Fulton County, Pennsylvania Election Mystery
I took a look at Fulton County, Pennsylvania and analyzed the voting patterns by age.
Fulton County is a very rural area, the only town is McConnellsburg with a population of 1,220. It's a very conservative place, they voted 84% for Trump in 2016, and 85.6% for Trump in 2020.
While looking at a spreadsheet I made of the age and party registrations and voting, a number popped out at me. 20.36% of registered Democrats were 75 years and older. I looked at three other counties - Somerset, Cambria, and Philadephia. They
had a ratio of registered Dems 75+ to total registered Dems of 16.7%, 15.6%, and 7.6% respectively. The overall PA registered Dems 75+ to total registered Dems is 10.5%.
So Fulton County's 75+ ratio of Dems was almost twice the state average.
I dug into the population numbers then:
The total county population (according to the 2020 census) is 14,845, and people of age 75+ is 1,018.
The number of Dems 75+ who are registered is 410, and the number of Rep 75+ who are registered is 722, for a total of 1,132.
Therefore, 1,132 minus 1,018 is112. More registered voters than the census says the total number of people is in that age group.
So 36% of registered voters 75+ are Dems in a county where the overall average across all age groups is 22.3%. The older you get, the more liberal you get in a very rural place?
To get a comparison, I took the difference between the percentage of registered Dems 75+ in Fulton County and the State percentage of those 75+. 20.36% minus 10.5% = 9.86%.
9.86% of total 75+ registered in Fulton County (1,132) is114.
Funny, that looks a whole lot like the extra number of registered voters more than the population according to the census.
Sources:
https://www.dos.pa.gov/VotingElections/OtherServicesEvents/VotingElectionStatistics/Pages/VotingElectionStatistics.aspx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton_County,_Pennsylvania
https://suburbanstats.org/population/pennsylvania/how-many-people-live-in-fulton-county
https://www.electionreturns.pa.gov/General/CountyResults?countyName=Fulton&ElectionID=undefined&ElectionType=G&IsActive=undefined