I was looking at the live election map for the CA recall. According to the data, which comes from the Associated Press, Gruesome is winning with a total vote count of:
Question 1
no: 5,887,471 | 63.83%
yes: 3,335,779 | 36.17%
with currently 74% reporting.
I decided to look at question 2 on the ballot which was if you want to recall Gruesome, who do you want to replace him.
Looking at CA, adding up all the numbers I get a total of:
Question 2
5,086,288
Edit: 3,474,464 Republican Candidate (4% more than "yes")
That's 1.75 Million more people than voted "yes".
I am sure its possible that there were some people who didn't understand the point of how the ballots worked, but not more than 50% of the total population that voted "yes." People are stupid. That many people aren't that stupid.
Edit: On the ballot apparently people were told to vote for a candidate even if they vote "no" (hedge their bets) (I did not notice that on my ballot). This makes the above statement totally wrong. However, the data on this shows something interesting. In this case only 55% of people voted on both "yes" or "no" and voted for a candidate. That means 45% voted for just a "yes" or a "no" and left the candidate blank. That is a HUGE amount. I am not sure what that means, it could imply several things, but it smells like massive scale fuckery. As can be seen in the edits I included in each section, there are more votes for a Republican Candidate in every case than there are "yes" votes. This makes zero sense. I think this is a potentially useful place for more analysis.
I then decided to look at some counties.
San Francisco
Question 1
no: 232,877 | 86.69%
yes: 35,742 | 13.31%
with 80.5% reporting
Question 2:
96,060
Almost 3 times the total voting "yes".
Edit: 41,512 Republican Candidate (16% more than "yes")
Los Angeles County
Question 1
no: 1,598,140 | 70.85%
yes: 657,584 | 29.15%
with also 80.5% reporting
Question 2:
1,129,813
Almost double the number voting "yes".
Edit: 700,622 Republican Candidate (7% more than "yes")
San Diego
Question 1
no: 512975 | 58.60%
yes: 362449 | 41.40%
Question 2
554,844
65% more than voted "yes"
Edit: 396,864 Republican Candidate (9.5% more than "yes")
I decided to look at one of the larger "yes" dominants to see how accurate it was. I chose Fresno county.
Fresno
Question 1
yes: 90,181 | 50.19%
no: 89,502 | 49.81%
with 83.5% reporting
Question 2
117,224
31% more than apparently voted "yes".
Edit: 92,433 Republican Candidate (2.5% more than "yes")
I decided to look at a couple counties with mostly college town populations, otherwise thought to be Bastions of Blueness.
San Luis Obispo
Question 1
no: 37,977 | 59.17%
yes: 26,207 | 40.83%
53.8% reporting
Question 2
38,490
47% more than the "yes" vote.
Edit: 27,766 Republican Candidate (6% more than "yes")
Yolo
Question 1
no: 37,591 | 71.41%
yes: 15,052 | 28.59%
65.6% reporting
Question 2
27,366
Edit: 16,606 Republican Candidate (10% more than "yes")
Almost double the "yes" vote.
WE MUST BEGIN AUDIT PROCEDURES NOW!!!
Edit 2: I added in all the Republican Candidate totals according to this data. In each case the total that voted for Rep. was higher than the total 'yes" vote count. Even assuming not a single Democrat voted "yes" (which I know first hand is not true) the numbers most certainly do not add up.
Edit: It was pointed out to me that some Democrats might have "hedged their bets" by voting both "no" and voting for another candidate.
According to this data, there were 3,474,464 people who voted for a Republican Candidate (of the 3,335,779 that voted "yes"). If we assume every single Democrat voted "no" and did not hedge their bet with a Republican candidate, choosing instead one of the Dem, Ind, or Green candidates, then only 1,611,824 of the 5,887,471 "no"s (27%) hedged their bets in this way. Plausible I suppose, but unlikely on all counts. I know many otherwise democrats who wanted Gruesome out.
Still, it is a valid argument against my analysis to some extent.
I have no doubt that this recall election was grotesquely stolen, but I don't think there's anything inherently suspect about people selecting a (back-up) choice on question 2 even if they voted "No" on Question 1. It only makes sense that they would/should.
Now I could be missing something in what you are saying, and I won't suggest there's nothing to be uncovered in the analysis of voting patterns on these two questions, but again, if the claim is just that nobody who voted "No" on Question 1 could be expected to also select a preferred candidate in case "Yes" prevailed (which it, rightly, should have, BTW), I think that's probably an erroneous assumption.
See my further analysis as an edit at the end. This is a valid criticism, but it still doesn't add up.
Anyone who votes would choose a candidate. There's no "if no on recall, skip to end" instruction. I'm in California, voted on ballot. The ballot is only two questions, and the implication is that you should respond to both.
Yes, I edited the post to reflect that. The numbers still don't add up. In addition, according to the data only 55% of all voters did that. Which means 45% voted only "no" (or only "yes" or "no") and nothing else.
Yeah, that's crazy.