>> ^Sketch:
At 95% of precincts reporting, it looks as though Prop 8 is passing. Congratulations Californians, you've officially written BIGOTRY into the STATE CONSTITUTION! You officially care about CHICKENS more than you do about PEOPLE! I couldn't be more incensed and ashamed!


What REALLY saddens me is looking at the CNN exit polling on Prop 8. Most of the voting by racial demographic is surprisingly evenly split. Even the Latino vote is 53/47, which caught me off-guard with the strong Roman Catholic influences there. Only one racial demographic stands out from that near even split - African-Americans voted SEVENTY PERCENT in favor of prop 8.

Seventy percent...

That statistic fills me with sorrow.



*edit* link to CNN exit polling on prop 8:
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#CAI01p1

Holy crap that almost had me in tears.

Even though I'm in Australia, I've been following this really closely (as you would), but I missed this actual moment because it came SO MUCH FASTER than I ever thought it would. It was all 'exit polls', 'looks like he's going to win' etc. etc. Then I get a text message from my wife saying he's won... Amazing.

I did watch his acceptance live, and that was moving enough, but this amount of joy over the next president of the most powerful nation in the world.

What's not to be happy about.

Bloody hurray for America, Hurray for the world.

It is far too easy to generalize and stereotype. Certainly a handful of edited interviews from any given region can be used to paint a caricatured impression. There are intelligent, progressive, well informed thinkers in West Virginia. I've met them. I know some voted for Hillary for reasons that had nothing to do with race, as much as that fact might frustrate the Sen. Obama supporters like myself.

That said, it's worth considering more quantifiable information like exit poll data and primary voting results rather than anecdotal evidence about West Virginia. No doubt many of you have seen the widely reported numbers that 2 in 10 white West Virginia voters said that race was an important factor in their vote, and more than 8 in 10 of them backed Sen. Clinton according to exit polls. (1) It's also significant that 7% of the total vote went to John Edwards who dropped out of the race back in January.

Yes, volunteers campaigning for Obama in West Virginia did experience racially motivated animosity, as they have in some other states. (2)

What's important to me is that Obama's prospects still look good for November. For those us who are supporting Obama's campaign, I feel it's wise to try to build consensus rather than fostering division.

References:
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/us/politics/14dems.html
Clinton Beats Obama Handily in West Virginia
2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/12/AR2008051203014.html
Racist Incidents Give Some Obama Campaigners Pause

First exit polls are out and show Clinton ahead in Indiana by 5% and Obama ahead in North Carolina by 12%. Of course, those aren't always accurate, but it's a first look. The final polling in Indiana showed Clinton up by 4% with 8% undecided, so it's really up for grabs.

I'm just hoping for a stroke of luck to put Obama over the top there so the media can finally shut their pieholes and start putting real pressure on Clinton's campaign and show it as the hopeless trudge it has really been. Unfortunately, I worry about the Limbaugh Repuglicans who are going to try and screw with the results in Indiana and vote for Clinton in an effort to drag the fight out and increase their chances in November. That really should be so incredibly illegal...

I watch MSNBC, but I have to plug my ears anytime Chris Mattews speaks.

Also, file this under completely unsubstantiated rumor (aka exit poll), but here's one showing Obama 52%, Hillary 47%

http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjhlYzZiYjRhNDI0YTMwYzAxMTQ0NWNhNTQyODc4ZGE=

For the real deal, I like CNN's results tracker:

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/state/#PA

>> ^Hive13:
Ron Paul failed at the primaries because his internet movement failed to get off their internet asses and go vote for him, pure and simple. These poor Ron Paul videos are useless at this point. It is too late. I am a huge Ron Paul fan and I love his message. I wish the power he had on the internet rolled out to the polling booths but sadly it didn't.

I sadly agree. I'm a Ron Paul supporter, and I DID vote for him, but I almost didn't because of our craptastic primary/caucusing system. Many times, for many people, me included, votes are cast not for who you want in office, but against those you don't want in office. I was very close to voting for Obama, not because I think he's a great candidate (though I do think he's pretty good), but because he's NOT Hillary, I think Paul was the only Republican with any real chance at beating a Democrat this year, it seriously didn't look like Paul had a chance, and Hillary was too close to winning. Luckily, Obama's pulled ahead of her, and it looks to me like he's got a great chance of winning... but unfortunately he's still not Paul.

If caucuses and primaries were simply held on the same day, exit polls were banned, and people could vote for whatever party they felt like, people would be much more likely to vote their conscience.

Ill post here what I posted in the video about the blank markers.

Looking at all these videos about the problems you guys have been having, the disparity between exit poll results and actual results, the fubar elec voting setup...and everything else that goes with it, from the outside...your all fucked.

Im in Australia, we vote with a pencil, and paper.
Its mandatory.

We walk into the nearest polling place, we mark our names off, walk into a booth with our ballets in toe, mark what we want, and slip it into the boxes, that are guarded by police.

Simple as that.

The votes take about a week to count, but at the end of the day, the votes are solid, secure, and I have confidence that when I put my ballot in the box, its actually counted.

Ive never heard of a single problem with the system we have, not a single one.

You guys have to band together, form comittees or somethin, you need to act as a community and DEMAND this shit is done right. DEMAND the removal of elec voting machines, and the reinstatement of paper ballots.

DEMAND correct oversight and security of the ballets, because as it stands now, if I were a US citizen, I would have absolutley no reason to want to go out and vote. I have zero confidence in a system that is so full of shit like this, and in a nation where its not even mandatory to vote, the end result will never be a true representation of the majority...ever.

Democracy is failing, and all you guys seem to do about it is watch videos and blog about it.

Someone needs to fucking act.

Democracy won't go out with a bang, it will disappear silently, to the sound of people eating their cheetohs, and tapping away at their blogs, full of frustration, anger....and sadly, inaction.

Looking at all these videos about the problems you guys have been having, the disparity between exit poll results and actual results, the fubar elec voting setup...and everything else that goes with it, from the outside...your all fucked.

Im in Australia, we vote with a pencil, and paper.
Its mandatory.

We walk into the nearest polling place, we mark our names off, walk into a booth with our ballets in toe, mark what we want, and slip it into the boxes, that are guarded by police.

Simple as that.

The votes take about a week to count, but at the end of the day, the votes are solid, secure, and I have confidence that when I put my ballot in the box, its actually counted.

Ive never heard of a single problem with the system we have, not a single one.

You guys have to band together, form comittees or somethin, you need to act as a community and DEMAND this shit is done right. DEMAND the removal of elec voting machines, and the reinstatement of paper ballots.

DEMAND correct oversight and security of the ballets, because as it stands now, if I were a US citizen, I would have absolutley no reason to want to go out and vote. I have zero confidence in a system that is so full of shit like this, and in a nation where its not even mandatory to vote, the end result will never be a true representation of the majority...ever.

Democracy is failing, and all you guys seem to do about it is watch videos and blog about it.

Someone needs to fucking act.

And do NOT trust any crap the dkos puts out regarding elections. They are the biggest assholes regarding facts and lying about election issues. DHinMI is a really big asshole.

So let's look at the dkos MUST SHUT DOWN ANY DISCUSSION diary (it's their MO).

They start out talking about touchscreen. Ok, who cares, only a moran thinks that electronic tabulation matters if it comes from memory cards that came out of opscan or a touchscreen. Electronic tabulation is electronic tabulation. And, in fact, that PCOS is very vulnerable to attacks, like a switch can be toggle to put that very opscan Accuvote Opscan in and out of "counting" mode, and no one would notice. It still scans and operates normally.

They claim "Fewer than half the towns in New Hampshire tabulate votes with optical scanners". Ok, so what? 81% of the votes are tabulated from opscan memory cards. I think that is relevant and left out by mindless dkos zombie.

What kind of moran brings up the discussion of polling data, when all the polling data indicate something is wrong. That is like saying "these five polls from a week ago prove the polling data matches the election... just do not look at any recent polls or exit polls".

And my favorite... they claim if there was anything wrong the candidates would be saying something. Ha! Look at Kerry in Ohio. He had 10,000 lawyers all ready to go and told them to go home (in complete disbelief to everyone but Kerry).

I totally agree.

The U.N. uses exit poll data to determine if small countries have held fair elections.

The 2004 exit poll discrepancies in America were...statistically alarming.

If such poll results would have taken place in any other country, the conclusion would have been obvious: the republicans stole the election again.

By the way, the math and statistics are very sound. If you aren't a faith-based math believer, then you cannot believe Bush won Ohio in 2004.

Here's the deal, the official story is somehow Bush voters were too afraid to answer exit polls honestly or refused to answer. That is what the pollster consortium maintains is required to "fudge" the polling data to make it match the real precinct results.

Now a couple of fun facts if you believe the official story. Bush voters only in certain precincts responded to exit polls this way. Where Bush got majority of vote, these precincts had over representation of Bush voters lining up for the exit poll (and vice versa). Ok, I could maybe see how you might fall for this (though even in repressive regimes where we send election monitors, they don't need to fudge the exit polls).

(Think about that for a moment.. exit polls have always been used to detect fraud in every country for decades. Elections have been over turned from international election observers. So, you live in some small corrupt country where you might get thrown into dark cell or murdered depending on how you say you voted, but even there the exit polls don't have this "Bush-voter exit poll fear".)

Ok, so now the smoking gun.

In places where they had a lack of Bush voters responding to the exit poll -- (ie. a vote for Bush recorded, but no exit poll vote recorded; meaning for example 60 Bush votes and 40 Kerry votes but of the 10 people exit polled, 4 said Bush and 6 said Kerry) -- these precincts all saw overwhelming support for Gay marriage amendment. So, the President race has this Bush anomaly, but the Gay marriage amendment matches the un-adjusted exit polls.

Either people are both lying to exit pollsters and rural Ohio approves of Gay marriage AND exit polling which has worked for decades NO LONGER WORKS... Or.. They shaved enough votes in enough precincts to pad a victory. And we are only talking about 5% stuffed punchcards.

Would it surprise you to know Ohio election officials shredded the 2004 ballots in violation of a court order, and rigged recounts in most counties (pre-counted the pre-selected precincts), and there were hundreds of optical scan ballots that looked like this one:
http://www.wakeupandsaveyourcountry.com/cheated/imgs/home/ballot.jpg

Just a couple of reminders:

1: This guy has been in the Senate since 1996. Where were his balls then?

2: He got into the Senate under suspicious circumstances. He was the majority shareholder in the company that became ES&S, and won the seat in an election where those particular machines were being used for the first time. And there was a significant difference in the exit polls.

3: 0% from NARAL. 100% from the Christian coalition.

Before falling in love with this guy, you might take a moment and find out a bit about who he is and how he got elected. Specifically, he was head of ES&S - the voting machine company. And he was elected in an election that used those specific machines. And won by a large margin. And the results didn't match the exit polls.

Rated 100% by the Christian Coalition
Rated 0% by NARAL
• Voted NO on allowing reimportation of Rx drugs from Canada.
• Voted YES on recommending Constitutional ban on flag desecration. (Jun 2006)
• Voted NO on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes. (Jun 2002)
• Voted YES on loosening restrictions on cell phone wiretapping. (Oct 2001)
• Voted NO on expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation. (Jun 2000)
• Voted NO on setting aside 10% of highway funds for minorities & women. (Mar 1998)
• Voted YES on ending special funding for minority & women-owned business. (Oct 1997)
• Supports anti-flag desecration amendment.
• Voted NO on repealing tax subsidy for companies which move US jobs offshore.
• Voted YES on restricting rules on personal bankruptcy.
• Voted NO on banning drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (Mar 2005)
• Voted YES on Bush Administration Energy Policy.
• Voted NO on including oil & gas smokestacks in mercury regulations.
• Voted NO on establishing the Senate Office of Public Integrity.