In a post election analysis, Nate Silver wrote that pre-election polls were skewed towards Democrats...http://fivethirtyeight.com/... He says the pollsters ( all of them ) got it wrong for various reasons. Brad Blog came up with a response, "The results were skewed towards Republicans" http://www.bradblog.com/... I think his response deserves a little more attention. More after the orange touch screen.
Ever since 2002, when Diebold machines were installed in Georgia, there have always been some very strange and surprising results, always in the Republicans favor. Let's start at the beginning in 2002. Six days before the vote, polls showed Sen. Max Cleland, a decorated war veteran and Democratic incumbent, leading his Republican opponent Saxy Chambliss by five per centage points. The final result as told to us by the machines, Chambilss 53% Cleland 47%, an incredible swing of 12 points.
In the Governors race, those same polls showed Democrat Roy Barnes leading by a whopping 11%. On the day of the election the machines told us that his Republican opponent Sonny Perdue won 51% of the vote. By the way if that name sounds familiar, Sonny is the first cousin of David Perdue who just won the Georgia Senate seat! That same David Perdue who also won a shocking two per centage win over Jack Kingston in the Republican primary after Kingston was leading by five points in pre-election polls. A result, by the way, that Nate Silver found impossible to explain.
So once again this post election we are left with comtemplating some very surprising( according to the pollsters) results all favoring Republicans without knowing if that is indeed how everyone voted. Why? because we vote on 100% unverifiable voting machines! There is no way of knowing if the vote you cast is actually the person you ended up voting for.
All throughout election day there were reports of votes flipping on screen from Democrate to Republican ( and in some cases Republican to Democrat). Also many stunning results including Larry Hogans win in the Maryland Governors race by 9% despite trailing in every non-partisan poll this year. Also the near disaster in Virginia where Mark Warner was up by nine points and eeked out a .6% victory.
As Brad Blog points out,
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Those results, could in fact be correct. The trouble is we don't know, becasue nobody bothers to verify the computer -reported results (even in states which use paper ballot systems that could be verified, unlike states that use touch screen systems).
The combination of unverifiable voting machines and the Republican led voter ID and suppresion laws rasies the question, do the results on tuesday or any tuesday for that matter accurately reflect the will of the people. Sadly, there is no way to know for sure.
Brad Blog concludes
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Am I suggesting the elections were stolen by Republicans? There is no doubt it was a good year for Republicans. But there is no doubt that it wa GOP voter suppresion laws that affected turnout and the ability of many voters to be able to cast their votes at all, so that could certainly have swung a number of contests. On the other hand, stealing that many elections wholesale and in that many states via electronic voting systems, without leaving any evidence behind, particularly on our nations hodge podge of different types of systems, would be a very difficult feat, most likely invovling a very large conspiracy. In such cases it is usually difficult to keep such a large conspiracy quiet. There are a few ways it could be done with a somewhat smaller conspiracy of insiders, but we'll leave that discussion for another day."
Indeed. I don't like these voting machines. I don't like voting on them. I don't like the voter ID and suppression laws. Nobody seems to want to do much about either one, including the Democrats who seem content to be continually surprised on election day..