General Discussion

After the 2012 election results were final, some claimed that fraud was the only way to explain voting numbers in Philadelphia which showed Mitt Romney getting no votes at all in dozens of precincts in that city. But a review of election returns from all over the country shows that while such a result is rare, it happens more than you might think, and will probably happen again on November 8. Romney received zero votes in six precincts located in Fulton County, Georgia, which is home to much of the city of Atlanta. The largest spread was 327-0 for Obama in precinct CP083, on the southeast side of College Park, Georgia, an area that is over 80 percent African American, not far from downtown Atlanta. There were seven other precincts in that same county where Romney received only a single vote; in one precinct, Obama ran up an 898-1 advantage.

Another prime example was Cuyahoga County in Ohio, home to Cleveland, where Obama ran up a 6,354-0 margin in the 19 precincts where Romney did not win even one vote. There were also 27 other precincts statewide in Ohio where Romney only received one vote, like in Dayton, where one precinct went 599-1 for Obama. There were two small precincts in the Buckeye State where Obama received no votes.

One of the more interesting states in 2012 was Louisiana, where 75 precincts won by Obama did not give a single vote to Romney - but, there were also 46 other precincts won by Romney where Obama did not get one vote. Lincoln Parish, in northern Louisiana was notable, because that parish had nine precincts where Barack Obama did not get a single vote, and also seven other precincts where Mitt Romney did not receive one vote. All in the same county.

And these kind of results did not happen only in 2012. Political science professor Jonathan Rodden of Stanford University ran the numbers for the 2008 election, and found hundreds of precincts where John McCain received no votes - and some that gave no votes to Obama as well. "If we limit ourselves to precincts in which at least 10 votes were cast, there are almost 180,000" in the U.S., Rodden told me. "Of these, 477 gave every single vote to Obama, and 52 gave every single vote to McCain."