Will the US Presidential election be stolen (again)
Sat, 2008-11-01 21:34
#1
Will the US Presidential election be stolen (again)
Sat, 2008-11-01 21:34
#2
If the polls are right Barack Obama will win a landslide victory in Tuesday's presidential election. However, the US is a country where voter suppression has been a feature of political life since the collapse of Reconstruction - from brute force to Jim Crow laws to the arbitrary removal of 50,000 African American voters from the Florida electoral rolls on the grounds that they were "alleged" felons (when half had no criminal record in fact) there are people and parties that have gone to extraordinary means to prevent all Americans from exercising their right to vote.
In Virginia this weekend there are leaflets being distributed informing voters that Republicans should vote on Tuesday while Democrats and Independents should wait until Wednesday. In other states miscalibrated voting machines have resulted in voters attempting to vote for Obama actually voting for McCain. Newly registered voters are are having their right to vote challenged throughout the US.
So while there is little doubt that more voters in more states intend to vote for Obama rather than McCain whether or not the ballots will reflect that fact when counted remains an open question.
Sun, 2008-11-02 19:52
#3
I think that if the polling is anything to go by, the margin is too big to steal the way the Bush victory of 2000 was stolen. Moreover, John McCain doesn't have to just win a couple of states he's currently trailing in in order to win, he needs 4 or 5.
[url=http://www.gallup.com/poll/111703/Final-Presidential-Estimate-Obama-55-M... Gallup shows Obama 11 points ahead[/url]
Mon, 2008-11-03 17:32
#4
The story of voter suppression in this election - How to protect your vote and spot dirty tricks
This is infuriating. For those on dial up, you can read about the Rethuglican dirty tricks [url=http://truth.voteforchange.com/]at this web site.[/url]
Mon, 2008-11-03 17:35
#5
I'm just watching CNN right now - they're inviting viewers to call in with any voting problems. And golly, shock of shocks, looking at the map, the most complaints are coming from "battleground" states that have the Republicans running scared, like Nevada, Florida, Pennsylvania, etc.
Gee, what a shock. [url=http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/03/voter.hotline/index.html]Florida has the most complaints to CNN.[/url]
[ 03 November 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ]
Mon, 2008-11-03 18:39
#6
ElizaQ
*put on a tin foil hat* I really hate even considering this as a serious possibility, makes me nuts. If this is a possibility I'd watch what happens in Pennsylvania. The Repubs end strategy of seriously going after this state is strategically down right weird and caused many a raised eyebrows. Obamas polling numbers there have been pretty solid there, in the double digit range yet they're been pouring money into racial whistle blowing ads, blanketing it with anti-every smear propraganda that they've used this election and in the last couple of days added a new one that 'Obama's plan on coal will bankrupt' the states coal industry.
The reason the campaign gave was that their internals showed the race as a lot closer then every other poll out there so they were going for it.
The general cynical explination is that that it is a desperate move based on the hope that the 'racial' factor can be played there for a win and/or it's just another showing of a rather incompetent campaign.
So in terms of the potential for shennanigins Pennsylvania I believe also does not have early voting. Therefore it there's no back-up comparison to be made on whatever happens on voting day if say the end results are widely different from the polling. I'm pretty sure they're also mostly on the 'machines' as well.
So lets say that somehow McCain does win it which would be shocking in reference to the poll numbers, the campaign can say, well I guess that final push and the 'coal' factor swung the vote at the final hour. Oh well thems the breaks Obama.
If McCain wins that state, plus Florida and Ohio and couple of the other toss-ups float his way he has a good shot at squeaking through.
Okay..tin foil hat off now. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]
Mon, 2008-11-03 19:30
#7
If Karl Rove can't seriously make a case for his side winning, that's just about it.
[url=http://www.rove.com/election]http://www.rove.com/election[/url]
Mon, 2008-11-03 20:08
#8
quote:
Originally posted by ElizaQ:
The Repubs end strategy of seriously going after this state is strategically down right weird
Very true. There are much closer states that McCain needs to win to win overall. He can win without Pennsylvania, but he cannot win without Florida. I cannot come up with any realistic victory scenario for McCain that does not include Florida.
McCain can conceivably win without Ohio, but it would require him to win all the other Bush states and pick up New Hampshire. That scenario requires him to overcome double-digit Obama leads in New Hampshire, Iowa and New Mexico. Ain't gonna happen.
quote:
Obamas polling numbers there have been pretty solid there, in the double digit range yet they're been pouring money into racial whistle blowing ads, blanketing it with anti-every smear propraganda that they've used this election and in the last couple of days added a new one that 'Obama's plan on coal will bankrupt' the states coal industry.
The talking heads on CNN are saying that the tracking polls suggest those ads are having some impact in Western Pennsylvania, but it's probably too little, too late. Could tip the balance in Ohio, though.
I think Ohio is much more likely to be the source of election-night shenanigans. There were tons of irregularities in 2004, and Secretary of State Ken Blackwell (the "Katherine Harris" of 2004) basically did everything he could to manipulate the rules to throw the state to Bush. There were huge lineups in Democratic precincts in Cuyahoga county and all sorts of other dirty tricks on election night. The Republicans had a much better ground game than the Democrats in 2004 in Ohio and I would imagine this is one state where the GOP machine will be a match for Obama's GOTV operation.
Mon, 2008-11-03 20:43
#9
ElizaQ
quote:
Originally posted by ghorisI think Ohio is much more likely to be the source of election-night shenanigans. There were tons of irregularities in 2004, and Secretary of State Ken Blackwell (the "Katherine Harris" of 2004) basically did everything he could to manipulate the rules to throw the state to Bush. There were huge lineups in Democratic precincts in Cuyahoga county and all sorts of other dirty tricks on election night. The Republicans had a much better ground game than the Democrats in 2004 in Ohio and I would imagine this is one state where the GOP machine will be a match for Obama's GOTV operation.[/QB]
Yeah Ohio and Florida is just a given in the shennagins scenario. Even with diebold issues taken out of the equation there's already some pretty nasty stuff going on there in terms of voter suppression tactics and a concerted effort to disqualify votes on the most minor points. I lost track of the legal back and forth between the electoral commission and the RNC that's been happening for months.
I just added Pennsylvania into the tin foil hat mix as well because with the way things stand McCain would need at least one more large state to have a chance. On some poll maps though McCain could win Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania and Obama would still win if the polls translate as they stand and he wins just a few of the other toss-ups. He's in that good a shape. In Pundit talk he's got numerous electoral paths to victory and the common wisdom regarding Ohio and Florida being deciding factors isn't the case this election.
Mon, 2008-11-03 21:51
#10
Um, there was another thread on this.
[url=http://www.rabble.ca/babble/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=13&t=004376]V... Machine Fraud already started[/url]
Mon, 2008-11-03 23:12
#11
[url=http://www.gregpalast.com/how-mccain-could-win/]How McCain Could Win[/url] Palast
quote:
It's November 5 and the nation is in shock. Media blame it on the "Bradley effect": Americans supposedly turned into Klansmen inside the voting booth, and Barack Obama turned up with 6 million votes less than calculated from the exit polls. Florida came in for McCain and so did Indiana. Colorado, despite the Democrats' Rocky Mountain high after the Denver convention, stayed surprisingly Red. New Mexico, a state where Anglos are a minority, went McCain by 300 votes, as did Virginia.That's the nightmare. Here's the cold reality. . .
Tue, 2008-11-04 06:10
#12
I think Obama's lead is too strong for any dirty tricks to stop him from winning. But we must still be vigilant. The Obama campaign knows some of the stuff that's been done in the past and has a good monitoring system. My brother is a lawyer and took the day off to fly into Florida as part of a legal team to legal challenge any shenanigans that amy arise and they have large teams in every close state. We will win this thing.
Tue, 2008-11-04 07:51
#13
There's no need for conspiracy theories to account for how hard they are trying in PA despite how far behind they are.
Yes Florida and Ohio are absolute must wins, but for McCain to have any chance of winning, it is with some kind of wave- which would carry FL and OH.
But to win McCain also has to take some of the swing states. Michigan is out. Conceded long ago. So however far behind they are in PA, they need to catch up.
Which means you act like you are close. And work really hard on 'challenging voters'.
Tue, 2008-11-04 08:27
#14
remind
From fidel's link:
quote:
Here's an ugly little secret about American democracy: We don't count all the votes. In 2004, based on the data from the US Elections Assistance Commission, 3,006,080 votes were not counted: "spoiled," unreadable and blank ballots; "provisional" ballots rejected; mail-in ballots disqualified.This Tuesday, it will be worse. Much worse.
That's what I found while traveling the nation over the last year for BBC Television and Rolling Stone Magazine, working with voting rights attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. This we guarantee: there will be far more votes disappeared by Tuesday night than the three million lost in 2004. A six-million vote swipe, quite likely, shifts 4 percent of the ballots, within the margin of error of the tightest polls.
Begin with this harsh statistic: since the last election, more than ten million voters have been purged from the nation's vote registries. And that's just the start of the steal.
If the noncount were random, it wouldn't matter. But it's not random. A US Civil Rights Commission analysis shows that the chance a black voter's ballot will "spoil" or be blank is 900 percent higher than a white voter's.
And I was just watching Global YVR and they were covering a story regarding voters lists being given to entirely wrong precincts and voters not being able to vote atall until the correct precinct lists were "found".
Tue, 2008-11-04 08:28
#15
Rachel Maddow on lineups as the new poll tax:
Tue, 2008-11-04 08:32
#16
ElizaQ
quote:
Originally posted by remind:
[b]From fidel's link:And I was just watching Global YVR and they were covering a story regarding voters lists being given to entirely wrong precincts and voters not being able to vote atall until the correct precinct lists were "found".[/b]
In Virginia which is a major player this election there were reports of people lining up for several hours before the opening, only to have the machines not working when they got in. At one precinct only one machine actually worked. Luckily they have a paper ballot back up in that state.
[ 04 November 2008: Message edited by: ElizaQ ]
Tue, 2008-11-04 08:37
#17
ElizaQ
Here's a live blog that's collecting info about reported problems.
[url=http://blog.ourvotelive.org/]Our Vote Live Blog[/url]
Tue, 2008-11-04 15:26
#18
remind
We may not know who won until November 14th. [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]
quote:
Judge Orders Virginia Officials to Keep Late BallotsTuesday, November 04, 2008
A federal judge has ordered election officials in Virginia to preserve late-arriving absentee ballots that Republican John McCain's campaign claims should be counted.
The McCain campaign says in a lawsuit that absentee ballots weren't mailed on time to many military members serving overseas. The complaint asks the court to order the state to count absentee ballots from overseas troops postmarked by Tuesday and received by Nov. 14.
The deadline for ballots to be received is 7 p.m. on Election Day.
U.S. District Judge Richard Williams said Tuesday that he will hear the lawsuit on Nov. 10. He ordered election officials to keep the late-arriving ballots until then.
Tue, 2008-11-04 15:30
#19
Virginia isn't supposed to be quite so close that that should matter, but I suppose we'll know in a little while.
Tue, 2008-11-04 15:33
#20
Line ups really are a poll tax if you are losing a day's wages, or your job, in order to stand in line for hours on end.
As someone mentioned earlier, I seriously doubt whether Walmart workers are getting paid for the time off they have to take to vote. That's money out of their pocket, and they can least afford it.
People with middle-class office jobs just have to take a vacation day or whatever. Doesn't cost them a thing.
Tue, 2008-11-04 15:40
#21
ElizaQ
quote:
Originally posted by Michelle:
[b]Line ups really are a poll tax if you are losing a day's wages, or your job, in order to stand in line for hours on end.As someone mentioned earlier, I seriously doubt whether Walmart workers are getting paid for the time off they have to take to vote. That's money out of their pocket, and they can least afford it.
People with middle-class office jobs just have to take a vacation day or whatever. Doesn't cost them a thing.[/b]
That's totally true. I've been reading lots of calls for some sort of national election reform plan because of the line up problem. It's simply not fair.
Tue, 2008-11-04 15:41
#22
[url=http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/11/04/obama-supporters-targete... about shit like this brings out my inner fascist.[/url] Knee-jerk reaction: people who pull this kind of shit should be doing serious jail time.