A reader reminds me of recent historical trends WRT voting:
This is how I know we are doomed.
They’ve been saying election results haven’t been matching exit polls for a few election cycles now.
Also, that whole “Republicans are less likely to answer pollsters” thing has always sounded like a whitewash excuse to me. That’s a sweeping statement about all GOP voters? As if they get a fax in the AM of election day instructing them not to talk to phone pollsters and exit pollsters? Nothing about that make sense. It seems like the number of people who don’t like to talk to pollsters would be evenly distributed among all parties in large enough sample groups.
The other “reason” thrown around for landslide victories in precincts where polling results didn’t predict that was the famous “They put some gay rights initiatives on the ballots, and we know those GOP people are going to turn out in droves just to vote against those.” While everyone was nodding yes to these reasons as making sense, like bobblhead dolls, red flags were going off for me.
Premier Election Solutions, previously Diebold Election Systems, has had controversy swirling about it. Wikipedia helps us out here:
In August 2003, Walden O’Dell, then the chief executive of Diebold, announced that he had been a top fund-raiser for President George W. Bush and had sent a get-out-the-funds letter to 100 wealthy and politically inclined friends in the Republican Party, to be held at his home in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio.[13]
In December 2005, O’Dell resigned following reports that the company was facing securities fraud litigation surrounding charges of insider trading.[14]
And here, which is a discussion of various (and many! they sound like a pack of amateurs) security flaws. Or, perhaps, a machine designed to be easily compromised. Mother Jones covered Diebold back in 2004:
That label sounds ominously accurate to the many who are skeptical of computerized voting. In addition to being as decisive as the 2000 polling in Florida, they worry this year’s vote in Ohio could be just as flawed. Specifically, they worry that it could be rigged. And they wonder why state officials seem so unconcerned by the fact that the two companies in line to sell touch-screen voting machines to Ohio have deep and continuing ties to the Republican Party. Those companies, Ohio’s own Diebold Election Systems and Election Systems & Software of Nebraska, are lobbying fiercely ahead of a public hearing on the matter in Columbus next week.
There’s solid reason behind the political rhetoric tapping Ohio as a key battleground. No Republican has ever captured the White House without carrying Ohio, and only John Kennedy managed the feat for the Democrats. In 2000, George W. Bush won in the Buckeye State by a scant four percentage points. Four years earlier, Bill Clinton won in Ohio by a similar margin.
In recent years, central Ohio has been transformed from a bastion of Republicanism into a Democratic stronghold. Six of Columbus’ seven city council members are Democrats, as is the city’s mayor, Michael Coleman. But no Democrat has been elected to Congress from central Ohio in more than 20 years, and the area around Columbus still includes pockets where no Democrat stands a chance. One such Republican pocket is Upper Arlington, the Columbus suburb that is home to Walden “Wally” O’Dell, the chairman of the board and chief executive of Diebold.
And what was the result? Presidential:
Ohio was won by incumbent President George W. Bush by a 2.1% margin of victory. Prior to the election, most news organizations considered the Buckeye state as a swing state. The state’s economic situation gave hope for Senator Kerry. In the end, the state became the deciding factor of the entire election. Kerry conceded the state, as well as the entire election the morning following election night, as Bush won the state and its 20 electoral votes. The close contest was the subject of the documentary film …So Goes the Nation, the title of which is a reference to Ohio’s 2004 status as a crucial swing state.
In the House of Representatives there were no changes for Ohio – all incumbents re-elected.
Professor Clarkson’s results is just the latest in a suspicious pattern of clues. I hope she wins her suit.
