It has been fairly obvious based on the "whatever the republican is accusing someone else of doing, he or she is doing far worse" theory which has held up stunningly well over the past decade that the only hope is to play the voter fraud fraud card. This, of course, sets the stage for a a sudden shift of most undecided voters to McCain to a sudden complacency among the most enthusiastic supporters that McCain could eke out a victory - especially since all he has to do is win around 10 states that he is losing in or barely winning in.
The myriad of voter suppression cases and attempts that have occurred by the republican party over the past few months, whether it be the "lose your house, lose your vote" initiatives in Indiana, Michigan and Florida, the removal of people from voter rolls in Colorado, Georgia, Indiana (don’t forget that voter ID law from the primaries that disenfranchised nuns), North Carolina, Louisiana and Nevada as well as the countless other tactics already being reported and fought - show that, once again, the path to victory is through theft.
Even though I wrote about rigging the system from the inside and stayed away from any talk about voting machine irregularities, vote flipping or exit poll because, frankly, it was just as easy to prove stolen elections with other evidence that was rock solid as opposed to something that took even the smallest leap of faith into statistical sampling and polls and anecdotal data that was still overwhelming but not 100% certain.
But that still doesn’t take away the harsh irony that while at the same time that exit polls were used to show fraud in the Ukraine election, they were suddenly being changed, reweighted or disregarded as unreliable for pretty much the first time ever just as they were all benefiting Bush over Kerry.
And with this election a few days away and all polls for weeks showing a large enough (anywhere from 6% - 12%) lead for Obama and a rock solid (8% or more average lead) 310+ electoral votes for Obama, the frenzied implementation of behind the scenes tactics is ratcheting up.
Challenges in FL based on foreclosures are being reported. Potential fraud in Virginia as reported in this diary by kestrel9000 and shenanigans in Colorado by the Secretary of State with respect to invalidating thousands of voter registrations were all reported over the past couple of days (not to mention the 50,000 voters purged in Georgia earlier this month).
In 2004 (voting day shenanigans aside), the pre-election night polls were pretty close, and in 2000 a study the weekend before the election showed a similarly close race. Here, we are not even close in any measurable way. The electoral vote looks like a landslide, or at a minimum, 300 electoral votes. The spread on popular vote, even without early voting metrics, hasn’t gone below 6% (which is generous to McCain) in weeks. Simply put, this hasn’t been close for a long time now and there is no reason based in reality for it to suddenly be materially closer in a week.
Regardless of what the republican party, the McCain campaign, the talking meatsticks or any other armchair putz pundit tries to say or rationalize otherwise.
The republican party is setting the stage to invalidate a Democratic Congressional and Obama win next week due to election shenanigans. However, the widespread strategy of voter suppression is the only coordinated effort that we have seen this election season from the republican party.
And without it, coupled with some of the early voting information, there would be an even bigger landslide next week then is being currently (and realistically) projected. If we see something other than that, you can bet that it is due to suppression, fraud and other shenanigans.