Re: coachryan
BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:coachryan, thanks for the info. Only problem is that New Mexico is still counting ballots and won't be finished until this Friday. So the NM graph is a little premature.
BBB
The State of New Mexico Says:
Quote:
27 of 33 Counties Reporting 100% of Precincts
Results as of: 11/08/2004 9:08:22 PM MST
Statewide Total: Bush 348,122 (49.9%) Kerry 341,168 (48.9%)
Counties With Unreported Precincts:
Chavez County; 22,082 Registered Voters
51 of 52 Precincts Reporting
Bush 14,748 (68.1%) Kerry 6716 (31.0%)
Otero County; 19,759 Registered Voters
43 of 45 Precincts Reporting
Bush 13,006 (69.3%) Kerry 5801 (30.5%)
San Juan County; 45, 237 Registered Voters
72 of 73 Precincts Reporting
Bush 29,140 (65.7%) Kerry 14,616 (32.9%)
Sandoval County; 45,132 Registered Voters
59 of 65 Precincts Reporting
Bush 22,327 (50.89%) Kerry 21,062 (48.0%)
Sierra County; 5286 Registered Voters
9 of 10 Precincts Reporting
Bush 3162 (61.3%) Kerry 1926 (37.3%)
Valencia County; 25,435 Registered Voters
36 of 37 Precincts Reporting
Bush 14,355 (55.7%) Kerry 11,176 (43.3%)
Mote: The term "Registered Voters" refers to valid ballots cast, not to voters registered within that county.
kickycan wrote:This thread is making me sad.
Okay, if you think it's a good idea to make the voting machines more dependable and accountable, I totally agree. I think it's idiotic that these new touch-screen machines don't give a paper record.
But the fraud conspiracy thing...even if someone did cheat to help Bush win, there isn't a paper record! It can't be proven! It is an exercise in frustration to pursue that aspect of this.
And, even if it were to be proven that someone rigged the election, do you really think they would then just kick Bush out and let Kerry take over? Never gonna happen.
Please, people, just let it go. It's over. Move on.
I agree.
But - what I keep getting puzzled about is why this seems to keep happening in US elections.
I asked earlier if the damn machines ought not be gotten rid of if they seem to err so much, and craven said they don't err much, or words to that effect.
So - what gives in US elections? I mean - we just came out of a hard-fought election too - where a more progressive party was seen as having a chance to win against a conservative one that most Australians seem to believe lies about important things - but the progressive party lost quite badly (again, percentages of votes were close - but the electoral distribution meant that key seats were lost).
Look - we were upset too (I wanna move to canada - lol!) - but there is no carry on over it - or "we was robbed" and such. Even in very close seats (a friend of mine won by about 114 votes after a week and a half of counting) there were no contested results that I am aware of.
I really would have to be carefully convinced that American progressives are any whinier and petulant than Oz ones (or conservatives, too, for that matter - who also accept disappointing election results without drama here - and in the UK and in most of western Europe, too) - so why the drama?
IS your system less trustworthy than ours? DO the machines suck? ARE there not proper safeguards? IS there less trust/more paranoia about your system, based on rational evidence? or - is it just a few folk making a silly fuss?
Here, if this sort of fuss was being made I would assume that there HAD been dirt - that people had damn good evidence, and would be taking it to court - so I get confused when reports keep appearing.
Puzzled Down Under.
kickycan wrote:This thread is making me sad.
Okay, if you think it's a good idea to make the voting machines more dependable and accountable, I totally agree. I think it's idiotic that these new touch-screen machines don't give a paper record.
But the fraud conspiracy thing...even if someone did cheat to help Bush win, there isn't a paper record! It can't be proven! It is an exercise in frustration to pursue that aspect of this.
And, even if it were to be proven that someone rigged the election, do you really think they would then just kick Bush out and let Kerry take over? Never gonna happen.
Please, people, just let it go. It's over. Move on.
I agree also, but if there was cheating by the Republican Party. (and mysteriously enough, the vast majority of these "glitches" in the system seemed to favor GWB and the Republican Party) and we don't work to catch them it is only going to become worse in the future. Do you really think that the Republican Congress, and Republican President are going to work to fix these systems that have so heavily favored them in this election, by 2008
Watergate<Florida 2000<Votergate 04
So it's election fraud you want, eh? This is in a State that was decided by less than 12,000 votes. Timber might know something about this one. :wink:
Click
here.
And you probably thought the Representative (Democrat, of course) whose family was slashing the tires of Republican vehicles was out of place... NOPE. Democrats have always supported voter fraud in Wisconsin...
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel wrote:GOP officials charged that thousands of voters in Milwaukee were registered to bad addresses, such as vacant lots, and also complained about a voter registration project with local jail inmates, some of whom were felons and not entitled to vote...
...Gard blasted Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett's handling of the voter registration problems. "(He) has got to be embarrassed about what happened in Milwaukee," Gard said. "You've got thousands of addresses they know don't exist."
This next part just amazes me. Each cycle for as long as I've been alive, Democrats have blocked every measure to require ID to vote. ID? Yep... ID. (Keep in mind, this is after thousands of addresses are proven bogus in both Milwaukee and Racine Counties in a State that went to Kerry by less than 12,000 votes.)
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel wrote: While Republicans continued to stress Wisconsin's vulnerability to election fraud, Democrats and others said the relative lack of problems in Tuesday's election suggested the laws needed no overhaul.
Barrett, Gov. Jim Doyle and McCann - all Democrats - said requiring a picture ID is unnecessary. Most people use a driver's license as their photo identification; those who don't have a license could be discouraged from voting, Barrett said.
Doyle remains staunchly opposed to the photo ID measure, a version of which he vetoed in the last legislative session. He said this year's election fears were "a lot more brouhaha than reality."
Does anyone think this isn't absurd?
I think its simply shock, desperation, and legitimate disbelief. Not that there is legitimate cause to mistrust the system but rather many, many Democrats could not conceive of a scenario permitting their candidate to lose, let alone losing House and Senate seats, including the seat of the Senate Minority Leader, gain none of the 11 State Governorships at stakeand in fact lose 2 long-time Democratic Governorships to The Republicans. They are confounded that increased voter turnout, assumed to have been their game-winning hole card, in fact played against them. They led themselves to believe they were entitled to an assurred victory ... even a landslide. What they received was actually a decisive defeat, a defeat of potential very long term and increasing negative impact. Republican-favoring redistricting they had counted on being able to overturn is now entrenched for the foreseeable future.
A Republican Legislature will appoint at least two, possibly more Supreme Court Justices over the next 4 years, and very shortly will elevate one of the sitting justices to Chief Justice. Republican foreign policy, tax and economic initiatives, social programs, corporate, environmental, and labor law legislation, and more, will proceed apace. This election was about very much more than who gets to live in The White House ... as are they all, of course, but this year the gains the Republicans made apart from retaining The Incumbency bode most inauspiciously for the near and mid-term prospects of The Democratic Party.
They're hurt. Certainly not crippled, but staggered at the very least, and, considering mid-term elections, working against a Republican momentum which has been building, seemingly inexorably, through the past 6 contests. They lost bigtime this time, regardless the margin of the Presidential Race, bigger than they have in the memory of most of them. They've lost ground across nearly every demographic, including, perhaps most troublingly, Party Affilliation.
All this has been building for a decade as The Democrats peristed in denial of their declining constituency, and perhaps worst of all for them, still they seem truly to not know why or how their present calamity came about. To them the only plausible explanation is Republican malfeasance; that their misfortunes might be of their own making is incomprehensible.
Voting irregularities occur in all elections, everywhere. Some are due to conscious, directed, malicious intent, of course, but those are a very small, exceedingly rarely successful, component of American elections. Equipment failure always has and will always play a part too, as long as humans make, maintain, and use the equipment, but overall that part is vanishingly miniscule. Electronic voting apparatus, despite the wails of some, are proven to be more accurate and more reliable than any manual method of tabulating voter choice. A far greater proportion of irregularities must be laid to ignorance, carelessness, and incompetence, and even that portion plays an almost insignificant role in the outcome of American elections.
Should The Democrats not come to understand, accept, address, and remedy their internal problems in very short order, those problems can and .will only intensify
watergate; electiongate
timberlandko wrote:I'm unsurprised The Democrats fail to realize they have brought about their own decline and will not address the causes thereof. . . .
Hmmmm. What has caused the "decline" of the democratic party? Well . . . the democratic party is filled with honest, hard-working individuals who care about others and strive to make life better for everyone (minorities incuded). I guess the democrats just don't have enough self-serving crooks to do what it takes (e.g., breaking into the opposing party's headquarters; rigging elections) to win the presidential election.
Re: watergate; electiongate
Debra_Law wrote:timberlandko wrote:I'm unsurprised The Democrats fail to realize they have brought about their own decline and will not address the causes thereof. . . .
Hmmmm. What has caused the "decline" of the democratic party? Well . . . the democratic party is filled with honest, hard-working individuals who care about others and strive to make life better for everyone (minorities incuded). I guess the democrats just don't have enough self-serving crooks to do what it takes (e.g., breaking into the opposing party's headquarters; rigging elections) to win the presidential election.
Rationalization and denial won't help your cause.
Listen to what the exit polls told you and develop a message and select a messenger the majority of voters won't reject again.
Quote:Republican foreign policy, tax and economic initiatives, social programs, corporate, environmental, and labor law legislation, and more, will proceed apace.
That would be:
foreign policy
"We're okay doing this alone,"
tax and economic initiatives
"The answer to everything is cut taxes."
social programs
"What's a social program?"
corporate
"Don't worry, your lobbyist is writing the bill."
environmental
"Drill everywhere anytime anyhow."
labor law legislation
"We trust the leaders of our nation's corporations to watch out for the needs of their workers."
Yes, I feel better already. This idea that the Democratic is a ship on the rocks is another Republican talking point straight from the talking heads of Fox. Do we have work to do? Sure, we always have, the first thing we have to do remember we're the ones of the side of people and, all bullhockey aside, the better ones at protecting the American ideals of Freedom and Justice.
Justice will be the key in the coming years, the American people have been sold a bill of goods and there will be some gigantic buyer's remorse seen once those in power start snipping at the Bill of Rights.
Joe Nation
"This idea that the Democratic is a ship on the rocks is another Republican talking point straight from the talking heads of Fox. Do we have work to do? Sure, we always have, the first thing we have to do remember we're the ones of the side of people"
Apparently, in 2000 and 2004, the people found your idea of being on their side unpalatable. Why and what now, to reverse that nasty trend?
Larry434 wrote:"This idea that the Democratic is a ship on the rocks is another Republican talking point straight from the talking heads of Fox. Do we have work to do? Sure, we always have, the first thing we have to do remember we're the ones of the side of people"
Apparently, in 2000 and 2004, the people found your idea of being on their side unpalatable. Why and what now, to reverse that nasty trend?
That's complete manure. In 2000, the people chose a democratic administration. In 2004, they picked the macho guy that made them feel safe. It has nothing to do with which party is on their side.
Larry434 wrote:FreeDuck wrote:Larry434 wrote:"This idea that the Democratic is a ship on the rocks is another Republican talking point straight from the talking heads of Fox. Do we have work to do? Sure, we always have, the first thing we have to do remember we're the ones of the side of people"
Apparently, in 2000 and 2004, the people found your idea of being on their side unpalatable. Why and what now, to reverse that nasty trend?
That's complete manure. In 2000, the people chose a democratic administration. In 2004, they picked the macho guy that made them feel safe. It has nothing to do with which party is on their side.
More denial of reality.
In 2000 the people of the 50 United States, in strict accordance with the Constitution, chose a Republican administration. In 2002 they returned control of the Senate to the Republicans. In 2004 they re-selected the President and increased the margin in the Senate to 55-44.
Notice a trend there?
I knew you'd jump to that conclusion. The 'people' chose Gore by the popular vote in 2000. Since we are talking about the 'people' it seems a reasonable measure to use. It's clear that the Republicans won, but it's not at all clear that you have had the mandate you claim -- at least for the length of time you are claiming it.
I knew you'd jump to that conclusion. The 'people' chose Gore by the popular vote in 2000. Since we are talking about the 'people' it seems a reasonable measure to use. It's clear that the Republicans won, but it's not at all clear that you have had the mandate you claim -- at least for the length of time you are claiming it.
Makes no never mind if it is a mandate or not. Fact remains the Dems blew their control of the WH and Senate with a message the majority of voters do not connect with.
And if that was all you had said, I might have agreed with you.
FreeDuck wrote:Anybody want to start a company to make voting machines? It can't be that hard.
As long as I can do the final programing I'm in :wink:
cannistershot wrote:FreeDuck wrote:Anybody want to start a company to make voting machines? It can't be that hard.
As long as I can do the final programing I'm in :wink:
Hah. There's no such thing as 'final' programming :wink:. Ok, you're in. Anybody know hardware?
kickycan wrote:This thread is making me sad.
Okay, if you think it's a good idea to make the voting machines more dependable and accountable, I totally agree. I think it's idiotic that these new touch-screen machines don't give a paper record.
But the fraud conspiracy thing...even if someone did cheat to help Bush win, there isn't a paper record! It can't be proven! It is an exercise in frustration to pursue that aspect of this.
And, even if it were to be proven that someone rigged the election, do you really think they would then just kick Bush out and let Kerry take over? Never gonna happen.
Well, and there's the thing about - OK, Bush won by x thousand votes in Ohio and New Mexico. He also won by three
million votes nationwide. From what I've seen there's no convincing case to be made that there was enough voter mishaps in Ohio to overcome that lead of x thousand, but suppose for a moment there was. There most surely is
not enough evidence of a three
million vote margin kind of voter mishaps on a national level. And would you really, after four years of lambasting the "unpresident" for not having gotten the mandate of "the people" and reminiscing that
really, Al Gore was the righteous winner because he won the popular vote - after four years of going on like that, would you really now want a court case in Ohio to bring
your candidate into the presidency even though he lost the popular vote by a whopping three million votes? Does that seem right?
If the national vote had been a squeaker, I could still have thought it all legit. But in this case, you/we lost the elections clearly; the people have spoken. I know your system is based on the EC and formally speaking, the popular vote don't count for ****, but after four years of going on about it you shouldnt even
want the office anymore if you lost it by so much.
dlowan wrote:So - what gives in US elections?
...
so why the drama?
First, the opinions you see here and in the media are going to be more vocal than average. (What chance of getting airtime does a "Well golly we lost, but we'll whup 'em next time" response have? The networks want sensation so they interview ten people and we see excerpts of the two people at the opposite ends of the spectrum.)
Second, there is a deep mistrust of the current administration among many Democrats. (All administrations have their detractors, but IMHO this is stronger than any administration I can remember. I'm sure you've heard them, so I will not recite my own litany here.)
Third, there is a deep affection for the current administration among many Republicans. (I fail to understand it... but I can see that it is there.)
Fourth, the exit polls have contributed to the mistrust; in two elections now the early exit polls have been wildly out of alignment with the actual results. Some see this as a statistical sampling issue... some see it as suggestive of conspiracy.
Finally, I think it is a good thing that we are having a dialogue about the voting machines. There will always be winners and losers in elections, but you do not want close to half of the electorate to feel disenfranchised.
As I posted in another thread, "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
I agree with that nimh. I went to bed election night knowing Kerry had lost because I could see the gap getting bigger in the popular vote. Unless someone uncovers a huge conspiratorial plot (unlikely), I don't see how we could seriously consider that the election would have turned out differently.
However, I do still think it's ridiculous that we can put a man on the moon but we can't create a voting machine that tabulates votes accurately every time and that is not vulnerable to hacking. That would go a long way to putting this whole topic of conversation to bed.
