Why the Republicans could win big this year

[Glaisne]

Why? Through cheating of course. Conservatives could never win in a free and fair election. They know that. So they will cheat. A lot. Here's how:

1. Voter ID Laws. These are being pursued by many states which are designed specifically to disenfranchise students, elderly, minorities, and the poor. See http://www.propublica.org/article/everything-youve-ever-wanted-to-know-about-voter-id-laws

2. Purging Voter Rolls. Theses activities being pursued by such states as Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania are using bad data and faulty pretexts to throw hundreds of thousands of legitimate voters off the voter rolls. See http://www.brennancenter.org/content/section/category/voter_purges_and_challenges and http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/08/02/629311/new-analysis-by-list-company-voter-purges/

3. Partisan Election Officials. Too many election officials in charge of the day to day running of the election are republican operatives and party supporters. Their actions include reducing early voting and reducing hours the polls are open. They are an obstruction to free and fair elections. See http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/08/elections_in_the_hands_of_the_partisan_and_incompe.php and http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/06/22/504616/partisan-republicans-aggressively-seeking-to-become-election-officials-in-florida/

4. Direct Voter Suppression. Right wing tea bagger groups like True the Vote will be sending poll watchers to minority and poor dominated precincts with the specific aim to intimidate and interfere with voting by minorities and the poor. Other actions that will occur, especially in swing states, that have been done in the past include illegal police road blocks on roads leading to polling places, too few voting machines in democratic districts, a preponderance of broken and malfunctioning voting machines located at democratic districts. See http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/25/1124196/-True-the-Vote-s-effort-to-steal-the-election

5. Electronic Voting Machines. Easily hacked and manipulated proprietary electronic voting machines are owned and maintained by companies with known support for republican candidates. These machines have been proven multiple times to be easily hacked and have provided unusual and unexpected results in many races. The companies have resisted investigation by claiming their machines are proprietary, which is a problem for fair and free elections. See http://www.salon.com/2011/09/27/votinghack/ and http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/empire/2012/may/09/reports-find-machine-errors-led-uncounted-votes-2010/ and http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

6. Unregulated and unlimited propaganda in campaigns through so called social welfare super pacs thanks to Citizens United.

This means even greater effort on our part to get out the vote and register new voters. Do not underestimate the other side. They are motivated, disciplined, and are cheating!

[goclark]

1. k and r

[Dawgs]

2. You may be right, but we heard the same things in 2008. n/t

[pnwmom]

5. They've made HUGE STRIDES in 4 years.

10% here, 10% there -- in just one or two swing states (it's already happening in Florida and PA) . . .

[Scuba]

3. Scares the bejeeezus out of me. Our side needs to be in the streets making noise about this.

[Waltons_Mtn]

4. I have been thinking about this too.

I used an interactive electoral college map the other day. If you give Romney all of the states that he hold a >5% lead and you add in PA for the Voter ID laws, Florida for the voter purge, Wisconsin for the Voter ID laws, and Ohio for the Voting Machines. This gives Rmoney 268. All he would need to do is carry Virginia or North Carolina. Some scary stuff in my opinion.

[Agnosticsherbet]

6. These are all the reasons why we are no longer a Democracy... n/t

[Liberal Gramma]

7. F'r cryin' out loud, don't we have any hackers???

I can't believe that the Repugs have the advantage in computer voting manipulation. We all think they're going to cheat, so where is the stealth army of computer wizards that could prevent that?