I am weary to my marrow of the deep moral and intellectual sickness of the right

[Stevepol]

68. Please add electronic voting machines to your list.

You say: "Maybe there's still some hope that the republican party can be transformed from the toxic entity it now is, but what with the control they have over state governments, redistricting, the deterioration of voting rights, unlimited funds and organizations like ALEC, it's exceedingly difficult to see how that happens."

It's the voting machines that have created the situation we have now and that will make sure it doesn't change significantly no matter what the real vote is. These other things you mention are certainly problematical but the basis of it is the voting machines IMO.

Just to remind you of only one example: When Kerry lost the 04 election, the exit polls showed him winning by a couple percentage points. Of course the spokespersons for the status quo claimed that the polls were wrong. Even Mitofsky, one of the greatest influences on modern polling methods, had crazy explanations for why the polls had been wrong (obviously they were wrong because they did not agree with the actual "so-called" results). For example, he theorized that Repubs were less likely to respond to the exit pollsters, etc. Never mind that in the past the exit polls were almost always pretty much on the money.

But Steven Freeman, who was at the U of PA at the time, looked at the statistical chances that PA, FL, and OH would all have these disparities between the exit polls and the electronically recorded vote, and he said the chances were 662,000 to one that they were caused "by chance or random error."

One thing we can all do when the elections come up is to insist that we have to find ways to VERIFY THE VOTE. Repeat this over and over and over. We have to push for some form or forms of actual verification, real audits that can statistically verify the vote that the machines come up with.