One last thought before I smash things and yell a lot...

[WilliamPitt]

Hold off on any definitive-sounding proclamations of voter fraud in the MA race. I know it's a convenient, and occasionally accurate, refuge to which we flee when matters turn against us.

But when I walked out of that ballroom tonight, Coakley was down by more than 100,000 votes.

Let me say it straight: if anyone is rigging elections in the state of Massachusetts, it ain't the GOP. SecState Galvin and his praetorian guard are not the kind of folks to let Republicans fuck around with ballots - electronic or otherwise - in a state so controlled at the local level by Democrats. The Dem machine here is fierce; they are the only ones with the wherewithal to nab elections in this state, which I guess is a testament to their honesty, cuz they sure-as-fuck didn't do it tonight.

I heard about the pre-marked ballots for Brown. That kind of crap happens all the time, and maybe amounted to 0.000001% of the overall outcome.

We lost. Until I see substantive proof otherwise, that's what I'm going to think.

Hugs, all.

:hug:

[oldtime dfl_er]

1. Smash a beer glass for me, Will

eom

[Geoff R. Casavant]

2. Well said William. n/t

[lonestarnot]

3. Well at least 6 people reportedly (Rachel) received ballots previously marked with dat bastid's name

:shrug: :hi:

[BP2]

4. Ditto, but drink one before you break it.

[HughMoran]

5. If you're going to smash something, drive to Connecticut first

:evilgrin:

[Jennicut]

12. Hey! What did we do wrong?! Besides reelect Lieberman, that is.

}(

[HughMoran]

14. Smash!!!

:rofl:

[StreetKnowledge]

24. That's just what you did wrong, right there.

You re-elected the Benedict Arnold. ;)

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Hugs, and a MUCH NARROWER margin

you might have room to think this... a margin this size...

Yes there are ways, but why? And no I will not go there, for other reasons.

[The_Casual_Observer]

7. According to the press, brown represents change & people believe he can fix all the problems

[Tailormyst]

8. Yup- you are right

SO we lick our wounds for a few days and then start working towards finding a good candidate for 2012.

[BrklynLiberal]

9. The only thing missing tonight was the paper with the headlines about Coakley's victory.

[gateley]

10. Yeah, I didn't get the sense there was fraud at alll. Even before the voting began

this morning, "insiders" were saying those in Washington were already trying to figure out what to do, that they figured this was the way it would go.

They didn't need to resort to fraud. :(

[KittyWampus]

11. safe home to the missus!

[WilliamPitt]

13. The missus

was with me all day today. Even got her press creds to the funeral. It was actually great, because she'd never been through an election day the way I do them. She had a ball, learned a lot, and man, it was great having her there.

:hug:

[clear eye]

15. I have no idea whether or not there was electronic vote tampering, but

since ES&S's Diebold division has the maintenance contract for the op-scan counters, and often adds last-minute software updates, there is no way for the state officials of either party to prevent tampering. That's the revolting reality of this system.

I was thinking that since Brown had once described himself as "pro-choice", the social conservative fanatics who run Diebold would not be interested in fixing the race. I've since learned that he pledged to keep "freedom of conscience" for pharmacists & doctors who want to refuse to provide emergency "morning after" contraception to rape victims, and that a state anti-choice group endorsed him. This creates a motive to tamper.

Whether or not this particular election was stolen, having proprietary software and an extremely issue activist maintenance company has to be dealt with. Since there are no indications it will be changed in any meaningful way at a nat'l level, it has to be done state by state. And it must.

[Naturyl]

16. Agreed. No point in screaming "fraud" yet again

It's played out. The only fraud is the one perpetrated on Americans by the media and by themselves - the ideological fraud which causes voters to make things like this happen.

[notesdev]

17. Thank you

people shouting about fraud when it's obvious Coakley's team knew they were doomed on the genuine vote make it that much harder to be taken seriously when real fraud is involved.

[clear eye]

21. So we should wait and do nothing about a vulnerable system until there is obvious fraud? n/t

[notesdev]

22. If you cry "wolf"

people don't believe you when there really is a wolf

pretty basic lesson in human nature here.

[clear eye]

27. This 63 page list of the dozens of problems that opscans have had

between 2002 and 2008 is not "crying wolf". http://www.votersunite.org/info/OpScansInTheNews.pdf (And that's only the problems that were discovered.) There's a reason Germany which had already bought and paid for electronic counters in many places turned around and made electronic vote counting illegal.

edited to add: People don't have to claim the election was stolen to point out that a situation where there's no way of knowing whether or not it's been stolen is unacceptable.

[clear eye]

28. Speaking about real fraud, how do we know the election wasn't stolen in the primary?

Is there a way of proving that the strong candidate, Capuano, didn't actually win it?

The problem is there is no way. This lack of systemic confidence in the vote should not be allowed to continue. It is not trivial. It is a real disruption of democracy.

edited to add: Changing it should be a plank of the MA state Democratic Party every year until ballots are hand-counted.

[wisteria]

18. We lost-period. Now lets move on and fix the problems that brought this about. n/t

[WilliamPitt]

19. .

[MrsBrady]

20. I wanted to thank you for your work today

My DH and I really enjoyed reading your blog today.

[WilliamPitt]

25. Thank you

It was a privilege to do the work.

:toast:

:hug:

[WilliamPitt]

23. .

[CaliforniaPeggy]

26. Yeah, we lost.

I am trying to figure out what we do next...

When you have finished yelling and breaking things, could you give us some ideas?

I know I'd sure as hell appreciate it.

Thanks, Will, for all that you do...

K&R

:hug: