scenario 2006

here's the scene. 2006 elections all the polls are looking good for the dems to take back some seats and get some power back in the halls of congress. Oops. we all lose. the exit polls don't come close to matching the actual totals, there's talk of voter suppression and glitches with voting machines. Bush declares another mandate and the neo-con march to doomsday continues. Is that the tipping point for you all or do we wait to see if we have a terra attack in 2007 negating all further elections until the nuclear hole that was NYC is cleaned up. sorry I'm on such a tinfoil trip today but I need to rage or go insane.

I don't know about your congressional district, but mine doesn't do exit polling, just count the votes and with Democrats doing most the counting. Wanna win elections? Have you people do the counting.

The rest of your "scenario" isn't my thing...I only keep tin foil hats for birthday parties and hope the stuff you're smoking is plentiful and cheap.

Wanna avoid your nightmare? Elect Democrats. Get out and find a campaign to work on NOW...help get Democrats on ballots, build up local and state parties and do the hard work to retake our country district by district. If you're not already thinking or doing this, then you're just asking for your nightmare to come true.

of the republican-owned, proprietary software-run machines that do the counting.

Electing democrats is a great idea, but how are we to manage that when the republicans count the votes? In Georgia, 2002, and nationwide in 2004, democrats got the votes, but republicans got elected, because they counted the votes.

All that exit polls do is reflect the actual voting patterns of the people coming out of the polls. Deviance from the exit polls is a warning that the ballots need to be counted, and verified, by hand by non-partisan poll workers, preferable one from each party, agreeing on what each paper ballot says.

Unless the ballots are hand-counted and verified at the precinct level, I have no faith that any vote is true.

Want paper ballots? Want the system completely changed? Control it, dictate the rules, determine how the votes are conducted, how they're tabulated, who counts them and how they're reported. Basic Politics 101.

Again, there were NO exit polls anywhere in my area or Congressional district last year and our candidate beat a Repugnican incumbent. We had the old dimple chad system, but we also had people on the local election board, organized a great team of poll judges and watchers and saw the results on election night our internal polling had shown...no surprises at all.

It's time to move to 2005 and join the rest of the world...the Diebold problem isn't gonna go away with yelling at it...if you're that concerned, get involved with who runs your elections and get others involved who will work to make voting more equitable and accessible.

2006 will be here real soon and if you want to be hit by another truck, keep looking behind.

yeah ok, poof I'm involved. When even most of "our side" says that speculations about voter fraud is tin foil hat stuff then who do we go to. You know the snails pace shit moves in our government (unless it's them interfering in a state judges ruling of course) things won't change significantly enough by 2006 for the vote to be honest and transparent

No need to discuss since you have some solution...so what is it? What should I do...especially in an area where we have no problems with electronic voting (and it's been in place since 1986) and the working to keep an incumbent in office...defending from what is sure to be a massive GOOP effort to retake the seat? Sit and wait upon your words? Piss and moan on a message board?

Let's hear specifics...describe what is is you want and how "we" or "our side" should go about it. Not esoterics...let's hear names, places, races, specific places Democrats have to focus to marshall the most voice and resources.

This should be amusing...

you say get involved like I can just go join our election board and personally make sure all things are hunky dory. My solution? A third party would be nice. Where do we get involved to let the big two to let us in the game? Perot was humored to put on the face of democracy because they knew they could paint him as a cartoon character. Nader can talk the talk and that's why they don't want him talking. Kucinich and Sharpton were the only two in the pre-primary debates that had any real plans for our country and Larry King regulated them to the "already lost". I don't think getting involved works anymore. I think we're truly past the point of no return. I'd just rather have us come to our senses collectively as opposed to waiting for a miracle or the inevitblility of the rest of the world ruining us financially or militarily.

OK, let's start all over...build a new party...dismiss anyone previously involved in the political system as either used or corrupt.

Now, where you expect to fund this new party? Do you know a billionaire ready to fund this? Do you have political operatives ready to organize your party and help it develop local committees and candidates or are you looking for one big "saviour" candidate to face the two already existing and functioning parties?

Your rant is well and good...and we all need to blow off steam...but as I was once told, if you don't have a solution, you're part of the problem.

Obviously getting involved and fixing the Democratic party from within is either beneath you or not worthy...so I guess we're all wasting our time. Congrats, Rove has won another one.

I didn't think our party needed fixing until I started watching most of our party play the political popularity contest game instead of sticking to our convictions. Normally I would be the first person to let the process take it's course. I would take 24 years of a Republican President as long as our own candidates gave it a good fight without selling out the soul of our party in the process. It's too late I fear to infiltrate the corruption with the political version of Elliot Ness. See Minstrel's post below to better understand my thoughts. My mind is clouded too much today by anger to effectively express myself apparently. Peace all.

what's to say you couldn't do both?

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

I scare my dog too. :hippie:

There is no way the world would recover from that. The global economy would be in utter ruins. Republicans would be the least of our problems.

afford to lost Wall Street.

I'd be nervous living in Boston, or Seattle or some other major blue port city -- even Chicago would qualify. Easiest way to get a nuke into the country would be in a container ship. Wouldn't even have to off-load. Just detonate in the harbor.

I think we'd still be working our way out of The Second Great Depression.

It wasn't until 93 WTC that financial firms created disaster recovery sites and off site backups of all thier data.

Had the buildings been destroyed in '93 Hundres of Billions of dollar asset records would have been destroyed and corporations would have failed right and left due to not having access to thier capital. It would have been cascading economic destruction and the FED would not have been able to contain, IMHO.

but then again, the no-paper ballot voting machines would LIE again!:evilgrin:

"Get out the vote" is no solution, when the votes disappear into GOP/theonomist software.

The illegitimate parapolitical power nodes that have confidently emerged from the shadows since 2000 cannot be displaced by the "legitimate" authority they have usurped. Other means will be necessary.

Apart from the melodrama and mythology, politics in America is finished.

grim as they are you have clarified my fears.