Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen Too?

[Overseas]

55. K&R. It certainly was. I remember being right here as it happened.

There were lots of old fashioned Republican techniques of voter intimidation and misdirection and less polling places in Democratic districts, less machines there too, even as the electronic shenanigans were going on.

All kinds of distracting techniques and the big old Swift Boat smearing to give the pundits some clear reasons the vote totals flipped from War Hero to Beer (and Torture) Guy in the middle of the night.

And really ridiculous discussions about the fallibility of exit polling by the pundits later because the exit polling agreed with the early returns that flipped later.

And thanks for refreshing my memory about the red shift. That has been quite a distinctive pattern.

And those of us who watched 48 to 51 Kerry and then saw it flip after midnight were told that it just had to be lousy exit polling.

And this year we will have Swift Boating on steroids with all the billionaires playing politics and we can all blame the power of post Citizens' United ads if there is a squeaker flip.

And it will be true that all those private millions pouring onto the airwaves in swing states will indeed have an effect, but what a pity that not enough of our legislators stood up for verifiable auditable paper trails for electronic voting, so just in case enough people say Screw Big Money We're Sticking With Obama, we may not know that.