Besides placing checks on the Executive Branch, the Democratic victories in the midterm elections are providing another benefit. They have reduced the talk in the liberal blogosphere about stolen elections. Before the election I received responses to some of my posts critical of the most tin-foil hat theories claiming that the Republicans could easily change the election results and there was no way they could lose.
Clearly the Republicans do not have a magic button to push in order to change election results, even in the Diebold machines. Many of the theories of a stolen election were based upon misinterpretation of the exit polls. DemFromCt has a front page post at Daily Kos which reviews data on exit polls, such as the work by Democratic pollster Mark Blumenthal disputing the claims made by people like Robert Kennedy, Jr. The post notes how exit polls have historically over-estimated Democratic votes and that “exit polls are designed to see how people voted, not to predict winners…The bottom line is that data that’s used to support a pre-existing agenda is likely to be misread. The exit polls didn’t prove Kerry won in 2004…”
There are problems which need to be corrected in elections, but the arguments based upon exit poll results,and the conclusions of a stolen election based upon them, are not valid and distract from the real issues.
However, Ron, these apparently accurate results from the elections do not mean that the issues of electronic voting machines and other forms of vote fraud are solved. Though I’ve had to face up to the possibility that perhaps the dire calls of vote fraud after the 2004 election were exaggerated and George W. Bush legitimately defeated John Kerry, there are still serious issues to be addressed. We cannot trust electronic voting machines as they are now. That’s why—with this new Democratic Congress especially—we need to push for an auditable paper trail for electronic voting machines or at least a return to the paper ballot. Now is the time for voting reform, and we’d be amiss if we squander this opportunity to get real and lasting integrity in voting.
Agree there remain problems to be addressed including doing something about electronic voting machines.
I disagreed with some that there have already been problems to the degree claimed with the electronic voting machines, but I do not believe that there es any question as to the potential for fraud in the future if nothing is done.