Sessoms…..9974….59.81%

City-wide:
Oberndorf…82,484….40.89%
Sessoms….119,236….59.11%

Again, in 2004, Oberndorf had a 3.69% deficit in the flier precincts vs. city-wide, but in 2008 that deficit narrowed to 0.70%.

When we assumed an even split, those deficits were 3.37% in 2004 and 0.44% in 2008.

Like I said, apples and oranges.

But given the different dynamics in the 2004 versus 2008 races, I still think its an apples to oranges comparison.

Or, as Kirwin said, useless.

I am sure you have observations that are germane to this subject…like for instance historical insight into other election-related fraud and what the outcome was. Just a suggestion.

Also, it seems like you have a lot to say. Have you considered making a blog of your own? They are free, and can be both endless headaches and/or fun, depending on the day.

Also just a suggestion. You just seem really tense.

My last reply to MB was not germane to the subject. However it was applicable to a previous, unrelated post by him.

And I could not resist in taking off after the “sun rising in the east and setting in the west” comment.

I apologize for being too ready at the keyboard.

Us guys living in the center get to benefit from both the sunrise and the sunset.

For 2004, the second number is correct, Oberndorf got 54.09% of the major-party votes — 20,907 out of 38,653.

Ignoring the minor candidates, as Vivian does, Oberndorf got 47.15% of the votes and Sessoms got 52.85%. City-wide, the results were 47.59% of Oberndorf and 52.41% for Sessoms. So she fared slightly better in the flier districts than in the city as a whole, but not so well as in what Vivian calls “Democratic districts.”

In 2004, again taking only the numbers for the two major candidates, Oberndorf actually fared WORSE in the “flier districts.” She took 54.05% of the vote city-wide, but only 50.72% of the “flier district” votes.

In the project of the 2004 election to the 2008 turnout, Vivian projected the TOTAL turnout, not just the votes for Oberndorf and Dean. Since in 2004, only 6% of the vote went to other candidates, while nearly 25% did in 2008. Let’s look at Seatack:

For example, for Seatack, 1,959/3,363*3309 equals 1,928 total projected votes and 130/(130+146)*1,928 equals 908 votes for Oberndorf and 146/(130+146)*1,928 equals 1,020 for Dean.

However, in 2008, Oberndorf and Sessoms together got 1371 votes, not 1959. Oberndorf got 47.1% of the major-party votes in 2004 (130 out of 276), so that would translate into 695 votes in 2008. The 564 she got is still a 131 vote drop, but not a 344 vote drop.

Seatack is, of course, only one district. In the flier districts as a whole, Oberndorf did WORSE in 2004. To reiterate, Oberndorf got 50.72% of the flier-district major-party votes in 2004, versus 54.09% city-wide — a 3.37% difference. In 2008, however, she got 47.15% of the flier-district major-party votes, versus 47.59% city-wide — only a 0.44% difference.

Comparing how Meyera did against him to anything else is pretty useless.