You Have to Admit, Something Is Fishy Here
Maybe there’s no great underhanded trickery going on, but let’s review a few points: all the indicators going in were pointing to Kerry. Bush lost the debates. His popularity never went above 50%. Voter turnout was high. Bush did not break over 48% in most of the polls, and undecideds almost always break from the challenger. Add to that the fact that the economy is poor and Iraq is in a quagmire. Hell, the Washington Redskins even lost.
All of these points favored Kerry, everything was trending towards him. And yet somehow Bush came out so far ahead in the popular vote, and very well may scramble away with the electoral votes of Ohio?
Now focus on Florida. In the last days of polling, Kerry was out ahead of Bush by 2% to 5% of the vote. 25% to 35% of all eligible voters in Florida voted in advance, favoring Kerry by 56% to Bush’s 40%. Turnout in Florida was record-breaking.
And yet somehow Bush runs away with a 5% lead. Against all indicators. In direct contradiction to early voting, he goes from 40% to 52%? He performs up to 10% better than some of the polls suggested? Even ‘just’ 7%? Now consider that huge chunks of Florida have had their votes counted by machines made by Bush’s campaign manager in Ohio. I know some will call me paranoid, but the differences between the results and everything that came before are just too damned big. Or am I misreading something major here?
Someone had better go get a microscopic evaluation of the new electronic voting machines. Start by finding the ones that leave paper trails and recount those. Look for statistical aberrations in the Bush vote in counties with the machines, and scrutinize the hell out of things. Find machines that broke down before the polls closed and examine their software. Do I expect that will happen or that evidence of fraud could be proven? Frankly, no; if fraud did take place, they’ll have been thorough enough to make sure it can’t be. I’m probably tilting at windmills here. But that doesn’t mean that all of this doesn’t sound like massive fraud, or that this doesn’t deserve some major scrutiny.
At the very least, the official declaration can be held up–probably by the 11-day Ohio lag–long enough for some digging to be done. Fortunately, it looks like Ohio, despite Republican control of the election, doesn’t have a Katherine Harris–though if things get tough and tight, if pressure is put on people, that could change.
I bookmarked your site-
You have probably read on michaelmoore.com there have been MANY irregularities, from improper registration, and absentee ballots, but I have also read reports of voting machines manipulating ballots to record a Republican vote for the Bush/Cheney ticket when voters attempted to record a straight Democrat vote. Even if you ARE paranoid, people ARE out to get you.
I want to agree with you a lot, although polls (in Ohio for example) showed that many voters cared about “moral values” more than the economy or terrorism. Interesting since they might have just elected the man you described in your posts such as “He’s Not What You Think”
Unbelievable. It must be fraud, there’s no way Bush can win? Perhaps it’s time to take the high road and just accept the truth.
Luis –
“I know some will call me paranoid, but the differences between the results and everything that came before are just too damned big. Or am I misreading something major here?”
As much as I want to see the man gone, you said it your self, it’s “just too damned big”. While I am sure you can manipulate some votes, I can’t see how you could manipulate this many votes without someone leaking the info. That is the biggest problem with conspiracy theories…human nature. We *need* to tell people of our accomplishments.
Sorry, but I think we do have to accept that the nightmare is only half way over.
Ummm… Bush won. It sucks, it’s hard to believe, but it’s how it came out. Yeah, there probably was some foul play. We’ll never know, and if we sit around bitching about it for the first couple of years (like we did in in 2001 and 2002) we’re going to be bigger losers.
I think where this election was really lost was in the younger voters; we simply didn’t do a good enough job of getting them off their asses and to the polls. A kid today isn’t going to leave his video game to go stand in line for an hour to vote.
We expected a ton of new younger voters, and we expected them to all break towards Kerry, and it didn’t happen.
About the only bright spot in this is that the Dems still have a filibuster-proof minority in the Senate, and the other bright spot is that if Bush runs things over the next 4 years like he has in the past 4 years, by the end the nation will be so screwed up that nobody will vote for a Republican for a long long long time.
Paul
Enumclaw, WA
Yeah, there probably was some foul play. We’ll never know, and if we sit around bitching about it for the first couple of years (like we did in in 2001 and 2002) we’re going to be bigger losers.As Democrats, we did not sit around for two years bitching about it. When Al Gore gave the signal, we accepted it and tried to be bipartisan. And promptly got shafted by Bush and the GOP, until Jeffords switched sides and we got a little influence. Then, a few months later, 9/11 struck, and again we strained as hard as we could to be bipartisan. And as fast as you can say “Gotcha!” Bush and the GOP screwed us royally. When the Iraq War seemed inevitable and Bush fooled enough of us into thinking that Saddam was a threat, guess what we did? Out of patriotism and bipartisanship, we went along again… and then got doubly screwed, with Bush not only taking advantage of our leeway but then also using it against us in the present election. Rather than spend the first two or even three years complaining, Democrats have bent over backwards, several times, accommodating Bush and the GOP, and every time got stabbed in the back and then walked all over.
If we want to change, then we’re going to have to start bitching about it, if for no other reason than to establish that we have something valid to bitch about.About the only bright spot in this is that the Dems still have a filibuster-proof minority in the Senate, and the other bright spot is that if Bush runs things over the next 4 years like he has in the past 4 years, by the end the nation will be so screwed up that nobody will vote for a Republican for a long long long time.Absolutely not. If you recall, that is exactly what we all said two years ago, when the GOP took the whole Congress back: if they screw things up, then we can blame them for it all. Well, they screwed things up even worse than we expected–and look how successful we were in pinning it on them.
A fundamental change must take place. Someone mentioned that we need to get rid of Terry McAuliffe and replace him with Howard Dean, and that sounds like a good start. We need to become aggressive, highly aggressive, and start attacking and tearing the Republicans to shreds now–without fail and relentlessly. Every misstep, bitch about it as loud as you can. Every scandal, rouse all the media attention you can get. Don’t let a single thing slip by. Get on the offensive, and stay there. Don’t just sit around lamely for the next two or four years, letting them destroy the country, and then only afterwards start blaming them. Start today. And don’t stop.
Something is damn fishy to me. Just because it’s large – doesn’t mean I put it past Rove & co. How can you track what really happened with these black boxes – they’re totally hackable and there is no real record. They stole the election in 2000, why don’t you think they couldn’t steal it again this year?
Yes, it appears way too many young voters went for Bush, and way to many new hispanic voters also. This is a true failure of progressive efforts. But I don’t believe that exit polls and “actual votes” have ever been so divergent as in Ohio and Florida this year. We need to research this issue to the bone – and someone will come out and say the truth – an insider will spill the beans on this story. Count on it.
“get rid of Terry McAuliffe and replace him with Howard Dean”
Best thing I’ve heard all day.
I agree with you. There is something definitely `fishy` going on. It seems that most, if not of all, of the news pundits were simply blaming the pollsters for getting the exit polls wrong. No one questioned whether the exit polls were indeed an accurate account of how voters `thought` they had voted and perhaps the votes had been somehow tampered with. I was having a converstation about this with my wife this morning and oddly enough, the local news here in Athens, Ohio made a brief comment about how one of the voting machines in Columbus had given Bush 4000 more votes that were actually made! It was just a brief news comment. Why isn`t anyone looking at this? To me, this is a major news story. I agree that someone should look at the statistics of votes in counties that had electronic voting machies without a papertrail. Call me paranoid, but I think it`s worth a look..
I agree that there is something `fishy` going on. No one seems to be questioning just why there is a discrepancy between the Exit Polls and the `actual` votes. (with the exception of bloggers.) Most news pundits are just assuming the pollsters got it wrong. However, it seems that there are some interesting corrollations with the accuracy of the exit polls in counties that did not use electronic machines and the inaccuracy of the exit polls in the swing states that had used electronic machines.. Another interesting note..On the radio there was a brief news note that a machine in Columbus was found to have mistakenly given Bush 4000 more votes than were actually made on that machine. Call me paranoid, but I think there is a story here…
Sorry about the double post. I didn`t think the first one took. Anyway, here`s the link to the Columbus story.
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/041105/w110556.html