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It's looking like Obama could get at least 380 Electoral College votes.
It's looking like Obama could get at least 380 Electoral College votes.
According to Pollster.com - 2008 Election Polls, Trends, Charts and Analysis it looks to be nigh impossible for Obama to lose this election. Even if McCain won all the toss-up states he can't reach 270 electoral votes.
I can't embed their graphics but they are very clear and well worth a look.
FutureTaoiseach, with all due respect, that's a pile of crap.
I look forward to your contrition Wednesday, hbap.
Sure, whatever. You've basically got just one political prediction right in your whole life, FT - so I'm not exactly quaking here.Originally Posted by FutureTaoiseach
Under any fair electoral system, Obama would win hands down now. He is ahead in key states, swing states, states with big electoral votes, the popular vote, etc.
But the US has not got a fair electoral system. It is one so corrupted that it is like Tammany Hall on the federal level.
Most countries have simple rule: if you can vote and do vote your vote will be counted. The US doesn't have that. It has different categories of voters with some certain to be counted, and some almost certain not to be.
For example:
- millions of voters are losing their homes. In many states, if you lose your home, you lose your vote!!! In some states you get a 'provisional vote', but in many states you have a greater chance of winning the lottery than having your provisional vote counted.
- many of those most bitterly anti-Republican, and rightly so, are those who have lost their jobs and so their homes. But the system is effectively rigged to ensure those people lose their vote and exercise uncounted provisional ones. It is like FF, before talking medical cards of old people (the first version) took the vote from everyone losing a medical card, so as to ensure they had no power to vote against FF next time.
Then there is the farcical electronic vote system. Despite pressure from the Democrats and a campaign led by Hillary Clinton, states installed voting systems with no paper trails, even though there is overwhelming evidence of errors in recording votes, errors in counting votes, etc.
The US system is one of the least democratic on the planet.
The problem for Obama is that pollsters are polling voters, but an unknown number of those won't actually have their votes counted even if the electronic system even records their votes accurately at the start. There are polling stations where 50% of votes have been cast, but 90% of them are provisional. And who are the people likely not to have their votes counted? The poor. Blacks. Latinos. Working class people who have lost their homes, etc, the people who are most heavily pro-Obama.
It would be a travesty of democracy if Obama loses because of the sheer crookedness of the US voting system. It would an absolute disgrace.If Obama wins, and I believe he will, it will be in spite of, not because of, the crazy and undemocratic electoral system in the US.
I have in the past been highly critical of FT, but I think you guys are being unfair to him. He does nail his colours to the mast (frequently the wrong mast!) but he started out a McCain supporter and has for weeks pointed out (and often been the only one to point out) that in various places in the US the Republicans locally over the last few years have been engaged in a process that smells of stealing votes from those likely to vote against them. There is now absolute evidence that the 2000 election was stolen, and strong evidence that 2004 was too. Leaving aside the dodgy counting, the ridiculous court decisions, etc millions of votes that would have seen Gore elected in 2000 and Kerry elected in 2004 were simply never counted because they were effectively ruled provisional votes. The irony is that the millions who had their votes stolen often themselves still don't realise theirs was one of the votes stolen. It would be sickening beyond belief if the same thing happens this time. Millions of votes will be stolen. The difference in this case is that the Republicans are so unpopular that even with a dodgy system Obama should have enough to win. In any fair electoral system he would be a shoo-in. The worrying thing is that the US does not have a fair electoral system. That is the only thing that could stop him now. While expecting him to win, I won't be surprised if he doesn't. I don't want to sit up all night and find at the end that the election has been stolen from the better candidate, again.
PS: one of the first things Obama should do if elected is review completely the US electoral system. Forget the electoral college issue - that is a red herring. He needs to ensure that every adult over 18 who is a citizen or fulfils residency requirements is legally entitled to vote and that vote cannot be removed due to foreclosure on your home. And he needs to ban the use of electronic voting systems that lack a paper trail and ban any organisation installing the systems from any involvement in politics. It is crazy that in large parts of the US the electronic voting systems are designed by, and accessed by, people directly linked to politicians (they are almost always Republican politicians! Imagine if we had introduced electronic voting using systems produced by FF supporters!!!).
Last edited by Myles_per_hour; 2nd November 2008 at 05:04 AM.
Myles per Hour has left politics.ie.
CBS Evening News reporting a 13 point lead for Obama 'among likely voters', 54% to 41% (3% margin of error).
That's a bit different...
What are you going to show us as the most desirable example? Don't even think of saying the EU. Don't say Switzerland either, because they copy the USA at the federal level.Absolutely false. Unless you are saying that millions of families are going to become homeless? but the vast majority of these families will relocate to new addresses and not be thrown out on the street. So long as they register their new address with the local electoral board, they don't lose any vote.Evidence such as what? "Provisional votes"? There were no "provisional ballots" until 2002 (Gore could not have availed of them), and the premise of those is incredibly dodgy (voter refuses to display photo ID, address information is false, name is mis-spelled, voter's name is absent from political roll). You don't know what you're talking about and are making stuff up, aren't you?—or repeating propaganda from a source you conveniently omit. If there were "absolute evidence", the US media, which is overwhelmingly in favour of Obama, would have picked up on it. Gore and Kerry would not have conceded if they knew they had a chance of winning (and oh yes, both conceded).
No mention of early voting? Lots of states doing that.
And there's also the bit about homeless people in Ohio voting, using park benches as their addresses. I agree, how undemocratic, since it was a federal judge legislating from the bench on this matter (no, not a park bench). From my personal experience, homeless people are either drug addicts or mentally ill; maybe you want people like that to help tip the election, but the notion to me is ridiculous.
They're even giving ex-convicts voting rights in Florida, Maryland and other states. People who don't follow the law having a hand in making the law? That's not democracy—that's kleptocracy.
Last edited by Al.; 2nd November 2008 at 06:59 AM.
They've also got poll numbers showing that a large majority of early voters have voted for Obama:
About one in five voters say they have already cast their vote, either in person or through the mail, and these early voters prefer the Democratic ticket by an even greater margin. Obama leads among early voters 57 percent to 38 percent, a nineteen point advantage.
I think anyone watching the current election would have to be astounded at how problematic the smooth running of the election is. One instance after another of attempts by Republicans to "restrict" the electorate have been challenged and shot down in the last few weeks. One would have to wonder how many of those attempts succeeded in previous elections prior to the incredible efforts by thousands of lawyers and community activist groups this year. In addition I've been amazed at the hoops many voters have to jump through including standing for hours on end in the freezing cold. That alone is a vote supression technique par excellence!
With regard to the 2004 election while it may come to nothing:
"The Republican IT guru, recently described as a "high tech Forrest Gump" for his proclivity to be "at the scene" of so many troubling elections since 2000, and even at the heart of the "lost" White House email scandal, has been ordered by a federal judge to appear for an under-oath deposition next Monday in Ohio.
The BRAD BLOG has learned that Mike Connell, the Republican IT guru whose company, GovTech Solutions, created Ohio's 2004 election results computer network, appeared in federal court today, as compelled, and has been ordered to appear for his deposition on Monday, November 3, just 24 hours before Election Day 2008.
The issues in the King Lincoln v. Blackwell suit are complex, but in a nutshell, some Ohio voters filed a lawsuit alleging voting rights violations and election irregularities in the 2004 Presidential election in the Buckeye State. Taking the sworn deposition of Connell, the man who set up the computers for reporting election results, and re-routing them through his company's own Tennessee servers late on the night of the '04 election, has been a high priority for Election Integrity advocates and attorneys in Ohio."
"In related news, our friends at RAW STORY have an article today headlined "Documents reveal how Ohio routed 2004 voting data through company that hosted external Bush Administration email accounts." That company was SmarTech, Inc., and the architecture for the 2004 election results reporting system in Ohio has been at the heart of this case.
As reported by RAW's Larisa Alexandrovna today:
Newly obtained computer schematics provide further detail of how electronic voting data was routed during the 2004 election from Ohio’s Secretary of State’s office through a partisan Tennessee web hosting company. … The flow chart shows how voting information was transferred from Ohio to SmarTech Inc., a Chattanooga Tennessee IT company known for its close association with the Republican Party, before the 2004 election results were displayed online." Newsvine - BREAKING: Federal Judge Compels GOP IT Guru Mike Connell To Give Deposition in Ohio '04 Election Case (just 24 hours prior to This years election)
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