I admit I've been following the polls as obsessively as most people around here. But I just don't think they matter any more. We keep reminding ourselves how strong the President's position is in the electoral college. OK, I'm convinced.
Here's what I think: If the election proceeds with a reasonable degree of honesty, then the President will win handily. Charles Pierce expresses the situation succinctly:
This is an election that is going to be held well within the Margin ofChicanery ...
I know exactly what he means and it's deeply disturbing.
The memory of how the Presidency was stolen from Gore (and us) in 2000 is still too painful to dwell on in much detail. Yes, it ultimately hinged on a corrupt Supreme Court decision, but the so-called Brooks Brothers riot was a key moment in the tide turning against us.
The 2004 election is shrouded in more mystery, but Victoria Collier over at Harper's (for subscribers only, but you can read it for free here). makes a strong case that Ohio and thus the Presidency was stolen from John Kerry.
The article, "How to Rig an Election" gives an overview of the history of election fraud in the US but the most important part is the discussion of the current 'state of the art'. No one should be surprised that the Republicans have become quite adept:
The Election Defense Alliance (EDA) is a nonprofit organization specializing in election forensics - a kind of dusting for the fingerprints of electronic theft. It is joined in this work by a coalition of independent statisticians, who have compared decades of computer-vote results to exit polls, tracking polls, and hand counts. Their findings show that when disparities occur, they benefit Republicans and right-wing issues far beyond the bounds of probability. "We approach electoral integrity with a nonpartisan goal of transparency," says EDA executive director Jonathan Simon. "But there is nothing nonpartisan about the patterns we keep finding." Simon's verdict is confirmed by David Moore, a former vice president and managing editor of Gallup: "What the exit polls have consistently shown is stronger Democratic support than the election results."
So, where does that leave us?
GayIthacan is currently showing Obama winning 303 to 235. Virginia has been flip-flopping back and forth in Nate's projections, so removing that takes us to 290.
Then there's Ohio. That's clearly one of the hotspots of chicanery of all kinds. Just this afternoon digby pointed out a rather disturbing bit of news.
In recent weeks, the Texas-based group, with many local affiliates drawn from Tea Party ranks, has been urging poll workers in key Ohio counties—primarily Republicans—to supplement their official state training with TrueTheVote materials. These Election Day workers are not the observers chosen by political parties who can watch but not interfere with voting; they are the people who are drawn from both parties and employed by the state to run the voting process.
IOW, they're getting poll workers trained in voter intimidation techniques.
If we lose Ohio on top of Virginia that leaves us at 272-- i.e., nothing to spare. And of course, we know their efforts will not be confined to Ohio. We had Meteor Blades' story this afternoon about that latest in voter suppression in Wisconsin. In fact, they're going to be mounting an aggressive effort in any place worth fighting for.
We keep hearing that if Obama wins the right-wing will be claiming that the election was stolen. But if Romney wins on top of reports of shady doings in battleground states, I'll probably feel the election was stolen.