I kind of get pissed off about those who claim -- every damn time we lose an election -- that the machines are rigged. That is so stupid of a claim.

Thank you for posting this, my friend.

The system absolutely needs to be reformed, but the boy who cried wolf approach to losing elections has long worn thin.

It's Republicans. And its more than not simply being a priority. It's an imperative to keep people from voting.

... the technology to ensure a reliable voting process.

The problems are:

1). Some people don't want it to be reliable.
2). Some people want there to be questions about it because it depresses voter participation ("Why should I vote, it's rigged anyway&quot .
3). There is so much money at stake that corruption will find a way. The Republicans just threw $25m into this election. At some point it becomes cheaper to simply rig the election. And if there has been a "did they or didn't they?" conspiracy-esque controversy over it for years, it's plausibly deniable even when an informed whistleblower comes forward ("just another conspiracy whacko&quot . In other words, if they have not already rigged elections, they are certainly setting stage for it in the future.

Add Foreign interference, add voter suppression laws, add gerrymandering tactics, add media downplay, etc...

The compromising of the vote is not some fringe effort on the part of a few desperate Doctor Evil's trying to hang onto their congressional or gubernatorial seat. It's a pretty carefully orchestrated and coordinated multi-front plan being executed by very smart people who have been studying this shit strategically for decades, and who have vast resources to fund whatever they want.

Here in Michigan everybody votes on a paper ballot, mark sense. It is the best system, a compromise that allows both manual and machine counting equally well.

We use scantrons to count, but there are paper ballots.

One would have to wholesale hack a substantial number of them to make any substantive change. That scenario has no credible support.

It is the lack of an audit trail that makes the machines unacceptable, that they "could be hacked".

I just don't buy into the lunacy that every election we lose was somehow stolen.

Always good to see your posts.

many yankee transplants from up north in metro Atlanta, how many of those in the 6th district?

There are a lot of transplants in that area, but most of the transplants come from other southern states. There's also quite a bit of white college-educated upper middle class, and that demographic is about as deep red as it gets.

?

Gwinnett County, mostly, which is outside of GA-6.

My family moved from Buffalo, NY down to Orange, TX back in 1977. Orange is in the very southeast corner of TX, 40 minutes from the Gulf and 5 minutes from Louisiana. I'm sure there's not much difference between voters there and in your area. I know Obama caught a lot of grief for his comment years ago about people clinging to their guns and bible but it's the fucking truth. You're not gonna change southern voters' minds. The majority of them will vote for whomever is not a damn liberal because they correlate 'liberal' with baby killing, gun taking, America-hating, welfare recipient.

So what do we do? The OP is absolutely right; don't try to win 'their' votes, you're just wasting your time. Get the people who will vote for Dems & Progs to show the fuck up and vote. It's the only way. Obama clobbered John McCain because the POC vote was through the roof. We must achieve this again or this country is just going to get worse.

What in the hell is wrong with us?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/20/opinion/voter-turnout-democrats-republicans.html?src=me&_r=0

Newt Gingrich held GA-6 from 1978-1998, Johnny Isakson held it from 1998-2004, Tom Price held it from 2004-2017. And now Handel. A parade of horribles is what this crappy district wants. 
From Politico: 
"In today’s 6th, just 5 percent of families live in poverty, compared to a statewide poverty rate of 17 percent. More than 58 percent of its residents are college graduates, more than double the statewide rate of 28 percent. It sprawls across the northern arc of metro Atlanta, encompassing well-heeled bedroom communities, such as Alpharetta (median household income: $92,839) and Roswell (median household income: $102,500) and Enjeti’s neighborhood of Johns Creek (median household income: $106,950)." 
It's conservative and well-heeled. 
Even with unprecedented voter turn-out in 2008, it went for Romney and McCain in 2012.
In this year's runoff in April there were more Republican votes cast among the 11 Republican candidates than for Ossoff. 
In April's primary runoff a total of 192,569 votes were cast. Ossoff got 92,673 votes, independents/others got 1801 votes, the other 11 Republicans candidates combined got 99, 896 votes. Ossoff running against a single Republican candidate was in for a heavy lift. 
Maybe less red than it used to be, but GA as a state will not turn blue for some time. Lived there for 15 years.
It's less red than it used to be but, still red. 

nobody really knows who won. it's certainly not impossible or even unlikely that a repug won in GA, but the reality is that neither you nor anybody else knows for sure. that in itself is a problem. you may be okay with that, but don't expect everybody else to feel the same way.

At the very beginning of this election, I knew and everybody else knew who was familiar with the history of computer counted elections in GA beginning in 2002 that there was no way in hell that Ossoff was going to win this election. The amount of the loss I knew would be determined by the voter suppression tactics already in place PLUS the voting machines in GA, which are rigged and have been rigged since 2002 and the Max Cleland fiasco.

There's no secret to any of this. Anybody who wants to go to the trouble of doing an exit poll him or herself (or using the "unadjusted" exit poll figures from the for-profit polling companies, if those figures are even available), then statistically comparing those results with the so-called vote tallies, will find a significant disparity between the two figures. The chances of the disparity will be such that a good statistician will know that it could not have happened if the election results were honestly counted.

This is exactly what happened here in KS in the last major election. A highly qualified statistician working for the NIAR on the WSU campus (the Natl Institute of Aviation Research) did an exit poll herself (Beth Clarkson) and concluded that the vote was "rigged" in the places where she did the exit poll and the statistics to check the result. She could not say that the rigging was enough to change to election since this is KS and we have at least as much voter suppression here as in GA but the fact of rigging was at least from the figures she came up with impossible to explain in any other way. I know people will hem and haw and claim that this doesn't take into account A or B which could easily have accounted for C and D, Republicans are less apt to respond to exit polls than Dems (a thesis that is absurd on its face and as far as I know has never been scientifically tested, originating in the 2004 Kerry victory in OH which was subverted by Carl Rove and his friends) or a hundred other equally absurd charges.

But I don't think there are many white/affluent or white/rural districts in the South that need any kind of vote tampering to win; there's been more than enough brain tampering by right wing media and fundamentalist churches to ensure Republican victory without further cheating. Add that to voter suppression and voter laziness and it's Republican dominance all the way.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article157039299.html

And this:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029226036

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029173171

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016185690

https://www.verifiedvoting.org/verified-voting-letter-to-georgia-secretary-of-state-brian-kemp/

On March 3rd it was reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigations is conducting a criminal investigation into an alleged cyber attack of the Kennesaw State University Center for Election Systems. According to the KSU Center for Election Systems’ website, “the Secretary of State authorized KSU to create a Center for Election Systems, dedicated to assisting with the deployment of the Direct Record Electronic (DRE) voting technology and providing ongoing support.” The Center is responsible for ensuring the integrity of the voting systems and developing and implementing security procedures for the election management software installed in all county election offices and voting systems.

The Center has access to most if not all voting systems and software used in Georgia. It also is responsible for programming these systems and accessing and validating the software on these systems. It is our understanding that the Center also programs and populates with voter records the electronic poll books used in polling places statewide. A security breach at the Center could have dire security consequences for the integrity of the technology and all elections carried out in Georgia.

snip

So the point is the election may or may not have been rigged, but there is no way to know for sure, and there is plenty to be concerned about, and why is this still being tolerated?

lots of tricks explained

pollsters that they're voting repub, and so that's why the "real" vote totals continue to shift right, election after election. gee, you'd think pollsters would have figured out how to run an accurate poll by now.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029238382

n/t

GYD knows the score IMO. "Clannish and fucked up."

Anybody who would vote for a party actively trying to take affordable health care access away from 23 million of their fellow citizens so that a small group of millionaires and billionaires who already have wayyy too much can have a whole lot more is, indeed, mighty fucked up. What's worse, one of the prime movers of said death care plan for millions is an asshole who won that same district by 21 points. Voters there should know better than anybody how bad he is and take some responsibility themselves for said death care plan. They could have taken him down a long time ago rather than build him up to where he can do so much damage to so many.

GYD has my sympathy for all those years of somehow enduring such a clan of "the worst shitheads on earth."

But watching Faux News for 20 years along with Limburger goes a long way. They know the prejudices of the south and use them against us. They vote emotionally not factually and there's no convincing them otherwise. Until the country wakes up the small group trying to push back against fascism will keep losing. Americans are just easy to misdirect & distract. So frustrating.

Unlike last Nov.

In most of the elections here, the Democratic Party doesn't even have a candidate in the race ~ they know they don't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning. My neighbor has a Confederate flag hanging 'proudly' out front of his house. We put up an 8' privacy fence to the tune of $4,000 so we don't have to see it every time we go out. He's also got a Trump Country and I Love My Guns on his truck ~ the confederacy lives on. We have Corker and Lamar Alexander to represent us

Born and raised 20 miles from Roswell, you are 100% correct

Thanks for sharing your perspective. It's 6:37am Eastern 6/21 as I write and the sun is coming up.

Onward.....

top of the Democratic ticket. Have we learned nothing from 2016?

Did you get the idea from my post that I hated the top of the Democratic ticket? I was an enthusiastic Hillary supporter and had ZERO problems voting for her because I've never bought into any of the 25 year right wing hatefest on her.

And even if we had put up a shitty candidate, they would have gotten my vote. The first Presidential election I was eligible for, I cast my ballot for Dukakis and it has been straight Democratic ever since. I was on here telling people to STFU and vote Clinton and drag every friend they had to the polls, too. I tried to tell people who were stupid enough to hold a grudge about the primary.that this vote wouldn't just be about the President, but also the VP and Cabinet and Supreme Court, and they had damn well get enthusiastic about denying the Trump shitshow. And a lot of the time, I got yelled down, and alerted on, and this reply will probably get alerted on, so I don't want to hear from ANYONE about how I'm somehow not supportive of the top of the ticket. Capische?

I honestly think you could put Manson or Gacy on the ballot with a R next to their name and 85-90% of these asshats would vote for them!

In the meantime, the progressive populist Democrat running in South Carolina's special election yesterday came closer to defeating his Republican challenger (in a rural, hardscrabble district; not an upscale suburban one) than Ossoff did Handel.

And did so without fifty million bucks spent in his race.

http://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/06/20/the-ossoff-parnell-lesson-stop-chasing-romney-voters/

As usual in Kansas heavily Republican. But...Thompson lost by 5-6% in a district that usually goes 20% victory for Repubs. And...he won in Wichita and Sedgwick Co but lost to those out in rural areas.

Thompson has already announced he's running again in 2018. That guy is tough and takes no shit.

Because we can't be bothered to vote because we are too busy doing other things that are more important like watching TV and bitching about Trump on Facebook.


There are way more people in the US who agree with basic Democrat ideas such as safe working places and living wages. There us not a red district in the nation IF democrats would put in the work at the local level to register voters, see to it that they stay registered and that they get out and vote. Most of us simply can't be bothered.

On the other side old white people vote every chance they get.

Russians be damned, hacked voting machines be damned,...it is tossing democrats off the rolls and most of us not voting that allows the GOP any shirt at all......

They're too lazy to vote, but then turn around and whine that they aren't represented in government.

If everybody voted, the politics in this country would be vastly different. Instead, it's mostly elderly people who can be arsed to go out and vote. Everybody else is too lazy and then whines when their side loses.

Imo, if you don't vote in elections, you've lost your right to complain about their outcome. Don't come screaming "rigged" or whining about how bad the outcome was when you were too darn lazy to go and cast a vote. It's irritating.

I'm also annoyed when I hear, "it wouldn't make a difference anyways!" It's like these people think that they should either be able to choose the outcome themselves or it's totally useless. The whole point of a vote is that it requires participation to work. It's the worst excuse ever for laziness. The problem is, everybody else gets this mentality, and it makes a huge difference!

Russian Hackers Targeted 21 States During Election, Official Says
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/russian-hackers-election_us_594a8b04e4b0a3a837bc1ace?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=__HUFFPOSTHILL__062117&utm_content=__HUFFPOSTHILL__062117+CID_9b48436ceedeeab80fcb53374a21f47a&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=Reuters&ncid=newsltushpmgnews__HUFFPOSTHILL__062117

I'm not suggesting that there were issues with the machines in this election. I don't have the evidence specifically. But if you haven't seen enough evidence of statistical irregularities and outright hacking to question the integrity of these machines, then you are either ignoring the facts or you're too afraid to look at them. Look, I get that no one wants to look like a "nut" but that, more than anything, is what keeps people from standing up and questioning the status quo.

saying the Democratic defeat was disastrous and demoralizing for the Democratic party . These were the same pundits who said that if Ossoff didn't win the 1st round he'd have a much harder time winning the 2nd round because all the R's who voted for the different republican candidates would migrate to Handel . And that's exactly what happened. Now the talking heads are on tv implying the Democratic party is incompetent for not winning last night. Bullshit. Ossoff got 48.1 % of the vote last night . He got 48. something during the 1st round. No surprises here.

I have relatives who vote Republican simply because they've always voted Republican even though they hate what R's are doing to healthcare and are scared about what they might do to SS and Medicare. They've always voted R and so did their parents and grandparents and they're not changing.


I consider it a miracle that Handel only won by 4 in this district where R's usually win by 20,30, 40 . It's not a win but it's progress.

Although actually turn out was heavy in this case for a special election.

Why did Democrats do much better this time than they normally do in Congressional elections there? It's a very
Republican district as you say. But this time the margin for Republican victory was shaved dramatically. Who can say with certainty whether in fact it might have been shaved by ten thousand more votes? Not the Diebold machines used - they do not allow for any recount of the results.

My own opinion is that Ossoff probably won less overall votes than Handel for all the reasons you state. I don't rely on my own opinion for certainty.

Francisco saying stupid junk and looking dumb trying to tie Ossoff to Nancy Pelosi, etc.

Personally, I saw that ad as a reason to vote for Ossoff, but white wing GOPer leaning folks are scared to death of that.

Although I thought Ossoff was quite mature and knowledgeable of important issues, they also portrayed him as a youngster, barely out of college, a "film maker," who was lying about his national security experience.

But there should be no need for any uncertainty about that. Yet it can't be fully dismissed, and that should be a crime.

Here are the facts about the voting system used in that district:
“Much of what happens at the Center for Election Systems is shrouded in mystery”
https://www.good.is/features/georgia-election-hack-richard-demillo

Here is how Holland dealt with uncertainty about vote tampering ahead of their national elections this year:

"Dutch will count all election ballots by hand to thwart hacking"
"Ministers want no repeat of US-Russia controversy in the March poll that could see Geert Wilders’ far-right party win power"
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/02/dutch-will-count-all-election-ballots-by-hand-to-thwart-cyber-hacking

"Dutch authorities will count by hand all the votes cast in next month’s general elections, ditching “vulnerable” computer software to thwart any cyber hacking bid, a senior minister has said...

...Plasterk told parliament that fears over “the vulnerabilities of the software” used by the country’s election committee “had raised questions about whether the upcoming elections could be manipulated”.

He insisted in a letter to MPs that “no shadow of a doubt should hang over the results” of the parliamentary polls, which some analysts predict could result in a five-party coalition."

Those silly Dutch, right?

If you cannot prove who won an election - it is rigged.

Democrats better start speaking up...or maybe they just don't care about elections???

We have to have confidence the election, any election in the US, could not have been tampered with and the results are verifiable. Until we have systems in place that assure us of that, then we'll always have enough uncertainty to feed "stolen election" fears. So I do think the voting machines are a serious issue that needs to be addressed.

Because I used to live in that district, I am flabbergasted the results were as close as they were. And like you, thoroughly disgusted since turnout would have made a huge difference given the margin of victory. But the final result being "as expected," doesn't negate the fact that electronic voting has serious flaws that need to be corrected for the electorate to have confidence every vote was counted correctly.

there is NO good reason not to have votes recorded and tabulated on paper.

And it worries me that NONE of our fearless leaders seem to want to talk about that solution.

One upbeat post and poll after another. It is gargantuan bullshit and has always been bullshit. The stupidity began by actually believing Barnes and Cleland led by those poll margins in 2002. All the indications were ominous, regarding security moms and other demographic shifts based on 9/11 paranoia. Yet we happily concluded it would be just another first term midterm and the out party would dominate. Laughable. Then Georgia became the poster child for machine theft. I was already sick of it during 2004 and it's done nothing but linger as a crutch for more than a dozen years hence. Pathetic. When I take long breaks from this site it's often partially due to posters who fixate on that issue regardless of race or result or situational variables. If we won by 2 it was rightfully 8. If we lost by 4 it was really 4 the other way. Make it whatever you want it to be. There is no burden so logic need not hang around.

Georgia polling sucks. I discovered that as soon as I began studying political results state by state in 1996. Only Alaska is worse. The Democratic candidate is overstated virtually without exception. Nothing has changed in two plus decades. Every time Rachel Maddow touts a favorable poll from an impossible state she should have her head sprung out of a jack o lantern. In fact, that's the way I envision her.

Drive through Georgia or any of those southern states and reality smacks you in the face. Meanwhile, Rachel Maddow is sitting on a subway bench in Manhattan. Clueless galore.

Obama narrowly carrying North Carolina in 2008 was the worst statewide result since Florida 2000, given the false hope it attached to that state and others nearby. North Carolina has 43% conservatives. Georgia reported 42% conservatives in the 2016 exit poll. Newsflash: Those states are out of reach. Don't listen to moron Rachel Maddow fresh off that bench. The nation is 35% conservatives. It would be like a golfer trying to carry a 450 yard water hazard and wondering what possibly went wrong. Hillary could have managed 270 electoral votes if she had merely focused on every state within reach, i.e. the ones that figured to report 37% or fewer self-identified conservatives in the exit poll. In fact, those ideological breakdowns should be the emphasis of every pre election poll and especially the internal polls. Voters may lie about who they plan to vote for but they won't fudge the ideology.

The pivotal states Hillary lost were all right there within reach. Every one of them reported a gap of only 9% or less among self-identified liberals and conservatives. One of them was only a 5% gap -- 32 to 27. Prior to 2016 I had never seen a state with a single digit gap vote Republican. It was neglect, pure and simple. The exit poll numbers screamed those states still wanted to back our side but we were too busy screwing around in North Carolina and other states that won't be logically viable until 2028, if then.