<< Are votes stolen and our voting procedures awful? Yes, but that wasn't it in 2000, nor this time. >>
Do you mean elections as they reflect larger and more important forms of social organization, or elections as I mean them here, as in, who gets to take office in any given January?
If the latter, then, yes, electoral fraud was "it" in 2000; it may not have decided things this year, but if systematic vote fraud and vote suppression is being normalized, as I suspect it might, then it should be fought. And this is irrespective of how it might change Kerry's vote.
Because if nothing else there are going to be other elections. Right? Unless one just wants to drop the whole electoral-constitutional route anyway. (In which case I would suggest not writing to an open list.)
I'm sorry now for passing along my probably feverish reaction to a CNN exit poll. Better to go back to Joanna's original point--this election just doesn't make sense. Sea changes as indicated here (record turnout pushes through a Republican takeover) actually don't happen all that often. Look, maybe a majority of the people of the United States did in fact go out of their way, in the most logistically difficult election I've ever seen (did everybody bring their ID? and so why do we bother with registration?), and very actively and systematically voted against their own self-interest and the interests of their class. Maybe the people of this massive empire have finally given up on the Enlightenment--hey, it's been a long time coming--and are truly operating at some delusional symbolic level, and the Republican Party has gained complete control of the levers of government legitimately, at least by the rules of liberal democracy. Maybe my fears of electoral fraud are in a way just misplaced optimism.
But if so, then the analyses and suggested actions of everyone on this list, from the most ardent "ABB" to Leninists-for-Nader, are totally inadequate to the task at hand.
---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- From: "Michael Dawson" <MDawson at pdx.edu> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 10:10:39 -0800
>Come on people. Let's drop the election fraud schtick. We got the crap
>kicked out of us because the right has the "evangelical" phenomenon, and we
>have surrendered ourselves to technocrats who wouldn't know a moral issue if
>it bit them on the tit. The top 10 percent gets all the economic growth; 4
>percent economic growth doesn't create new jobs; and the bottom 3/4 have
>either no or scandalous health insurance in this, history's richest empire,
>but none of it quite scandalous enough to the DLC to get a rise from their
>robotic visages.
>
>Are votes stolen and our voting procedures awful? Yes, but that wasn't it
>in 2000, nor this time.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
>On Behalf Of Gregory Geboski
>Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2004 9:54 AM
>To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] No, actually, I don't believe it.
>
>Sorry for the bad citing. As I said, I hadn't saved the original screen
>shot, so maybe I was mixing it up with some other exit poll. Although I
>certainly can't guess which one, as it was Ohio I had been tracking. It was
>one of those weird "What the hell, I could have sworn..." moments.
>
>I saw later that Yoshie had sent the URL for the poll
>
>http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/OH/P/00/index.html
>
>so chances are others here have seen it, too, and can debunk what could be
>the actions of my aging brain. Basically, I remember the pie charts showing
>a solid female vote going to Kerry (something in the 53-54% rang) with very
>weak male support for Bush (that pie chart I remember as even or almost
>even), with the majority of all respondents being women, giving what seemed
>like good news to Kerry. Almost a flip of the current pie charts (the two on
>the left).
>
>So if anyone has these data from earlier in the evening, debunk/confirm
>away.
>
>Not that it matters, I guess. Just heard that Kerry is conceding... If he is
>in fact overlooking improprieties "for the good of the country" he should be
>beaten to death with a stick, even if he's obviously in a lot worse shape
>than Gore was in 2000...
>
>
>---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
>From: "Chris Doss" <cdoss at rambler.ru>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 12:43:51 +0300
>
>>I can't believe they could pull off or even implement anything so
>>obvious.
>>
>>On Wed, 3 Nov 2004 01:36:03 -0800
>> "Gregory Geboski" <greg at mail.unionwebservices.com> wrote:
>>> I was following CNN on-line, and I noticed they had an exit poll
>>>that clearly indicated Kerry would win. Close, but there was a solid
>>>gender gap, solid black voting for Kerry, and weak white male voting
>>>for Bush. I sent the URL around to some friends. Then, I went back to
>>>check the thing, and I swear the results were changed. I wish I had
>>>saved the first one I saw.
>>>
>>> Anonymous Bush aides are already being
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