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My biggest worry about Nov. 4

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Mesteryo Donating Member (529 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 01:43 PM
Original message
My biggest worry about Nov. 4
I'm afraid that all of the polls showing Obama ahead by so much in battleground states are based on people identified as Democrats and not Obama supporters. I'm afraid this is ignoring the chance that certain people identifying themselves as Democrats won't vote for Obama due to his race.

My fear is that the typical political assumptions are being relied on at the expense of ignoring how racist attitudes can effect voting patterns. The polls may just produce overconfidence.
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Truth2Tell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 01:50 PM
Response to Original message
1. My "biggest worry"
is that the election will be stolen, and that your "biggest worry" will be used as the cover story.
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Mesteryo Donating Member (529 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 01:54 PM
Response to Reply #1
6. I'm not discounting voter disenfranchisement...
But I think that's part of a racial issue because guess who is mostly a victim...
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Truth2Tell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 02:16 PM
Response to Reply #6
11. I'm not talking about disenfranchisement...
I'm suggesting the Bradley effect could be used to rationalize the results of outright vote flipping.
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Mesteryo Donating Member (529 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 02:28 PM
Response to Reply #11
14. I doubt that....
I'm not sure how votes can just be changed, I doubt it happens. Vote fraud is as common as getting hit by lightning.
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Kitty Herder Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 02:48 PM
Response to Reply #14
15. Are you serious?
Edited on Fri Oct-24-08 02:49 PM by Herdin_Cats
You're not sure how votes can be changed? This isn't about individual, rare cases of vote fraud. It's about wide-scale election fraud.

Do some homework. Brad Blog is a good place to start. http://www.bradblog.com/
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Truth2Tell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 03:02 PM
Response to Reply #14
16. "vote fraud" or "voter fraud"
means individuals casting fraudulent votes. And yes, it is very rare and has been mythologized by the Republican propaganda machine and our complicit media.

"Election fraud" on the other hand means the institutionalized theft of elections through a variety of means, and has been used by the Republicans quite effectively in the last two Presidential elections. This has been widely documented.
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Mesteryo Donating Member (529 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 03:09 PM
Response to Reply #16
17. I'm not denying election fraud...
But not through vote flipping which is easy to correct by calling a poll worker over.
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JackRiddler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 03:18 PM
Response to Reply #17
18. Um, not unless the poll worker can magically see inside the software.
It doesn't have to be done by flipping the vote so the voter can see it and complain. What matters is the result the machine spits out at the end of the day. If it's coded to produce a false count there's no paper trail, no recount, no way to contest.
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Mesteryo Donating Member (529 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 03:25 PM
Response to Reply #18
19. I have not seen any reported case of..
A machine doing what you said.
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JackRiddler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 03:28 PM
Response to Reply #19
20. It's time for you to catch up on eight years of election fraud research.
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Lydia Leftcoast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 03:59 PM
Response to Reply #14
23. I can think of two algorithms for undetectable cheating with electronic voting machines
It's undetectable because the REPUBLICAN companies that own them will not allow outsiders to check the software, and there's no paper trail, and thus the machine will give the same result each time, even if the results are funky.

With paper ballots, you do a recount, and the results may be different, because someone got distracted while counting or whatever. But you can check that by having different people count in the presence of representatives from all political parties that took part in the election.
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Mesteryo Donating Member (529 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-25-08 12:22 PM
Response to Reply #23
26. not sure about that...
Edited on Sat Oct-25-08 12:35 PM by Mesteryo
All the voting machines I've seen either have a printed audit card or have a removable memory cartridge that records the vote and is printed out. The ones without any paper audit make me nervous.
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Lydia Leftcoast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-25-08 02:27 PM
Response to Reply #26
27. But with no outsiders able to access the software, you could
cause false values to be recorded, and no one would be the wiser.
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ComtesseDeSpair Donating Member (529 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 01:50 PM
Response to Original message
2. I'm not worried about that...
I think, if anything, we'll have the "reverse Bradley effect" where a lot of people who would never admit that they would vote for the black guy to their family and friends do so behind the curtain.

I'm far more worried about election fraud stealing it from us.
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PatSeg Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 02:19 PM
Response to Reply #2
12. The "reverse Bradley effect" is very real
I know some of these people (life long republicans). They claimed months ago they would not vote for Obama because of his race and have since changed their minds. I have a feeling there are a lot of people out there like that.

Election fraud is my primary concern as well.
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Sal Minella Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 01:51 PM
Response to Original message
3. Gosh, I think you should lock yourself in your room and worry about this intensively for two weeks.
that should be "affect" voting patterns, btw.
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demnan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 01:54 PM
Response to Original message
4. But the polling shows
90% of white Democrats support Obama.
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Mesteryo Donating Member (529 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 01:57 PM
Response to Reply #4
9. that's nationally...
State by state is what scares me.
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NeedleCast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 01:54 PM
Response to Original message
5. I think the polls are pretty accurate this year
You might very well be right to some extent, but I also look at the fact younger people seem to support Obama very strongly and are being under-polled because many of us don't have land-lines. I rent a house with two other people, both Democrats. All three of us are cell phone only and here in the DC area there are a lot of college students and young adults in the same situation.
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Benhurst Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 01:56 PM
Response to Original message
7. I think the collapse of Reganomics has removed race as a major
Edited on Fri Oct-24-08 02:00 PM by Benhurst
factor. People are scared, and I don't think prejudice is going to be able to trump economic survival in such times. Obama will garner the most votes.

But I am afraid that some way, somehow, the Republicans will figure out a way to steal the third presidential election in a row.

And I agree with Truth2Tell that the talking heads will use race to cover up the theft if the Republicans manage to pull off another one.
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Mesteryo Donating Member (529 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 02:01 PM
Response to Reply #7
10. yeah but it all depends on who they blame..
Racists may not see the causes of society's problems very rationally.
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WhaTHellsgoingonhere Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 01:57 PM
Response to Original message
8. I feel a lot more comfortable about the presidential election...
...my chief concern is that the thieves will suppress votes of key demographics to salvage what will amount to a big victory in preserving seats in the Senate.
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Quantess Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 02:26 PM
Response to Original message
13. I have a really hard time imagining Democrats voting for McCain / Palin.
Some Dems will hold their noses and vote for Obama, despite his race, but I seriously doubt many Dems would vote for McCain. That is too much of a leap.
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fla nocount Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 03:48 PM
Response to Original message
21. Can a person support themselves on 5 cents a word, unedited?
That's my "biggest worry."

This is the year that race gets put in the bag, taken to the curb and given to the county landfill for disposal. This issue is finally going to be marginalized, and it happened in my lifetime. Gandhi be praised, we are all saved.
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Mesteryo Donating Member (529 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 03:57 PM
Response to Reply #21
22. WTF are you talking about?
This is the second thread I've seen where you've made absolutely no sense.
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fla nocount Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 04:40 PM
Response to Reply #22
24. Google Mesteryo...
Edited on Fri Oct-24-08 04:45 PM by fla nocount
Do you realize that your OP and this thread are real time on the innertubes...it's at the top of the search column for Mesteryo.

As far as a sense of my sense, that's my own agenda. I'm on a mission.
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onlyadream Donating Member (821 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-24-08 04:44 PM
Response to Original message
25. I feel the same way...
November 4th is going to be one heck of a day...

I do find myself getting extra grouchy these days since I just can't take it anymore. Yesterday MSM was saying how we may go into the night (on election day) or even the next few days doing a recount. If that happens, I think I'll pull all of my hair out. :(
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