Up-To-Date? Um, No...

If you need any further evidence as to how badly the Tribune-Review does it's research or how low an opinion of its audience it holds, you need only look here:

Townhall.com reports that only one precinct in St. Lucie County, Fla., had a voter turnout of less than 113 percent in the November elections. One actually had a turnout of nearly 160 percent. But, according to “progressives,” voter fraud is a conservative myth. Ahem.

You'll note that the link to Townhall doesn't go to anything specific at Townhall, just the front page.  That should be the warning that something's up.  So let's look around.

The thing is, if you google the phrase "lucie county" at "townhall.com" (via google's "advanced" functionality) you can find a comment dated January 25, 2013 that links back to an earlier blog post at Townhall.

Here's that original posting:

On Tuesday only one precinct had less than 113% turnout. “The Unofficial vote count is 175,554 registered voters 247,713 vote cards cast (141.10% ). The National SEAL Museum, a St. Lucie county polling place, had 158.85% voter turn out, the highest in the county.”

And if you were to click on the "113%" link, you'll find this page with this headline:

UPDATE: MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD IN ST. LUCIE COUNTY, FL CALLED INTO QUESTION – 141% TURNOUT

But...but...but...CHECK THE TIMESTAMP OF THAT FIRST BLOG POST.  Here it is:

Nov 10, 2012 01:21 PM EST

So yea, Townhall did report what the braintrust said it reported - three months ago.

But let's look deeper at those numbers.  If you were to go to the Lucie County Elections website, you'll find this pdf where it says quite clearly:

Registered Voters 175554 - Cards Cast 247383 140.92%

Cards cast? What does that mean? Is it the same as Votes cast?  In order for the myth to work, it has to.

Snopes.com had an answer for this - a month and a half ago:

This statement demonstrates a misunderstanding between the difference in "number of votes" cast and "number of cards" cast. The official election results from St. Lucie County, Florida, show, a total of 123,301 votes were cast for the office of President of the United States, but a total of 247,383 cards were cast because St. Lucie County used a two-page ballot (i.e., a ballot consisting of two cards), so every voter who returned both pages of his ballot cast two cards.

As the web site of that county's elections board explains: "Turnout percentages will show over 100% due to a two page ballot. The tabulation system (GEMS) provides voter turnout as equal to the total cards cast in the election divided by the number of registered voters. Also note that some voters chose not to return by mail the second card."

The braintrust can usually be counted on to be dutifully wingnut on most things - but to get something this easily checked and "old" (in news terms) is just embarrassing.