Please read this post before simply responding to only the title of the thread. I'm not trying to spark a flame war, I'm really just curious.
Here is what I know/think I know:
Reports of voting machines flipping votes are abundant. Most of the reports agree that the majority of the stolen votes are Democratic votes, flipping to Republican or third party votes, which rules out random malfunction. All of these reports come from some of the most liberal parts of the blogosphere, so I take them with a grain of salt. However, I have seen reports of vote stealing from non-American news sources. The machines in question are made by ES&S or Diebold. The machines are easy to hack; there are how-to videos on YouTube. Also on YouTube are cell phone videos of the machines in question flipping votes in other elections, including this years primaries. When one of these machines changes a vote, there is no record of the original vote or that a change has occurred.
Caution: Liberal-bias ahead.
Widespread Touch Screen Vote Flipping
GOP cyber-security expert suggests Diebold tampered with 2002 election
Furthermore, Diebold maintains the machines that actually count the votes, and access to these machines is not very restricted. Diebold could easily be changing vote tallies after the votes are taken from the voting machines and before they are handed to the authorities. (Not saying they are, just saying that it's technically possible, which is really a pretty big oversight if it's really an accident.) The machines are supposedly designed to track changes made to vote tallies, but this functionality has not been demonstrated. Diebold reportedly has ties to the Republican party.
Diebold Confirms U.S. Vote Count Vulnerabilities
The Army's 3rd Infantry 1st Brigade Combat Team - roughly 1,200 soldiers - has been on duty within the continental U.S since October 1. Army units have been active inside our borders before, but usually it's in response to a national crisis, such as Katrina, and I don't think it's ever been a unit as large as a brigade. Also, these assignments are usually short term, but the 1st BCT will be on duty for 12 months. This brigade has been assigned to NorthCom: a joint command established during Bush's first term, with the stated mission "to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities."
Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1.
This ACORN stuff is bullshit. The idea that having fake registrations in the system will facilitate voter fraud is absurd. For fraud to take place, tens of thousands of people would have to show up to the polls, have an identity that matches one of these fake registrations, and then vote. It's one of the least efficient ways to rig an election I can think of. The amount of coordination required to do this on a scale that would actually have an effect on the outcome is too large to not be noticed. But that hasn't stopped the McCain campaign from repeatedly accusing the Obama campaign of using ACORN to facilitate voter fraud.
Is ACORN rigging the election?
Finally, voter suppression is even more abundant. Registration purging happens all the time, but there is a disproportionate amount of purging going on near college campuses in swing states - areas likely to vote Obama. College students are targeted because their address changes frequently and therefore they are easy to purge.
Some voters 'purged' from voter rolls.
Let me make it clear what I'm
not arguing:
- It is 100% certain that the Republicans are rigging the election on a scale large enough to affect the outcome.
- The Democrats are above suspicion.
- The above facts are 100% reliable.
- If McCain wins, I will argue that the election was rigged, no matter what.
I don't know what to think. Most of my information comes from very liberal sources, and I have considered the possibility that this entire thing is being blown way out of proportion. But my gut tells me that there is something going on.
And with all that in mind, what could we, as citizens, do if the election is indeed stolen?
The polls look pretty bad for McCain. FiveThirtyEight gives McCain a 3-6% chance of winning. We could even be looking at a landslide, with 350+ EV going to Obama.
If something unexpected happens in the next week, and McCain does something really good while Obama does something really bad, and the polls reflect it, I doubt I'll go out on a limb to argue that it's not a legitimate victory. But if the numbers stay where they are, vote flipping reports intensify, and McCain wins 270-something to 260-something - is it too unreasonable to believe that the election was stolen?
And if that happens, how do we react?