nd Mitt Romney and three second tier candidates.

It was reported by local TV news stations before the event that upwards of 45,000 Republicans would arrive to meet candidates and cast their votes, however this number was dwindled down to between 30,000 and 33,000 according to the Iowa GOP's projected figures.

The number of voters then decreased by another sizable margin to around 26,000 the next day, only for the final figure to drop EVEN FURTHER to 14,302 actual votes cast.

Even if the immediate figures of 45,000 and 33,000 were wrong and the Iowa GOP grossly overestimated the figures, with only 26,000 tickets being sold, this still does not account for the other 12, 000 tickets that suddenly disappeared. One has to ask the question why did 12,000 people buy tickets at $35 each and not vote?

In 1999 the Straw Poll, which was won by George W Bush, attracted 23,685 voters, an incredibly similar figure to the 26,000 tickets sold this year.

As we reported yesterday, it has come to light that the voting procedure was overseen the Story County Auditor's Office, the head of whom happens to also be a member of Mitt Romney's "Leadership Team".

When the electronic voting machines inevitably malfunctioned, many immediately became wary.

According to some reports 4500 ballots had to be re-run and the announcement of the poll results was delayed by over an hour.

Earlier in the week a group of Ron Paul supporters had attempted to block the vote based on concerns over insecurities in the Diebold machines, yet the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to join an injunction against the vote.

It hasn't helped Romney's case that swirling around the blogosphere are rumours that previous to the straw poll he was "joking" out loud that his team were going to "stuff the ballot box".

The plot thickens with further analysis of the figures. A reader to popular website Whatreallyhappened.com writes:

FUZZY MATH #1

So we know from the state Auditor that one ‘problem’ machine contained 500 votes. Assuming most machines contained a similar pattern of use, then they should also contain about the same number of votes. 60 (machines) x 500 = 30,000 votes. That is more than TWICE as many as the official count. Based on a total vote count of 14,301, if all machines were used about equally, then the average number of votes per machine SHOULD have been 238 {14,301 (total votes) / 60 (machines) = 238 votes per machine}. What are the odds that one of the machines that ‘malfunctioned’ and actually gave up an audited vote tally would contain TWICE as many votes as the ‘average’ machine? But it gets worse…

FUZZY MATH #2

State Auditor David Vaudt (who unofficially certified the vote count) said that there were only 2 machines out of the 60 that were inconsistent (paper printout vs. electronic tabulation) and needed to be recounted. Mary Tiffany of the Iowa GOP said that a total of approximately 1500 votes were re-fed into the Diebold machines. Since we know that there were only two machines that were a problem and one of them contained 500 votes, then the second machine must have contained about 1000 ballots, which is more than FOUR TIMES what the ‘average’ machine should contain based on a total vote of 14,301. It seems more likely that there were actually 3 problem machines, and the true average per machine was about 500 votes, which would have resulted in a total vote of about 30,000 which is twice the official total vote count.

Though it was reported that "there were nothing but Ron Paul signs in the crowd" and that his campaign signs lined the highways and streets leading into Ames, Iowa, Paul came in fifth place behind Romney, Huckabee, Brownback and Tancredo.

Some exit polls also suggested that Ron Paul had actually WON the poll outright, before the final result was announced.

The Ames Straw Poll's results are non-binding and have no official effect on the presidential primaries. However, the straw poll is frequently seen as a first test of organizational strength in Iowa by the news media and party insiders. At the very least an investigation should be conducted to determine how significant an effect on the vote the Diebold machine malfunctions had and also why 12,000 tickets were not translated into votes.