Who won? 555
doom writes "I think they call them "exit polls" because people
bolt for the exits when you mention them, but I'm still
fascinated by the subject myself, and this book is one of the
reasons why. In Was the 2004 Presidential Election
Stolen?, the central focus is, of course, on the infamous
exit-poll discrepancies of the 2004 US Presidential election;
but the authors also put it into context: they discuss the
2000 election, the irregularities in Ohio in 2004, the electronic
voting machines issues, and the media's strange reluctance to
report on any of these problems. Further, in the chapter "How
did America really vote?", they compare the indications of the
raw exit-poll data to other available polling data. Throughout,
Freeman and Bleifuss do an excellent job of presenting arguments
based on statistical analysis in a clear, concise way." Read the rest of doom's review
| Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? | |
| author | Steve Freeman & Joel Bleifuss |
| pages | 265 |
| publisher | Seven Stories Press |
| rating | 9 |
| reviewer | doom |
| ISBN | 1583226877 |
| summary | Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count |
The heart of the book in my opinion, is Chapter 5, "The inauguration eve exit-poll report": The Edison and Mitofsky firms that conducted the NEP exit polls later released a report trying to explain how they could have gotten it so far wrong. Freeman and Bleifuss, of course, take issue with the presumption that the discrepancies must be "errors", and argue in a different direction. This section makes an exciting read (in a nerdy sort of way) it's an impressive piece of statistical judo: Freeman and Bleifuss take on Edison/Mitofsky with their own data, and totally shred their conclusions. The authors show: That the exit-poll discrepancies had a statistically significant correlation with the use of electronic voting machines, with races in battleground states, and in almost all cases favored the Republicans. The "Reluctant Bush Respondant" theory looks extremely unlikely: response rates actually look slightly better in Bush strongholds than in Kerry strongholds; and while media skepticism remains strong among conservatives, it has been on the rise among Democrats, and yet the data shows no shift in relative avoidance of pollsters. They also deal with the various other excuses that were floated shortly after the election: The discrepancies can't be shrugged off with an "exit polls are not reliable" — theory shows that they should be better than any other survey data, and history shows that they always have been pretty reliable. There was no upswing of support for Bush throughout election day — that impression was entirely an artifact of the media "correcting" the exit-poll figures to match the official results. One of the book's authors, Steven Freeman, was one of the first to examine the exit-poll discrepancies, and as a professor at University of Pennsylvania with a background in survey design, he was well equipped to begin delving into the peculiarities he had noticed.
Overall, this is an excellent book for people interested in evaluating the data; with lots of graphs that make it easy to do informal estimates of the strength of their conclusions (just eye-balling the scatter, the correlations they point to look real, albeit a little loose, as you might expect). There's also an appendix with a very clear exposition of the the concept of statistical significance, and how it applies to this polling data. There are of course, limits to what one can conclude just from the exit-poll discrepancies: "We reiterate that this does not prove the official vote count was fraudulent. What it does say is that the discrepancy between the official count and the exit polls can't be just a statistical fluke, but commands some kind of systematic explanation: Either the exit poll was deeply flawed or else the vote count was corrupted. "
This is a remarkably restrained book: unlike many authors addressing this controversial subject, Freeman and Bleifuss have resisted the temptation to rant or speculate or even to editorialize very much. Freeman claims that he is not a political person (and adds "I despise the Democrats"); possibly this has helped him to maintain his neutrality and focus on the facts of the case.
Personally, I found this book to be something of a revelation: in the confusion immediately after the 2004 election, I had the impression that the people who wanted to believe that it was legitimate at least had some wiggle room. There was some disagreement about the meaning of the exit polls: there was that study at Berkeley that found significant problems, but then the MIT study chimed in saying there wasn't, so who do you believe? The thing is, the MIT guys later admitted that they got it wrong: they used the "corrected" data, not the originally reported exit poll results. The media never covered that development, and I missed it myself...
On the subject of electronic voting machines, They include a chapter discussing electronic voting in general which covers ground that is by now familiar with most readers here: the strange case of Wally O'Dell and Diebold; and also the lesser known problems with ES&S. Have you heard this one? "In 1992, Hagel, then an investment banker and president of the holding company McCarthy & Co., became chairman of American Information Systems, which was to become ES&S in 1999. [...] In the 1996 elections, Hagel launched his political career with two stunning upsets. He won a primary victory in Nebraska [...] despite the fact that he was not well known. Then, in the general election, Hagel was elected to the Senate in what Business Week described as 'an unexpected 1996 landslide victory over Ben Nelson, Nebraska's popular Democratic governor.'"
My experience is that a lot of people need to hear this point: "The voting machine company Datamark, which became American Information Systems and is now known as ES&S, was founded in 1980 by two brothers, Bob and Todd Urosevich. Today, Todd is a vice president at ES&S and Bob is CEO of Diebold Election Systems."
It's impossible to see how you can come away from this situation without seeing that we badly need reform of the electoral system: even if you don't believe the 2004 election was "stolen", how do you know the next one isn't going to be? A paper trail that can actually be recounted would be a nice start, eh? But only a start. As the author's point out: "We devoted a chapter to the ills of electronic voting, but a critical lesson of the 2004 election is that not only DREs, but all kinds of voting machine systems are suspect. Edison/Mitofsky data showed that while hand counted ballots accurately reflected exit-poll survey results, counts from all the major categories of voting machines did not."
In one short passage, the authors list a few "grounds for hope", but following up on these points is not encouraging: The Diebold-injunction law suit in California brought by VoterAction has since been denied and one attempt at a paper trail amendment, HR 550 has stalled out.
If you're looking for an answer to the question posed by the book's title, the authors conclude: "So how did America really vote? Every independent measure points to a Kerry victory of about 5 percentage points in the popular vote nationwide, a swing of 8 to 10 million votes from the official count."
Of the many and various potentially depressing books out there about the state of the United States, I recommend this one highly: it addresses a critical set of issues that everything else depends on.
You can purchase Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
What? (Score:5, Insightful)
So hating one of the major political parties involved in that election makes him neutral?
Re:What? (Score:2, Insightful)
Not this crap again (Score:1, Insightful)
Bush won because many voters, myself included, thought Bush was responsible for cleaning up his own mess, and that Kerry had absolutely no ability to do so.
The simple truth is that, while it may be statistically unlikely, the final voting tally gives us the truth: Bush won. They may be 95% confident that he didn't, but that doesn't mean that the final 5% can't happen. It did.
Bush won the election because Kerry was a wishy-washy asshole. It's that simple.
What happened in 2006? (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't freak out, little troll (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people voted for him for that reason, agreed. The issue is whether enough people actually voted for him, for whatever reason, to have fairly elected him for this second term. A thoughtful and complete analysis of whether that happened is most welcome, I think. The fact that you're tired of thinking about it ("get over it") isn't really relevant, and I suspect that your own evident bias is a strong influence on your willingness to hear about it.
Exit Polls are Inaccurate (Score:1, Insightful)
I actually have conducted them for media outlets. I was pretty young at the time though the way they get these exit pollers is pretty much the same: low paying, single-day temp employees.
They are often wildly innacurate because many folks choose not to participate - mostly people who are Republican - and because they miss absentee voters - also mostly Republicans as in Ohio and in other states the Rs did a huge absentee vote program where Ds mostly focus on the 48-hour GOTV effort of driving indigents to polling places.
Anyway, it's easy to be part of the slashherd hivemind and believe a couple of clowns that have a few letters after their names doing, what I think Breshnev referred to as, 'using statistics to turn excriment into bullets.'
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are we blind? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's hard to cheat in a landslide (Score:4, Insightful)
I still haven't been sold on electronic voting (Score:2, Insightful)
Poll workers often adjust the results (Score:3, Insightful)
In 2004 I'm perfectly willing to believe (and accept) that the average pollworker (usually someone who likes stable government, whatever theit political leaning) was more willing to give W the benefit of the doubt and helped him win a squeaker. In 2006 it was hard to find people (even fans of stable government) who wouldn't have liked the current president to hit the road, so I'm not surprised the mystery surge of 2004 disappeared in 2006; even W's former fans were sick of his s*** by then.
Lets get over it already (Score:2, Insightful)
Lets just say, yes there was questionable events of the last 2 elections. These are the issues in question, now that we know what to look for lets make sure it doesn't happen again. I still think there is lots of work that needs to be done, and even if we go to an all computerized system, there should be a possibly 2 form receipt form that prints out. First so the voter has in their sweaty little palms who they voted for so there is no doubt. Second, a paper record in the event of a recount is required there is a paper copy that the voter submitted as an endorsed copy of their vote, (not signed endorsed, anonymity is still protected, just turning it in is the final step of the process), and thirdly, some people just aren't comfortable with computerized voting, this way if there is any question before they walk out of the poll, they know who they voted for, and maybe even have a "receipt" for themselves just to be sure.
Re:Secure tallying (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't do that to avoid the potential for two things: Mob Rule, in which people decide not to bother to go make their voice heard when it appears [to them] that it would be unheard anyway, or they jump on the bandwagon to go join the winning team, and to avoid premature calling of the vote leading to same. Interestingly, this last actually occurred during the 2000 election as one of Bush's relatives felt free to prematurely call the vote, which is credited with stopping a lot of democrats from bothering to vote.
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Speaking of statistics (Score:4, Insightful)
A single person in the right place could have compromised all electronic voting machines from a given company. Just something to think about.
That's not really the point (Score:5, Insightful)
US elections should not be open to question. We should be able to audit to confirm elections, and vigorously pursue anyone who attempts to illegally influence elections.
Let's fix the system so that we can TRUST the process. That begins by being able to audit the results.
In California, we had the option to fill out a largish sheet of paper, filled on both sides with the elections and propositions. This single piece of paper contained the same information as the Electronic Voting machines. We filled in bubbles, could check our work, and then submitted them into a Diebold scanning machine.
I cringed when I saw the maker, but realized that my paper ballot was there for counting at the precinct, district or randomly selected audit. Anyone who tried to cheat, would have to change or steal my ballot.
Electronic screen voting should be reserved for special needs people, and should PRINT out the same ballot that the rest of us fill in.
That would be less expensive, faster, less prone to abuse, and absolutely verifiable.
What's wrong with that?
Re:Exit Polls are Inaccurate (Score:3, Insightful)
Absenty votes are always mentioned seperatly spicifically because they can't be measured in exit polls.
Exit polls are the most accurate kind of polls.
The information is fresh, the process is well known.
There wasn't a 'statistical aboration' there were hugh descrepencies.
Replacing the electoral college (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of the electoral college is similar to the point of the senate. They are both there to ensure the STATES have a voice in government. This is the United STATES of America, but people have come to believe it is the Federal Republic of America. If you believe that you personally were disenfranchised by the last 2 elections because you didn't vote for Bush (I didn't vote for Bush the last 3 times, btw) then maybe it is not so much a sign that the elecoral college is at fault, it is that the central government has grown way too powerful and has swept the individual states into irrelevancy. The best government is at the local level, where you are better aware of your governing needs than some beltway insider 1000 miles away. Next best is state government, only 100 miles away.
I do agree voting machines need a papertrail, though I am vehemently opposed to the idea of giving the voter a receipt--anything that a voter can carry out to indicate how he voted will inevitably lead to coercive voting. If the local political machine can make sure you voted "correctly," (or else!) that is no better than non-audited electronic boxes manufactured by supporters of that political machine.
Re:What? (Score:1, Insightful)
There. Fixed it for you.
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
and I would say you need to give nore thought to the meaning of the word "neutral." hatred is still blinding no matter how widely it is spread.
Re:Not this crap again (Score:2, Insightful)
While you may feel Bush was responsible for cleaning up his messes, do you feel like he actually took responsibility? If so, how do you feel that's panning out?
So you either feel Bush is meeting the expectations you had for him, or he's not. If he is, and you actually think Kerry would have done worse, then I guess that's your perogative. If he isn't meeting your expectations, I guess the real reason Bush won is because both are assholes but Bush fooled you into thinking he's not as much of one.
Re:Not this crap again (Score:1, Insightful)
You are wrong. Just because someone doesn't do something does not mean they are incapable. Furthermore, just because someone doesn't do something does not mean that people that think he is capable are wrong.
For example, it has been 2 years now, and I have not gone to the doctor. Does that mean that I am incapable of going to do a doctor? Does it mean anyone who thinks I can go to a doctor is wrong?
About "Dubya" (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Re:Not this crap again (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me get this straight: You let a monkey run about throwing crap at everyone. Then, you have the opportunity to put the monkey back in his cage, but instead you let him back out so that he can clean up all the crap he threw? How's that logic working so far?
Oh I get it. (Score:1, Insightful)
Sounds like a Truther to me. We need to believe that there was a conspiracy of a magnitude that spanned numerous people who were able to coordinate illegal and treasonous actions. People who planned and coordinated a coup of 10 million votes....secretly. Pass the cool aid.
Re:freaking me out (Score:3, Insightful)
To boot, the Iraq war civilian casualties lie somewhere between 150,000 and over half a million, depending on who you ask. That's a lot of innocent people killed for a cause the world wasn't behind.
Here's a hint: you want to save the world? Cut global economics. Stop screwing other countries over with your mega-corporations underselling the locals, forcing them to give up their lives and culture to be part of your conglomerate or die. Enterpreneurs are the heart of American economics: the ability to thrive and grow and the freedom to do it is why America is a superpower economically. But it's about time we start managing the floodgates of our enthusiasm and start working WITH other countries instead of just trampling them and using what's left to sell our goods.
Re:What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Despite what you might think, few things are black and white. The enemy of your enemy doesn't have to be your friend. Freeman can despise the democrats and fear the republicans without being a fan of either.
Regards,
--
*Art
Re:What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey, it works for Bill O'Reilly!
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Remarkably diminished from what? Their usual sterling abilities in that regard? Oh yeah, that's people, all right. Remarkably able to confront their own irrationalities and biases. Yessir, every single one of us, paragons of introspection in every area except politics.
Re:Don't freak out, little troll (Score:3, Insightful)
So yes, from where I'm sitting, it seems impossible to believe that 62 million Americans voted for this incompetent fool, given his mismanagement of the war, Abu Ghraib, and everything else. But what's the alternative hypothesis? That (of the Americans who voted for the two major candidates) only 49.999% of Americans voted for Bush, and 50.001% voted for Kerry? That would still mean that just under 61 million Americans were willing to vote for Bush.
My argument is this: why is it somehow plausible to believe that you could find 61 million people willing to vote for the fool, but somehow incomprehensible that 62 million people could have voted for him?
Re:Not this crap again (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just too bad it's going to take 30 years to fix the mess he's created.
Logical fallacy (Score:3, Insightful)
See here's the problem: if exit polls reveal a higher number of Kerry votes than the actual precinct results, that means that either (a) the exit polls were systematically faulty (in some other way), (b) the elections were systematically faulty (although not necessarily rigged), or (c) some Republicans were lying. However, since we know that Republicans don't lie, that leaves us with (a) or (b), which is exactly what was claimed in the review.
Now, sure, you might point out that some people on /. are claiming to have said they voted for Kerry to exit pollsters when in fact they voted for Bush, but obviously they are lying and therefore are not Republicans.
Re:Mod me offtopic, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
The basic problem, is that with a public vote, especally when dealing with non-mainstream parties, voters can be intimidated, harrassed or or otherwise stigmatised. This may make them choose to vote for (a/the) mainstreem party, or otherwise cause their vote to come with hidden costs (thus the election is no longer fair).
To give a short and semi-plausable example, suppose the police department where to lookup in the voter records for all the people who voted for the marijuana party, and decided to monitor them more closely on the assumption that most of the people who vote for that party are stoners and thus lawbreakers. An employer looking up those same records, might suddenly start asking you to take a "random" drug test, with consiquences if you refuse.
Or cast your mind back 50 years: are you now or have you ever been a member of the communist party.
In communist russia, there was an optional anonymous vote. Anyone voting for the communist party would publically declare their vote, but if you where not voting for them you would be far more likely to use the secret ballot, so choosing a secret ballot would it itself make you suspect.
The current secret ballot system has taken a long time to get to its current form, but its fairly robust and comes with the safeguards to help protect a free society.
The USA and UK have recently been stripping away our civil liberties, but look back in history and ask why we demanded (and fought wars for) these civil liberties in the first place, we may be told that we don't need them in our modern world, but the question is not "why" we need them but "when" we would need them.
Re:What? (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:About "Dubya" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not this crap again (Score:3, Insightful)
And Bush was a strong candidate? Don't make me laugh! If someone like Bush is considered a credible candidate for the freakin' presidency, then all hope is lost.
Re:Oh I get it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Exit Polls are Inaccurate (Score:5, Insightful)
Historically, elections haven't been as close as the last to elections. It is far easier to correctly predict an election using polling data when the difference in vote totals exceeds the margin of error. Most of the readers of this site weren't born the last time we had an election as close as 2000 and 2004.
Secondly, in the last election data, why is there a wide disparity between exit polling data and the official vote count primarily in areas that used touch-screen voting with no paper trail, but yet be dead-on in areas with paper ballots?
Probably because people clam up and act like morons when presented with a new electronic device for the first time. Massive conspiracy that nobody leaked, coincidental series of smaller conspiracies that also weren't leaked, or people being stupid when presented with a computer... Which seems more likely to you?
Re:freaking me out (Score:2, Insightful)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwmNmAcmr8s [youtube.com] gives an example about how his party is trying to undermine the Judicial Branch.
Re:RTFR (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, I'm sure you think you were saying something less vitrolic. No, you weren't.
Re:Secure tallying (Score:3, Insightful)
Very well. I have gone to Wikipedia, and gotten my facts straight:
"Ellis also admitted sharing exit poll data with his cousins by phone. After the magazine interview was published, Fox News Vice President John Moody admitted that Ellis had broken rules by sharing the data and was considering disciplinary action."
"Ellis provided CBSNews.com with a copy of a letter he says he sent to the editor of the New Yorker. In the letter, Ellis says that he "did not share with [Governor Bush] any of the information that was appearing on our screens" during two afternoon phone calls. The letter says that later in the evening "as actual vote results" came in, Ellis spoke frequently with the Bushes about "what was happening" in several states."
So he said he did not provide information to bush, but that he did provide information to "his cousins" (of which Bush is one himself.) Still the statements are not necessarily contradictory, and it is hard to imagine what Bush himself would have done with the data. Certainly it could have been used on his behalf.
Re:freaking me out (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Secure tallying (Score:3, Insightful)
How would you know? There has never been a true democracy in this world. The government of Athens was not a true democracy; you had to be a racially privileged male landowner (redundant; you had to be racially privileged and most especially you had to be male to be a landowner to begin with) in order to have a vote.
In our society, we have a representative democracy. The popular vote would have elected Gore in the last two elections, but in neither case did he become our president. The proper term for this kind of government is a "republic". Is it a kind of democracy? Sure... in about the same way that chocolate chip ice cream is a kind of vanilla ice cream.
But on top of that we have disenfranchisement. We disallow voting by felons. This sounds like a good idea to begin with but what this really accomplishes is that we don't have to solve problems in our society because the people whose lives are derailed by those problems are ineligible to vote. And then we also have illegal disenfranchisement, such as two cases in the last Florida election. One, a list of voters who were allegedly felons was compiled. As the story goes, it was supposed to be checked for validity, but the organization paid to do the recount was explicitly told that they could be paid if they did not check the list. They did not. They were paid. The list contained a large number of non-felons, whose votes were discarded regardless. The other issue centered around the use of a scantron-type voting form. The reader for the forms does validation itself and it can be configured through the use of a switch on the unit to either reject mismarked forms, or silently accept them. Guess what? The switch was set to silently accept in several lower-income, predominantly-black neighborhoods, and it was set to reject in higher-income neighborhoods expected to vote mostly republican.
If you really believe that we live in a democracy here, you need to go back and look at the real situation. Here's another example; military absentee ballots are almost never counted. In a lot of situations you can expect the military to vote mostly republican - but that's not true when you've got literally thousands of soldiers standing around in the desert pissed off at you.
Re:What? (Score:2, Insightful)
> Republicans consider reality to be more important than feelings.
I'd correct that to Liberals and Conservatives and correct your second assertion to "Conservatives consider THEIR reality to be more important than feelings", but I basically agree.
Unfortunately, for anyone who has to interact with them, most conservatives not only lack feelings, but also lack any glimmer of empathy. So they have difficulties with reality and understanding other's feelings. Both of these things, it turns out, are quite important in the real world.
Re:Not this crap again (Score:3, Insightful)
No, Bush won because he wasn't as depressing. He was the fun college roomate that said "it'll work out, now watch me hit this bong." Kerry on the otherhand came in as the old stuffy college dean saying, "there is a serious problem, and we're all going to need to buckle down and work." Kerry lost because everyone was over their initial 9/11 high, and were starting to see the ugly truths in the light. No one wanted to face it so they voted for Bush again.
Personally though, leaving the mess for Bush to clean up? This guy and his administration got us into a huge mess, with no plan, no funding, nothing other than the "We're Right" mentality. And though Kerry was a Giant Douche [wikipedia.org], I still voted for him. Better than that turd sandwich in a cowboy hat...
We all know Bush is stipid (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:What? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Bush Won (Score:4, Insightful)
Republicans are often called harsh names for positions they hold dear. Among these are racist, xenophobe, fascist, fundie, hate monger, etc. This is irrisponsible, and never happened in the media 20 years ago, but it happens today.
And, of course, the fact that over the last 30 years the Republicans have completely rejected their historical platform in favor of fascism and hate mongering couldn't have anything to do with that, now could it?
Sorry, but instituting a fascist police state and promoting hate based legislation reaps its own rewards.
Anybody who votes Republican should be ashamed of themselves and would be if they had any sense of decency at all.
If what you hold dear is explicitly rejected by the constitution, then you don't get it. Too fucking bad. Move to a country that shares your values, like Saudi Arabia or something.
Oh, no, you're right, it's the evil media always attacking the poor innocent Republicans.
Idiot.
Re:Buying into a particular political philosophy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, the republicanism of our nation has been marginalized, as the electoral college in particular requires a sizeable representative mass of House members. This doesn't mean one or two or three per state, or what have you, as it is now. It means we need to have probably close to a thousand House members, all representitive of a specific population center in the country. The way districting currently is set up rigs House votes in favor of urban, populated areas. Using my own home state (SD) as an example, the ideal would be to give one representative to the two main population centers in the state each, and then two more for the more rural areas of the state - one for west of the Missouri; the other for east of it. This is more in line with the intent of our founding fathers.
And no, I'm sorry, I can't recall what legislation or governmental change it was which resulted in the marginalization of the House and the electoral college, but there was one (iirc it was at about the time of the civil war/war between the states/war of northern agression).
Media's Strange Reluctance to Report... (Score:3, Insightful)
If this sounds like a "conspiracy theory" someone please explain "the media's strange reluctance to report on any of these problems"
marketing works (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Replacing the electoral college (Score:3, Insightful)
So your solution is to have the citizens of L.A., New York and Florida decide who becomes President? That only urban issues are considered, not rural? That's part of why the E.C. is there.
Re:Replacing the electoral college (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you consider that fair?
To have a simple majority decide would mean that a few densely populated states--California, Texas, Florida and New York--would determine the presidency. Do you find that fair? The E.C. means that a candidate has to appeal to a broad spectrum. Without the E.C., the race for the presidency has to address CA, TX, FL and NY issues only. Electioneering becomes the order of the day, by which I mean hordes of Get Out The Vote vans shuttling warm bodies to the polls in L.A., Dallas, NYC, Miami, etc.
Either method has downsides. Which one has more or the worse downsides? I'd say a simple majority vote would. We don't do a simple majority vote for, say, Constitutional amendments--why the Presidency?
There was considerable concern in the 2000 election that Gore would lose the popular vote but win the electoral vote. Nobody seemed that worried about the fate of democracy then. Why now?
Re:freaking me out (Score:3, Insightful)
"Conservatives" don't hold any defensible positions, so they are entirely unable to do anything of the sort as demonstrated by the fact that hate mongering was their entire campaign strategy for the last several elections.
In your signature:
Be a patriot: Murder a Republican.
And yet you're completely unable to point out anything either funny or inconsistent about it.
There is a large difference between an unprovoked assault and self defense.
Apparently you never learned that.