Arizona 1972

[gorkay]

This may have been asked before, but if so, I missed it. Does anyone know why the Socialist Workers party got so many votes in Arizona in the 1972 election?

[Verily]

There was a mistake with the ballots where a bunch of Republican voters accidentally voted for the Socialist Workers Party instead. The courts ruled that the ballots should be counted for both candidates (and should have been the precedent used in Bush v Gore with the Palm Beach County Buchanan voters, but w/e).

[jimrtex]

There was a mistake with the ballots where a bunch of Republican voters accidentally voted for the Socialist Workers Party instead. The courts ruled that the ballots should be counted for both candidates (and should have been the precedent used in Bush v Gore with the Palm Beach County Buchanan voters, but w/e).

This was the only account that I could find.

Early and Often
Twenty-eight years ago, Arizona easily solved the Palm Beach County problem

It does not mention any court rulings.  Instead it sounds like the state and county officials went back and forth for a couple of days and at first decided to not count the double votes, and then decided not to bother with a recount (Nixon had a 200,000 vote lead in Arizona).

There is no mention of voters voting for the SWP electors instead of one of the three presidential candidates. 

There is no mention of Republican voters voting for the SWP electors.  In fact, they mention that there were heavily Democrat precincts where the SWP received more votes than Nixon, apparently due to McGovern voters voting both for him and the SWP.  I'd guess that the mixup vote was probably about 50/50, which would mean that 19% of GOP voters, and 25% of Democrat voters voted twice.  Perhaps it might be even heavier.  I'd expect Democrat-leaning voters to be more likely to be confused and/or deliberately vote for a SWP candidate.

This case is actually more like the two page punch card ballots in Duval County, and the two column ballots in several of the mark sense counties, which results some voters overvoting.

[bullmoose88]

There was a mistake with the ballots where a bunch of Republican voters accidentally voted for the Socialist Workers Party instead. The courts ruled that the ballots should be counted for both candidates (and should have been the precedent used in Bush v Gore with the Palm Beach County Buchanan voters, but w/e).

Which court rulings?

[Verily]

There was a mistake with the ballots where a bunch of Republican voters accidentally voted for the Socialist Workers Party instead. The courts ruled that the ballots should be counted for both candidates (and should have been the precedent used in Bush v Gore with the Palm Beach County Buchanan voters, but w/e).

This was the only account that I could find.

Early and Often
Twenty-eight years ago, Arizona easily solved the Palm Beach County problem

It does not mention any court rulings.  Instead it sounds like the state and county officials went back and forth for a couple of days and at first decided to not count the double votes, and then decided not to bother with a recount (Nixon had a 200,000 vote lead in Arizona).

There is no mention of voters voting for the SWP electors instead of one of the three presidential candidates. 

There is no mention of Republican voters voting for the SWP electors.  In fact, they mention that there were heavily Democrat precincts where the SWP received more votes than Nixon, apparently due to McGovern voters voting both for him and the SWP.  I'd guess that the mixup vote was probably about 50/50, which would mean that 19% of GOP voters, and 25% of Democrat voters voted twice.  Perhaps it might be even heavier.  I'd expect Democrat-leaning voters to be more likely to be confused and/or deliberately vote for a SWP candidate.

This case is actually more like the two page punch card ballots in Duval County, and the two column ballots in several of the mark sense counties, which results some voters overvoting.

Perhaps the description of the incident I heard was off. I only heard it once and then dismissed it as an electoral oddity at the time.