OMG. Exit polls can't be wrong?

I work and go to school in a "red" congressional district in rural California. Everywhere I go, there are Kerry signs, "Bush lied" t-shirts, and sandal wearing, clove smoking, face pierced lefties who loudly proclaimed the end of the Bush presidency. You could hear them in coffee shops, book stores, and in every public place. Anyone passing through would swear this was a huge liberal bastion.

Meanwhile, my republican friends and I politely said nothing, refused to talk to reporters or pollsters and we voted for Bush.

Our district went 52%-47% for Bush. Polls don't mean a thing.

What arrogance. Democrats illegally voted for Bush? The article is plainly saying that if you're a registered Donk you're going to vote Donk irregardless? If they could make the same assumption that heavily Republican counties voted for Kerry then they might have an argument. When you live a lie, you are a lie.

Have you seen the graphic floating around? Unreal.

In the interests of fairness, I don't think we should be too quick to disbelieve any and all reports of vote tampering. IF it happened it would be felony conduct that needs to be prosecuted and prevented.

However, even with that in mind, I notice that the link to the Florida by-county results shows irregularities in the use of PAPER ballots, while the graphic linked by Joe R. shows irregularity in ELECTRONIC voting. I also note that the irregularities in Florida are not related to the manufacturer of the optical scanning machine. Or in other words, there are significant irregularities in the irregularities.

I'm fairly hopeless when it comes to math, so would someone help me here? I reviewed the comparison table regarding the Florida results, and the fact that jumps out at me is the supposed irregularities were almost entirely in counties with small populations. Correct me if I'm wrong (and that's entirely likely), but won't the percentage of change naturally be larger when the numbers themselves are smaller? Or in other words, isn't it comparing apples to oranges to worry over a 433.2% change in voting expectations in Calhoun county, which amounts to 3,071 people not voting as expected, when in Pinellas county 46,683 didn't vote as expected? So why is Calhoun suspect while Pinellas isn't?

I think these guys need new tin-foil hats. Their old ones don't seem to be working.

This Hartman guy's a loon. He cites four heavily democratic counties that voted for Bush this time as evidence of poll tampering.

Of course, he shines on the fact that these four rural counties voted heavily for Bush in 2000. (I've blogged it up over at my place if you're interested.

I agree with Elisa. Serious charges should be investigated. People need to have confidence in the voting system. And while we're at it, clean up the voting registration systems, too.

Another accusation making the rounds is that minority ballots were spoiled in Ohio and New Mexico.

The best way to ensure a strong democracy is for people to get out and vote. 80 percent of young people don't show up? That's disgraceful.

I think there should be a re-vote in Ohio and Florida. Only Kerry's name should be on the ballot and only Democrats are allowed inside the polling places as either workers or observers.

Somehow, given those conditions, I think that they would still find a way to whine when Kerry still lost the election.

Would people please quit whining about Florida!

Here in the state of Massachusetts where I live, Bush went from 878,502 (vs. Gore's 1,616,487) to 1,067,163 (vs. Kerry's 1,793,916).

Who would believe that there are even 500,000 Republicans in all of Massachusetts? What did they do, all vote twice or more?

(After all, we all know that Democrats never steal elections. I know this. I lived in Chicago during two different Daley administrations.)

Has anyone considered how early voting skewed the exit polls? Before election day all I heard was how Bush voters were taking advantage of early voting--the GOP was even advertising on the radio encouraging early voting down here in FL.

I live in a county that has been VERY blue forever. I joke that you can't run for dog catcher as a Republican and win. Most elective offices were decided in May in the primary because there were no Republican challengers. There was only one local, contested race on the ballot and it was a run-off between two Democrats. The election commission is two Democrats and one Republican. I know them and they are above reproach.

Our county switched from blue to red this time around. How do the Democrats explain that?

I will beleive the DemonCrats when they insist on investagating milwakee. There were some wards that voted at 115% but that is perfectly normal in the Democrat world of vote early vote often...

Jim

If anyone is still reading this thread, you really need to see this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2636130