Penn led the vote against Dartmouth on election day - or so we say

Penn says they led the vote last Tuesday in a competition with Dartmouth College to turn out the greater number of voters on election day.

But in homage to the 2000 presidential election, Dartmouth is challenging Penn's numbers and has yet to concede the competition.

Based on statistics calculated by Penn Leads the Vote, an extrapolated 96.4 percent of Penn students voted last Tuesday - about 3,011 out of 3,123 registered students, according to PLTV executive board member A.J. Schiera.

According to the Dartmouth-equivalent Vote Clamantis, an estimated 92.5 percent of registered Dartmouth students - 2,219 out of 2,400 - voted in Hanover, according to Dartmouth junior and Vote Clamantis president Jessica Guthrie.

Guthrie said she believes the rate, which was also published in The Dartmouth newspaper last Wednesday, is "pretty close to accurate."

However, Dartmouth is disputing the methodology used to calculate Penn's voter turnout rate and is in the process of double checking its own numbers, Vote Clamantis representatives said.

PLTV's figure was based on a comparison of Pennsylvania's list of registered voters in Divisions 18 to 22 - which includes all college houses except King's Court/English House and all fraternities on Locust Walk - to the University's list of undergraduates.

The percentage of registered voters living at a university address in each division was then multiplied by the actual turnout rate in that division to estimate the number of undergraduates who voted.

The division that includes Kings Court was excluded because it contains a low percentage of undergraduates.

According to Schiera, the method has its limitations but is "relatively sound."

By comparison, Vote Clamantis counted the number of students who showed up at Dartmouth's single polling location.

The group is double-checking its total number of registered voters on campus.

Several other aspects of the statistics are also being finalized by both sides.

As both percentages only count the number of students who voted on campus, both schools are trying to determine how to account for off-campus and absentee ballots.

"We can see why there's so much voter fraud and why it's so difficult to calculate such statistics because we're just given an Excel sheet of numbers," Guthrie said.

Dartmouth asked students to e-mail in a signed electronic voter statement if they voted absentee, to which 483 students have replied so far.

Penn is still working to calculate a similar number and is waiting for the state to release a list of voters in each division to confirm its estimate. Schiera estimated PLTV will not receive that list for two months.

"Regardless, I think having a 96.4 percent turnout is unbelievable at Penn and says a lot about the role that young people played in this election," said Wilson Tong, College and Wharton senior and chair of the Undergraduate Assembly, which officially accepted the challenge from Dartmouth two weeks ago.

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