We were expecting conservatives to immediately blame their election defeats on voter fraud, and predictably their claims don’t have a leg to stand on. Yesterday, Buster Wilson of the American Family Association on AFA Today said that Rep. Allen West lost his campaign for re-election because of Democratic voter fraud, a point also made by AFA spokesman Bryan Fischer. Just like when Wilson thought he discovered Obama’s student ID proving he wasn’t born in the U.S. or exposed the militarization of the National Weather Service, Wilson now believes he uncovered massive voter fraud in Florida.
Allen West is one of the greatest Americans I’ve ever met. I just love this guy. I want to tell you, Allen West is the kind of American that after being around for just a few minutes you just go, man, I’m proud to be an American! Just being around him does that to me. His life story is awesome, his conservative politics is admirable, I’m not happy to see this. However, Rep. West is unwilling to concede because of the fraud in the voting in his district. He said there is one voting district there that had 141 percent of registered voters voting. 141 percent? That’s a little bit over the right number, isn’t it?
But Wilson’s claim, which is also touted on conservative sites like Townhall and WorldNetDaily, that a county in West’s district had “141 percent of registered voters voting” is not true.
The number Wilson points to is actually the percentage of “cards cast.” Since the ballot contains two cards, or the number of pages on the ballot, the voter turnout rate is approximately half of the cards cast [PDF].
As Chris Haire explains:
As for the case of St. Lucie, Fla., where 141 percent of registered voters apparently voted, I talked to a source there who says that only 70 percent of registered voters cast ballots. The reason for the mix up: This year's ballot was two-pages long, and for whatever reason, the St. Lucie Election Commission election day report notes the number of "cards" cast and not the number of ballots. Which means that the number of votes that were actually cast were half of what WND and others are now reporting.
And the county supervisor of elections notes:
Turnout percentages will show over 100% due to a two page ballot. the tabulation system (GEMS) provides voter turnout as equal to the total cards cast in the election divided by the number of registered voters. Also note that some voters chose not to return by mail the second card containing the amendments.
UPDATE: Wilson’s colleague at AFA Sandy Rios also claimed on her radio show that the presidential election and West’s race were “stolen,” making the same exact false claim that in “Allen West’s congressional district, initially on the first count, I think 140 percent of the people registered to vote, voted.” Rios added that the overwhelming support Obama received in inner-city precincts is proof of fraud, even though such overwhelming margins are neither without precedent nor evidence of fraud.
I just heard Paul Ryan in the news, in an interview he was saying that President Obama deserves to be congratulated because he won fair and square. I am not quite sure why he would say that, I don’t agree with that. I find myself increasingly believing that this election was indeed stolen and I’ll tell you why, I’ve been telling you why. Allen West alone in Florida, 4,000 voters were added to his opponent's tally just in mere minutes late at night, 1:00 in the morning, 4,000 votes were flipped to his opponent and at that time Allen West was ahead by like 2,500 votes or something like that. In many precincts Ohio, in over one hundred of them, President Obama got over 99 percent of the vote, which is statistically impossible. In Allen West’s congressional district, initially on the first count I think 140 percent of the people registered to vote, voted. So you see what I’m saying?
