The Johnson County (Missouri) Clerk’s Office needs to review what is being put on the Web as election results. The report for the three “polling places” inside the Warrensburg City Limits show confusing and misleading numbers for the Warrensburg City Council race in the April 7, 2009, Municipal Election. It only shows one number for the total of the registered voters in the two Precincts who vote at each of the polling places. This total number has no further breakout into either a precinct or city voter number. These data are confusing and make no sense when expressed as percentages in these City Council Election reports. The numbers include the rural voters who should not be allowed to vote in the City elections! Voters who live outside the Warrensburg city limits have an entirely different ballot which includes the county issues and other districts in which they are eligible to vote but exclude the City ballot issues.
Without reasonably verifiable election results which are easily interpretable, we are left to imagine – perhaps clerical errors. This clerk’s office no longer provides verifiable Precinct reports as in the past.
The method percentages are calculated and displayed on the web page should be changed. Without individual Precinct reports, the public cannot review the election results and be certain the numbers are accurate and reasonable. The manually entered data opens the greater probability of a “human error factor!” Just because data are being processed with and displayed by a computer, does not give this report any additional credibility. Voters deserve a complete, accurate, and believable report!
Supporting Calculations:
To report “WBG SE-1/ Montserrat” polling place totals of 3,812 registered voters and 1,068 cards cast for 28.02% voting percentage is inaccurate for the City Council race which had only 364 total votes cast! Montserrat voters should not even vote for Warrensburg City Council. My numbers for Warrensburg SE1 taken from data provided by the Clerk’s office on October 24, 2008, shows 2,631 total registered voters and only 1,475 voters who reside within the Warrensburg City limits! My percentage calculation based on the number of votes reported as cast in Warrensburg SE1 by the Clerk’s web site (364) divided by my calculated city voters (1,475) results in 24.68% actually cast. Since the Clerk no longer provides individual Precinct totals, this is the best guess estimate percentage I can make. My numbers could be adjusted to account for newly registered or deleted voters, but I would not expect a significant change in the numbers.
From the numbers reported above, it appears that about twice as many Montserrat ballots were cast as were cast by Warrensburg SE1 voters (1,068 – 364 = 704). Actually, the difference includes the SE1 rural voters, too. If I multiply the Wbg SE1 rural voters (1,156) by the 24.68% performance of the town counterparts, approximately 285 voters living in Wbg SE1 but outside the Warrensburg City limits may have voted. The City votes (364) plus non-city votes (285) equals a total estimate for Warrensburg SE1 of 649 votes cast and leaving Montserrat with 419 votes cast for a nearly whopping 40% April turnout!
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