The Tale of the 2004 Exit Polls

[central scrutinizer]

http://www.rollingstone.com/photos/gallery/10467024/was_the_2004_election_stolen/photo/1

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some other informative maps at the link

[helderheid]

1. MUST READ

[Hawkowl]

2. Obama needs a 10 point lead

In order to win, Obama will need an overwhelming 10 point lead or he will not overcome the theft. Simple. It is not fair and it will be difficult, but that's the way it is.

If it is stolen again this time, there will be riots in the streets. Riots that make the '68 riots look like the Disneyland parade.

[Naturyl]

5. Unlikely. We've sat down for it twice already. (n/t)

[Hawkowl]

7. Not this time

I think the inner cities would in the very literal sense riot. The most recent example being Los Angeles. However, this time, I think they would be joined by the middle class. Perhaps the middle class won't burn down the neighborhood, but they might just spill into the streets alongside their inner city neighbors.

Now do I think that riots would change the outcome? No. It would merely put a giant exclamation point on Amerika! Fascist police state at last!

[bonnieS]

26. Riots?

That is why the army is being illegally domestically deployed as of October 1 to put down unruly crowds and why Blackwater is here awaiting orders and why Bush has his new self-given right to call out militias as he chooses.

[SmokingJacket]

3. Wish I could recommend that twice.

Damn!

[Naturyl]

4. Almost certainly STOLEN.

And they will steal it yet again if at all possible.

Obama needs a HUGE lead to stop them. We'd better get it for him.

[intheflow]

8. No "almost" about it.

It was certainly stolen. :grr:

[rndmprsn]

6. K+MR

[ailsagirl]

9. That's pretty much irrefutable proof... thanks for posting

[ailsagirl]

10. This makes me so angry that words fail me

Those hypocritical, sleazy, corrupt BASTARDS

:grr:

[ailsagirl]

11. KICK

[Stevepol]

12. The result will definitely be manipulated, by how much is anybody's guess.

[FiveGoodMen]

13. K&MR

[bertman]

14. Keep this on the GREATEST list. It is of utmost importance that it be read by ALL DU'ers.

[Vektor]

15. Wow - we've all been saying this since election night 2004.

Finally, a major publication speaks out on this 4 years later?

I'm glad Rolling Stone has finally stepped up to the plate here, but the rest of the "media" has been eerily silent on this issue.

[readmoreoften]

16. KNR

[JBear]

17. Excellent analysis of Ohio...

Similar issues showed up in North Carolina. For example, Mecklenburg County (Charlotte) has long been a bastion of conservative politics. In 2004, Kerry won Mecklenburg County by a slim margin. Contrast that with Wake County which holds the state Capitol Raleigh. In the very same election, when the residents of Wake County voted overwhelmingly to elect democrats up and down the ballot (in higher percentages than was expected), Kerry was defeated by Bush in the final tally. Oh, did I mention that the exit polls showed Kerry up by greater than 5% in Wake County?!

How do we have a full manual re(al) count?

:popcorn: :bounce:

[Jane Eyre]

20. Yes, good point

A couple of things here. I wasn't aware that Wake County did not go for Kerry over Bush. Mecklenburg went blue with about 52% for Kerry. We also swept all of the county commission at-large races, but we squeaked by with a much smaller margin requiring a recount at the end that went on for days. It wasn't until all the provisional ballots were counted that we ended up with the third seat, upsetting the Republican candidate by just a few votes.

One of the anamolies of NC voting in presidential years is that voters must vote for the president separate from the straight ticket vote. That extra step was added by the Democratic legislature back in the McGovern days in an effort to deliberately separate the state/local races from the more liberal national races. Voter education is a requirement during presidential elections in order to minimize the drop-off. It may be that Mecklenburg voters tended to vote for the president but forget to vote down-ticket while the Wake voters tended to do the opposite. Since the state capital is in Raleigh, it could be that there was simply more awareness of the statewide races.

Another thing is that there is no doubt that there were serious voting issues that occurred in NC in 2004. The missing ballots in Carteret county caused long delays in two close statewide races, the outcome of which was never really determined. We now require paper trails as a result of the screw-ups of 2004. Which makes me wonder if our past problems, combined with a solidly Democratic statewide government, are actually one of the reasons that the Obama campaign is targetting this state. In other words, we now have systems in place to provide verification of the vote via paper trail so that this won't happen again. Democratic Secretary of State Elaine Marshall is no Katherine Harris and will make sure that the votes are counted fairly.

[colsohlibgal]

18. Blatant Theft

After my work at a central Ohio voting location on election day 2004 I headed home at about 6 PM and turned on the radio and TV to follow - the dems were jubilant, the republicans down. There was a clear sense by everyone that Kerry was going to win easily ( I've heard that Karen Hughes went in sobbing to Dubya saying they were going to lose and Dubya just smirked and said don't worry, or something like that). A little later things abruptly changed.

The explanation - hey, all the exit polls were wrong! Pure coincidence that every vote in conflict with the exit polls was a gain for Dubya. Every one of them. It's just incredible that this gets no play whatsoever on major media here, thank God for Greg Palast and the BBC.

We have had our elections hijacked; when theft wasn't quite enough they also employed a court coup in 2000. We had pure theft in 2004.

In 2000 Gore won the popular vote despite the cheating, and, when all the votes were finally counted in Florida he actually won Florida as well. That got no media play either, the NY Times did report that several months after the 2000 election, but buried it on a back page.

It's all disheartening. If we don't somehow overcome all this this time we may never get another chance - it may well be welcome to the police state.

[StrictlyRockers]

19. It is so blatant if you look at it. This chart makes it so clear!

There have been other posts here at DU that used detailed statistics to prove it was stolen. The mathematical probablilites where astronomical. It's dead on proof. They steal the elections for the Republicans. The integrity of the system is totally suspect, even right now. It sucks! Because accurate vote counting is a cornerstone of real democracy.

We should do the vote counting the way Norway does it, by hand, in public, on national TV with everyoone watching. It takes almost no time at all to do it this way, too. There is very little margin for error or fraud.

[BanzaiBonnie]

21. When we woke up the morning after the election...

My grandson, who was nine at the time, said, "They cheated".

[McCamy Taylor]

22. Election morning it was clear when Blackwell tried to restrict exit polls in Ohio.

Remember he wanted to keep them far away from the polls? You decrease accuracy with distance. I knew then that the vote totals would not match the actual votes cast (which would match the exit polls) and Blackwell had been instructed to suppress the polls. The networks went to court and did the polls anyway, but then the WH cut a deal with them and they suppressed them afterwards. Probably used them as leverage to get favors from the FCC.

So, if you paid attention, you knew that Ohio was being stolen on election day before any votes were being cast. It was very, very troubling for me to watch.

[snappyturtle]

23. MR Of all that we can be fearful of, another stolen election is my biggest fear.

[OakCliffDem]

24. Kick

[Joe Chi Minh]

25. It's crucial to keep this stuff front-centre now.

[fasttense]

27. A big differences between then and now.

One difference is the candidate and that fact that everyone is aware of the repugs thefts. When they rig the vote count yet again, Obama has to fight it tooth and nail. We have a majority in congress and that is where the contested election should go according to the Constitution.

McCain will try to take it to the Dancing Supremes. But as a constitutional lawyer, Obama has a leg up.

I predict this will be another contested presidential election that McCain will attempt to take to the Dancing Supremes.

The bushes are preparing for the citizens to riot against the rigged vote count. That is why they have assigned troops to U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or man-made emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.

[Liberal_Dog]

28. A Must Read Post

:kick: