« Andrew Sullivan Does Not Understand the Value of a Dollar | Main | An Issue of Integrity »

November 10, 2004

Comments

Bush stole the election by running a campaign that was more appealing to the electorate than Kerry's! Of all the low-down dirty tricks* ...

He also enlisted the help of a secret cabal of geographers and census-takers to re-draw the electoral vote maps. You'd never hear this from the brainwashed corporate media, but half those red states don't really exist. I mean, think about it -- are there really *two* Carolinas?

*Perhaps not entirely facetious, since I would dispute some of the claims of the campaign -- such as "Bush will do a better job of preventing terrorism" -- that were so appealing.

Two Dakotas and two Virginias, too. They must think we're a bunch of redneck high-school dropouts or something.

Republicans right now are involved in a lawsuit to stop the ballots from being counting in San Diego. Why? Because the lone democrat on the city council, Donna Frey, is winning the mayorial race over her republican rivals. This is typical republican behavior and a clear demonstration of their contempt for the will of the people.

Whoa, Ken. This is not typical behavior. I swear, I have never initiated a lawsuit to stop counting. Actually, Americans need to learn how to count better. Counting is good. See, Ken, the typical Republican likes counting...57 million, 58 million, 59 million,...

ken -- you might want to rethink the generality of your statement, as per the posting rules.

"Consider this a thread to post your favorite moonbattiness without fear of reprisal."

This brings to mind a Saturday Night Live sketch from more than a decade ago, in which a succession of ever-higher-ranking naval officers request from their superiors "permission to speak freely". At the end of the sketch, it is announced over the ship's intercom that "permission to speak freely will not be granted for the remainder of the voyage."

I'm all for a complete count. Stopping the count is certainly less effective than messing with what's being counted. And doing so unobtrusively.

I fully accept any consequences that might befall me as a result of an implied invitation to break the posting rules.

That said, it wasn't my intention to invite you all to break the posting rules. It is possible to allege party (or other) conspiracy without implicating everyone who voted that way. By "other", I mean you could always go the Umberto Eco (or, more tediously, Ralph Nader) route.

http://chruth.com/ has an interesting analysis of the cuyahoga county ohio results, in which it looks like 40K more people voted than registered. You can repeat their analysis. I'd love to see more people scrutinizing this. 40K (and 65K if you don't assume 100% turnout) puts the provisional ballots in Ohio back in play.

Self-indulgent post ("we'll be gentle" etc.) When/if there's clear data and people are silly about it then you can mock them. Until then, I recommend a Slartibartfastian pause.

I was actually inviting silliness. Accidental silliness will be met with the aforementioned gentleness; evidence of error and/or wrongdoing may rate its own post.

Sorry if I was unclear, rilkefan.

The Cuyahoga County data are interesting, but it's worth noting that the overall turnout for the county was just over 65%. Some wards received excess votes. Whether those are due to error in counting, cheating, people voting in the wrong place, or an error in the software that attributes votes to districts (or something I haven't thought of yet) is at present unknown.

For Woodmere to have been credited with eight thousand more votes than there are residents is a little hard to imagine, I have to admit. If this is cheating, it's cheating done in an extremely inept fashion. My fellow Rove minions and I would have...arranged things a bit less obviously.

Oh, and if you go here, you'll note that although the ballot count was too high by far, Woodmere Villiage cast exactly 298 votes for President, 40 of which were for GWB. The total ballots cast at the detailed level was 301.

Again, not entirely put to bed. But it's best to get down into the details before going off.

What I've seen so far are "statistical anomalies". Nobody's gonna start a civil war based on statistical anomalies. What's gonna be interesting is to see who doesn't want to see the analysis. Personally, I'd bet that a lot of local election officials had their hands in the various cookie jars. Also, no matter how bad it gets, I do not expect to see a single arrest, no matter how flagrant the manipulation. If anybody in Ohio or Florida does gets seriously threatened, I expect the shiny new computerized voting machines to be blamed. *Everybody* knows about computer errors ...

The average American is butt- ignorant of statistics and proud of it. But at the same time, the average American is a rather good poker player -- and poker is a game of statistics. Go figure.

There are now two Colorados, too.

The Republican majority one (saying Republican majority shouldn't violate the posting rules; there are still some who vote the correct way) who hates government, taxes, and voted for George W. Bush.

And the other one who just voted in a Democratic legislature for the first time in 40 years when they found out The Colorado Republican Party REALLY does hate taxes and planned to defund much of our State Government.

The second one voted for George W. Bush, too, but by smaller margins than last time.

I guess that in order to discern what really happened, you'd have to figure out which way the 80k Nader votes that went away between 2000 and 2004 split.

slart - ok, sorry if I didn't read with sufficient charity - had a sucky day at work (made the mistake of disagreeing with a godlike overling instead of circumventing him).

No problem, rilkefan. I've had a few of those in my day, and been less nice about it.

Well, yes, in the Presidential ballot. But Nader had no effect on the State ballot, where, by the way, every tax increase proposed passed as well.

Good point, John. As for the tax increases, I'm wondering what the pass/fail ratio is on ballot measures, nationally. It seems as if every ballot measure that's not overtly awful passes here in sunny Florida.

I've voted for tax increases here; it's how school improvements get funded. Does that make me a liberal?

The Donna Fry case is interesting. San Diego has a 'non-partisan' mayor where the top two vote-getters in the primaries get to be on the ticket. An awful system in my estimation, but this year both top voter-getters in the primaries were Republicans. Donna Frye attempted a write-in campaign which may win, except the structure of the silly primary system may not allow for write-ins for mayor at the final election. Of course you might expect someone to be able to figure that out before they put a write-in line at Donna Frye's request.

Example number 1,453,294 for the proposition that it is important to have clear election rules BEFORE the election.

"Does that make me a liberal?"

Relative to whom?

In Colorado Springs, yes. In Boulder, barely. In Tom Delay's mind, well, your letter has you tied to the same stake at which I'm about to be burned. In the real world, you're a pragmatist. For purposes of argument, heck no, then where would the fun be?

It definitely makes you a winger of the Obsidian variety, which is the best kind of liberal ... or conservative .. or liberal...or...


Um, Ken, nice try, but no dice.

San Diego had a primary. The top two vote getters, neither one getting mroe than 50%, then went to the general election.

Now, in this case, the top two vote getters were both Republicans. Donna Fry, the write in "candidate", is a hard core left wing Democrat. Last I checked, she had about 35% of the vote, and the other two split 65% between the two of them.

Having someone who skipped the Primary decide she's going to get herself "written in" in the General election, so that her 1/3 of the electorate supporters can get her elected, is niether democracy in action, nor respectful of the rule of law.

It is, in other words, entirely typical Democrat behavior.

For those who care: Via http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/sddt/20041110/lo_sddt/tensionbuildslawyerstakeoverraceformayorsoffice>Yahoo

The city's charter makes clear that "all elective officers of the city shall be nominated at the municipal primary election." If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote in the primary, the charter says the city must hold a runoff election in which the two candidates who placed highest in the primary are the "only candidates for such office."

Gosh, it's my day for rule enforcement, I guess.

Greg D : as I wrote to ken earlier, "you might want to rethink the generality of your statement, as per the posting rules."

Have you looked at your shoes lately? The so-called "stitching" that holds the sole to the upper is not some innocent twine. Remember how Tesla (who was, of course, controlled by the "gray" alien cabal) "accidentally" blew up a vast swathe of Siberia? Here we see a similar technology at work. They know! They always know! But you won't know when the "stiches" are activated to effect a mindless state of robotic delusory voting! You probably think you voted for Kerry. Ha! Don't even get me started on the nanobots! Fools! For the love a Christ, take off your shoes!

The comments to this entry are closed.