At 8:25 pm, media was 'leaning' to call WI for RobMe/Lyin

[mojowork_n]

But two heavily blue wards hadn't been counted, so they held off.

Forty minutes later the call went the other way. Not too long after those
two wards turned in the expected results, and other results came in.

At least according to this blog:

http://voicesnewspaper.blogspot.com/search/label/Richard%20Charnin

The programmer/analyst/expert named, Richard Charnin, has a very complete
and detailed list of election integrity links at his website:

http://richardcharnin.com/

PS...........

If Florida gets counted for Obama, Charnin will have exactly predicted the
final announced tally.

If Florida ends up going the other way, it will raise a red flag in one of the
states that had a very high level of voter suppression activity before the
election.

With all these late, slow, or delayed vote counts -- there are still 600K ballots
missing in Arizona? How many other state counts are still incomplete, or show
untabulated ballots? -- what's the correlation between a ....s . l . o . w... count
and increasing uncertainty, or greater skepticism with final, released tallies?

And if states like FLA and AZ were working sooooo hard to assure the cleanest,
most accurate and reliable lists of registered voters before the balloting started
-- what's been taking so long?

Are there increased rates of early/absentee ballots going uncounted, or lost or
missing? With similarly higher rates for "spoiled" and 'improperly marked' ballots?

[SidDithers]

1. Richard Charnin is former DUer TruthIsAll...

Personally, I'll stick with Nate Silver.

Sid

[Tansy_Gold]

2. Yep.

Some of us have been here a long time, and have long memories.

[msanthrope]

5. That's a blast from the past.....nt

[Avalux]

7. Wow I didn't know that.

And yes, I'll stick with Nate.

[mojowork_n]

9. Nate was on the Daily Show last night... sharp guy.

...but it's not like the two had any serious disagreement over who was going to win, and with what kind of numbers.

Here's the link, from before Tuesday:

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/10021670386

The choice is continuing to rely on privatized, faith-based ballot counting -- or continuing to ask questions. And a good
question is still a good question, no matter who brings it up.

[ThatPoetGuy]

10. Ah, ok.

I see, and I remember.

[villager]

3. Probably part of the Rovian game plan -- to "call" states for Rmoney, thus making Obama wins

...there de-legitimized, a la Fox helping to steal Florida from Al Gore, in 2000.

Also probably explains Rove's shock -- the plan was to call Ohio for Romney, then "challenge" Obama's legitimate votes, if need be.

[liberal N proud]

12. I believe that could be what the plan was.

They were going to fight Ohio all the way.

[karynnj]

4. I don't believe it

It is highly unlikely that this is true because the people who make the calls for the media know the history of the area with votes out.

[mojowork_n]

11. And your source for that claim is.....? Which "people" are you talking about?

[karynnj]

13. Each network has people looking at data from past races

I don't have a link, but anyone who watches any of the coverage saw them looking at which districts were out and how they voted in the last several elections.

By the way, this was true before computers. In local races, you would see the numbers on a blackboard by district and the more experienced people knew if the new numbers were better or worse than expected.

[mojowork_n]

16. OK, so in general, you're fine with the way elections are run.

Nothing's fundamentally changed from the days when guys in fedora hats and ties were standing around blackboards, smoking cigarettes and talking smart.

Like Mad Men, only it's the political game. Not the ad game.

Never mind the speed with which it's collected, and the (potential) malleability of the data.

I honestly don't know if I have a solid reason to believe differently, but I'm trying to pay attention. Reports like this -- and the news about RobMe being so stunned and surprised (Stephanie Miller said this morning they'd spent $25,000 for fireworks, for Boston Harbor) -- are a peek behind the curtain.

[jillan]

6. Part of what happened in Az is Senator-elect Flake (tgop) had a robo-call going out to Dems with

wrong polling place info.

The FBI is on it.

There is no way he could have beaten Carmona - none - especially with the huge Latino GOTV drive in the state.

[sofa king]

8. Virginia was the same way.

I knew it was looking good here, as I kept hammering the Board of Elections site, because I managed to pull in just one useful scrap of information from DU: reporting was delayed in many high-population density areas of Virginia because voting was not yet complete in those areas.

From there, I needed to make only one cynical assumption: the only precincts in Virginia that lack adequate numbers of voting machines are those in areas with high numbers of minority voters, and the list of reporting precincts appeared to follow my cynicism very well.

Sure enough, when those areas began reporting in, the results were overwhelmingly in favor of the President. Voter suppression attempts proved to be the herald of victory.

[mathematic]

14. Utter nonsense.

Fox called WI just after the polls closed at 8pm local/9pm est. 1% of the vote was in. I noted this because it went against their desired narrative ("Ryan wins WI for the republicans&quot and no other networks immediately followed.

[mojowork_n]

15. Don't disagree about the time frame being close.

I was walking out of the gym and the guy at the front desk said, "hey, WI went for
Obama." (Home state, where we both were at the time.)

It couldn't have been much past 8:30. Earliest Google result I saw for the state being
called (just now) was at Freeperville..... 8:42. That doesn't dismiss the report but it
doesn't leave much of a window -- 10 to 15 minutes.

What seems newsworthy -- why I posted -- was the possibility that calling the state
one way or the other was a fast and fluid decision. Possibly one that was made without
adequate (?) data.

What was the rush?

I still remember my complete shock and disbelief when last June’s recall election for Snotty
Scotty was called in the middle of the afternoon. While the polls were still open and every
other bit of information to that point (that I’d been seeing, anyway) had been........
“neck-and-neck," like the final polls.

On the Thom Hartmann show this afternoon, Thom passed on a 3rd-hand account, from
someone who heard it from someone who was in Boston, with the high-and-mighty few hundred
who were gathered for the Republican “Victory Rally.” When he was told he’d lost – Romney’s
reaction was utter, stunned surprise. He hadn’t had a clue. It hit him out of nowhere.

That’s exactly how I remember the recall.

RobMe may have been gob-smacked because he thought the 'fix' was in. He and Singer and
Adelson and the rest of them had... done whatever they'd done. I was dumbfounded because
I knew and had been following how much work, effort and shoe leather had gone into get-out
voters activity. And all the reports had said it was working. That people were turning out to vote
in big numbers and we might be in for a late night.