Faulty Maths

Russell is crediting evangelical Christians with Bush’s victory. It is amusing that what should be something to celebrate – the highest turnout in the US since the 1960s – is seen as bad, because the wrong people turned out!

Russell has also been quoting the exit polls at length to list all the grouops which did not vote for Bush. The mosy amusing part is where he says “Kerry won a majority of those who did not vote last time, and picked up slightly more 2000 Bush voters than Bush won over 2000 Gore voters.”

Now think hard about this. It is not a trick question. But if Kerry picked up more 2000 Bush voters than 2000 Gore defected to Bush, *and* if Kerry got most of the new voters, then Kerry would have won the popular vote easily!! Well unless one thinks 2000 Nader voters defected to Bush. The statement quoted is a nonsense.

The exit poll is flawed. If one just takes the gender breakdown, then combining men and women Kerry got 50.8% and Bush 48.2% – the opposite of the result.