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From one of my mom's former students:
>From a strategy perspective, Rove et al are in a tough position with regard
to swing states. The GOP has no clear path to victory on the ground:
1. they're facing the likes of the big 527 operations who have registered
immense numbers of lazy voters, and will do all they can to drive them out
to the polls. For example, here in Ohio it is well-known that a million new
voters have been registered with the state in the last few months (bumping
up the registered electorate to almost 8 million from almost 7 million -- a
14.5% increase of people who we have no control of)
2. right now there are 10 states within a point or two of the margin of
error which could swing the election powerfully to either the democrats or
the republicans. The GOP have no idea how to apply resources because their
feedback tools (turnout and preference polling) are all on off-base models
due to #1 above.
Because of
these, the GOP is running blind (which is a condition the dems
are historically much more comfortable with), and seeking a clear plan of
attack.
How'd they win in 2000? The election went to court, and they won in the
judiciary. I'm convinced their plan this cycle is to force a recount and
legal battle, because they know they're better in the courts than we are ...
if they were to commit to a purely groundgame strategy, we might have them
beat.
Today I heard that the Bush campaign has decided to start raising money
publicly for the Bush/Cheney 2004 Recount Committee "GELAC".
The exact attack? Provisional balloting--with the Help America Vote Act,
all people who get turned away from a polling place can vote on a
provisional ballot that gets dropped in an envelope, signed and locked in a
box "in case of emergency." In Ohio, for example, with 1,000,000 new
voters, some people in the media are estimating up to 300,000 provisional
ballots will be cast. Looking at past votin
g history, the assumption is
that there will probably be around 5 million votes cast for president here.
That includes the provisional ballots.
So, if you exclude the provisional balloting, a candidate would regularly
need 2,350,001 votes to win (4.7mil/2+1). However, because there are
300,000 votes in a proverbial lockbox, a candidate needs to really win by
300,001 votes in order to be the unquestioned victor and not go into some
sort of post-election recount. In this example, that number is 2,500,001 to
2,199,999--a 53.2% win number required in a state where the polling has been
consistently within the margin of error.
What can help push this number over the edge? We already know from reading
papers that the GOP will be staffing up precincts all over the country with
election-day "poll challengers" (The Dems will be posting their own people
in certain areas basically to play defense) who can argue against an
individual's right to cast a regular vote, forcing their vote
to be put in
the provisional ballot-box for validity to be determined at a later date.
Republicans can push this number up by bringing in truckloads of folks from
out-of-state to take the place of real voters, moved voters, or dead voters
(you don't need ID to vote many places), who can cast a provisional ballot
for either candidate to be effective in raising questions of the election's legitimacy.
I think we can expect anywhere from 2-10 states playing the role of Florida
in the replay of the post-election 2000 debacle. The one thing I can say
that's good about this year is that it's 5 days earlier, so it'll hopefully
not be so cold.
Unfortunately, I think this campaign is going to last well into December,
perhaps even 2005. I am very hopeful that people can be civil about the
whole recount process, but I can't help but be a little nervous about the
potential for riots and other mass actions turned violent in the wake of a
disputed election.
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