I know it would have been relatively easy for GOP operatives to perpetrate election fraud, with subtlety and no chance of detection, in Ohio and Florida. And I realize that the results in Florida and Ohio were out of sync with the exit polls of those states. But the exit polls appeared to have oversampled women and they did become more tight as the day wore on. The unfortunate truth is that Kerry performed worse than Al Gore in almost every state in the country. Much as it pains me to acknowledge it, the results in Ohio and Florida were, by and large, consistent with what we would expect there, given the national popular vote trend. That begs the question: was the national popular vote the result of tons of mini-conspiracies?
I know it would have been relatively easy for GOP operatives to perpetrate election fraud, with subtlety and no chance of detection, in Ohio and Florida. And I realize that the results in Florida and Ohio were out of sync with the exit polls of those states. But the exit polls appeared to have oversampled women and they did become more tight as the day wore on. The unfortunate truth is that Kerry performed worse than Al Gore in almost every state in the country. Much as it pains me to acknowledge it, the results in Ohio and Florida were, by and large, consistent with what we would expect there, given the national popular vote trend. That begs the question: was the national popular vote the result of tons of mini-conspiracies? I wouldn't put it past B/C but I don't know how possible this would be to execute. Can we really say, with a straight face, that tens of thousands of precinct results were rigged from Connecticut to Colorado, to Ohio and Florida, from New Jersey to Pennsylvania, to Michigan and Virginia? Despite all the power, money, and media behind the Republicans, I don't think anyone would be capable of such mass scale election fraud on a pragmatic level.
I don't doubt that something shady could have happened with the Diebold election machines, but the margins of defeat in Ohio are credible and believeable, especially considering this is a state that voted for Bush by almost 4% in 2000. Same goes for Florida, where a lot of "not quite seeing the big picture" simple folks really appeared to be swayed by GWB's "heroic" post-hurricane relief cameos.
In the future, there does need to be a paper trail, I agree. But I can't say, right now, with any moral certainty that the election results in Florida or Ohio were the consequence of mass fraud.