What Happened at McCrorey Y Election Night?

Republican activist Jay Morrison raises some very interesting questions about the vote totals that came in from McCrorey YMCA late Tuesday night. That particular precinct bucked trends in the rest of the county and actually produced more votes in 2006 than in 2002.

Moreover, those votes broke heavily Democrat and had the effect of boosting Parks Helms from a fourth-place finish and ouster from the Mecklenburg County Commission, to third-place and another term in office.

Overall, Meck had about 24 percent fewer voters in 2006 than in 2002. Yet McCrorey’s Democrat totals went up by about 18 percent and overall votes went up by eight percent. In 2002 Democratic county commission candidates pulled 3013 out of McCrorey, Precinct 210. In 2006 they got 3278.

Put another way, in 2002 Precinct 210 produced 1.7 percent of all votes county-wide, in 2006 that number jumped to 2.4 percent.

Alright, so what? Maybe that precinct had a great GoTV effort for Democrats, that does happen. Yes, it does. But McCrorey is also noteworthy for keeping the polls open until 9pm on election night. It was the last precinct to finish reporting. The official reason: Big lines at the polling place at the 7:30pm closure time.

Fair enough. Each vote should be time-stamped, so we can go back and re-create the rate of voting that day and evening. To be consistent with the long-lines theory, the rate of voting should ramp up around 7pm and remain heavy right up thru 9pm.

Right now, it appears Precinct 210 was hit with a rare double whammy: More voters than expected and those voters showed up much later than expected. Again, it is possible that such things happen, but two odd elements, timing and size, have to raise questions.

Morrison believes that Precinct 210 produced about 400 “too many” votes for Parks Helms. Right now, Helms holds a 79 vote lead over Republican Kaye McGarry for the final at-large seat.

Taken together, all these factors should drive the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections to check and re-check the results coming out of Precinct 210 before these results can be considered final.