Running on fumes and about 3 hours sleep here tonight. So, as David Gregory says, “we’ll have to leave it here for now.”
While almost no votes have been counted by actual human beings anywhere in the country at this hour, most of the races have already been “called” by the media, for whatever that’s worth. But a number of them are reported as being incredibly close at this hour. Among the “uncalled” top-of-ticket races as we wrap things up for tonight: U.S. Senate races in WA, CO, and AK; Gubernatorial races in OR, MN, and FL; and a number of U.S. Houses races.
We’ll revisit the world with clearer eyes in the morning to see what sense, if any, can be made of any of it and what sort of light we may be able to help shed. Your thoughts and what you’re seeing out there on any of the above races, or any others (“top-of-ticket” or otherwise) are, as ever, welcome in comments.
As we always remind on Election Nights, many of the problems of Election Day are not revealed until the days, weeks, and sometimes even months after elections. So your vigilance, as always, is welcome and appreciated…
The Maine governors race had an unusual thing happen just before it started. The Maine Secretary of State allowed absentee voters to change their vote if they were already cast (and not opened).
Just before the voting started, polls showed the Republican candidate at 40% and the Independent at 28%. When the first results came in, the I got 40% and the R got 28. Flip flop (remember New Hampshire (Hillary vs. Obama), or the trends seen in Florida or Ohio)?
Currently, (this am) the R is ahead by 1 percentage point. I commented in a major newspaper last night when the flip flop appeared that this did not look right. I also posted your advice to voters who suspect vote fraud or problems with machines.
Note that back in 2000, The Secretay of State changed the rules for write in candidates a day before the election too.
Voters had to write the:
full name of the candidate,
Complete address of said candidate,
Party that candidate was running under,
The voters had to used a large “magic marker”, pens or pencils were not allowed and they did not have “sharpies”.
The space given to write in all that information was the size of the signature line found on personal checks.
Just so happens, I was a write in candidate when this happened and obviously lost.
I have no doubt that the current Maine governors race will and should have recounts requested. This is a repeat of 2000.
Here’s a letter discussing the types of things that go wrong with AccuVote tabulation machines that read in paper ballots:
http://www.minnpost.com/client_files/pdfs/SOSGOPLetter.pdf
– Tom
what did we expect, I asked for a paper ballot and they handed me a provisional envelope to put it in and asked me to fill it out. I was registered and confirmed. I could have been an honest mistake then someone else on the floor told them to put the unwrapped ballot in the red bag. This is not right. The election process needs formalized and not some fly by night ad hoc glomeration of whatever
Scott finished with 49 percent of the vote to Sink’s 48, about a one percent difference; a recount would have been mandatory had the difference been one half of one percentage point or less. It was estimated that between 50,000 and 70,000 votes separated the two.
This sure looks suspicious coming from the state that gave us Tom Feeney and the original compromised voting. Clint Curtis was marginalized by the predatory capitalists, and Rahm Emanuel went on to fame and glory. Scott ran a company that litigated any complaints until the person could no longer afford to fight them. Too big to fail. My brother won after 26years. That’s what it takes to go up against Scott
Thanks Brad. You’re the man. Enjoy having you on the side of us.