Thanksgiving Holiday Ending -- Time to Visit Election Scandal

How important is an election?  That is the question for America now.  Does it matter if elections -- or the vote count -- are rigged?  And what can be done about the situation?  As the holiday ends these are the questions in my mind.  Soon I plan to post more about this after I have a chance to do a bit of research.  It is a sad thing, indeed, to see the American democracy decay.  Surely, this is not necessary.  More information coming.

Virginia Governor Calls for Investigation Into Voting Irregularities

Quick Link --


Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe has called for a thorough investigation of voting irregularities in Virginia Beach.



Gov. McAuliffe Calls for Investigation

Recounting the Count: Tennessee

In the story linked to below a Tennessean reports on the supposed results of a ballot initiative there on the subject of abortion.  It is not my purpose here to comment on the subject of abortion.  What is of interest is that the announced results were so far from the pre-election poll conducted by Vanderbilt University. The difference was 33 points!  


Read More Here:
Tennessee Ballot Initiative "Results" Wildly Different from Polls

NAACP Finds Widespread Voting Irregularities

At the link below the NAACP lists numerous voting irregularities in this year's elections.  Please consult this list for more information on all the problems of this so-called election.  This is not business as usual.  How many more tainted elections (2000, 2004, 2010, 2014), before we have election integrity established in the United States?  This is an urgent matter.  


NAACP: Widespread Voting Irregularities in Election 2014

Blogging the Nuclear Fall-out from Election 2014

I continue researching and trying to understand just what happened last week.  This was the most important election of our time, other than a Presidential election, and the Republicans "won" by huge and unexpected margins.  The worst case was in Virginia where poll aggregator Sam Wang had Mark Warner up by 10 points.  Warner's current margin of victory is so low, I haven't even seen his supposed winning percentage.

Wang has an interesting post up on his web site, saying essentially that since turn-out was so low (the lowest since 1942), polling was subject to even more serious error than originally thought.  But why was turn-out down so far?  Democrats do indeed do worse when turn-out goes down.  To answer the question Wang talks about the media with their Ebola and ISIL scares.

The media is surely largely to blame for the current state of affairs.  I will have more on this later.  But isn't it possible that depressed turn-out was more a result of successful Republican dirty tricks to try to suppress the vote?     I have already stated I myself ended up being one of the victims of this voter suppression effort.  In my case at least, it had nothing to do with the "Ebola Show," as I do not watch TV at home.

Others are saying much the same thing.  Why are pundits blaming the polls?  Why are they not questioning the announced vote totals?  After all, monkeying around with the vote has a long tradition in elections all around this country, including the United States.  Especially since 2000 when the Republicans had to try to elect a clearly novice politician, George W. Bush, the Republicans have been going all out to repress voting in every way they can.  Many of these efforts have been reported by Brad Blog and re-posted here.

What we are dealing with is *not* a situation which Vice-President Biden excuses as "You can't win them all."  As much as I respect the Vice-President, what a weak and inaccurate explanation of this sham of an election.

Of course, I realize much of what I am saying here needs further investigation.  However, this is not the first time in recent years the results of an election have been questioned.  In fact in 2005, there was an official protest in Congress of the announced re-election of G. W. Bush!  Does anyone remember this?  So, I now call for a protest in Congress in January of the alleged "take-over" of Congress by Republicans.  There are now enough credible allegations of vote tally tampering, voter suppression efforts, and vote spoiling campaigns to warrant such a protest.  We need at least one member of each house of Congres to call the matter into question.  Congress then goes into session to debate the matter.

We interrupt this post --

to bring you a better idea.  Something should be done immediately to challenge these results.  Undoubtedly such an effort would take money.  If the money can't be had, the media must be prevailed against through all legal means to bring these concerns to the American people.  If this is unavailing the non-violent tactics of the Civil Rights movement need to be dusted off.  For much of the vote suppression efforts are aimed at blacks (who vote Democratic) and amount to a new Jim Crow regime.  

We Should Have Known

It is a sad day in America when millions have lost confidence in the sanctity of the vote.  Yet this is what has happened as a result of last Tuesday's election.  The Democrats are trying to repair the damage, but the cat is out of the bag.  The more people understand that the mid-term election results cannot be verified and are in fact fraudulent in so many cases, the better.  

Republican Dirty Tricks Come into the Twenty-first Century

Salon is reporting on one dirty trick used by the Republicans in the recent mid-term campaign.  By posting a flattering photo of a Democratic candidate, and using Google ads to place web sites at the top of Google searches, Republicans were able to solicit and gain donations to help defeat the Democratic candidate.

What happened last Tuesday can hardly be called a legitimate election with low voter turn-out, huge sums of Republican money, negative advertising -- and Republican dirty tricks.  Salon is also beginning to address the issue of legitimacy.  On their web site you will find an article on the subject.  I'll try to post the direct link later.

Why Salon calls this "minor" is beyond me, but there is the otherwise excellent article:
Republican Dirty Tricks -- 21st century style


Not an endorsement for Photoshop

The Need to Make Amends to the American People

There is beginning to be a small deluge of press reports regarding the fall-out from Tuesday's "election."  I have begun reading and analyzing and should have something further to say soon.

For now, the Democrats and the President need to make amends with the American people, including Democrats who worked so hard and gave so much money in response to repeated, desperate pleas.  The day after the election my e-mail went dark -- as far as the Democratic Party was concerned.  Whereas even on election day I got (and responded to) a plea for help, the day after there was nothing.  This was more than a little surprising to me after all the tension of the weeks before.  Then yesterday, the President, responding to fairly hostile questions from the press, told of how he had "reached out,"  not to the American people but to the Republicans!  Today's Washington Post has an interesting article about the history of Senate Democrats with the President.  I'll have more on that issue later. But surely, Democrats deserve a staunch defense of the campaign from a Democratic President not what appears to be weak-kneed kow-towing to the likes of Boehner and McConnell, instruments of wealth and power.  

Big Win for Big Money: Politico

Over at my sister blog, The Musical Patriot, this morning I called the announced results of last night's election "fascism regnant."  One of the reasons fascism reigns in America is big money in politics.  While I have not had a chance to check the numbers, it is clear many if not most far-right Republican campaigns would not have floated downstream a half-mile were it not for big money support from well-heeled donors.

So while yesterday was a disaster for electoral politics, we shouldn't hold it against the American people as such.  This does not mean the American people don't share the blame for this fiasco, just that they aren't really to blame for the wash of corporate funding polluting the money stream now.

Big Win for Big Money

Republican Unseats Udall in Colorado: Shocking News from Politico

An up-start in Colorado has unseated a stellar Democratic Senator, Senator Mark Udall.  This unbelievable defeat of an able public servant is shocking.  It would be all the more shocking but for the fact Colorado is one of only two states to legalize "head-shops" with open sales of marijuana, a drug with proven serious negative effects on brain and body.

Does anyone have the figures on how The Republicans did among pot-users?   As the late Joan Rivers might say, "Oh grow up!"    

A Possible and Plausible Path to Senate Retention for Democrats

Sam Wang shows in this rather beautiful sketch how Democrats can retain control after today's election.  There is real hope here.

How Democrats Can Retain Control

Before Any Premature Post-mortems

from The New Yorker on line, trying to explain McConnell's win --

....The other conclusion has to do with the eighty million dollars that went into the Kentucky race, about thirty million in the form of independent expenditures. Significantly more was spent on McConnell’s behalf than on Grimes’s. If the lesson for both sides is that they need to have the candidates with more cash, 2016 will be even uglier than 2014.

Very close to the truth.  -- The Musical Patriot 

The Waiting Game

Up-date:  Meanwhile, Politico's Senate map seems frozen.   Hmmm....

Returns from the most highly-contested seats are not in yet for the most part.  The results that are in continue to show a tight race overall for control of the Senate.  The gerry-mandered House is something out of Martin Landau's South America in "Mission: Impossible."  One side wins, no matter what.

Still waiting here in music land.   

Virginia Senate Results Predicted to Be Very Close

This is not what Princeton was calling for!  Wow!   Suspense in the Old Dominion tonight.   

I Wonder

Hogan, Republican candidate in Maryland for Governor, is trailing in very early reporting.  This is the man the Washington Post said had almost tied the race.  Could it be the "Post" had it wrong?  I wonder.   

Still No Republican Sweep

As of 8:37 p.m. with states in the east and mid-west beginning to report there is still no identifiable Republican sweep.  It appears Sam Wang was right that the race would come down to about ten highly-contested seats.  Democrats have done a good job tightening things up from where they were in August.  And the latest figures I saw showed the Democrats raising and spending more money than the Republicans.  I guess my contribution today made a difference!

Democrats Pick Up a House Seat

Not to get too excited about?

I will have details later.


Source:  Politico 

Not Now Or Ever -- (Hardly Ever?)

This blog does not use the media-created color coding of states.  This so-called convention started with television in the early days of color broadcasts as a way of distinguishing which state went for which candidate.  In those days, the color of the party switched back and forth between elections.  If I recall correctly, the color was also different among the various networks.  Then after the scandal of the 2000 election, the media decided to stay with the same colors for the parties, and pundits on low light bulbs adopted the networks' choice.

Here at Democratic Campaign Watch such a scheme is considered inappropriate to a major nation.  It only adds to divisiveness and enables the quick tongues of the press who love to simply, amplify, and mystify.  

The Latest from Politico

(Depression alert:  Democrats my want to check back later)

The Senate

According to Politico, so far Democrats have lost one seat and Republicans have gained one seat.  This appears to be because Republicans have won a current Democratic Senate seat in West Virginia.

Wang on Udall v. Gardner

The upshot of current Senate polling is the closeness of so many races compared to other years.  As I have said before, if the Republicans had had such a great case, they would have closed the deal weeks ago.  Instead, several races have tightened, including the Georgia Senate and Governor's races.  

Sam Wang Says...

Despite the certainty of pundits, we actually don’t know who will win the Senate! In The New Yorker, I explain.

News Media Leads with a Republican Win

Before its 7 o'clock news broadcast had over the former National Public Radio (now self-designated as just "NPR") claimed Mitch McConnell was "forecast" to win in Tennessee.  Expectedly, they immediately began to opine what a Senate under this hard-right "leader" would be.

As the night goes on, let's look at turn-out closely.  Let's listen to and evaluate the reports of voting irregularities, reports which have already begun to come in.  Let us make a judgment as to whether this is a legitimate election.  And let us remember that just because the former National Public Radio and the like say it, doesn't make it so.  

Watching the Election Returns

The evening watch begins.  For a time to come I will be here, watching the returns with you.  I will report the major events as I get them.  Also, I will be providing insights as I can.  Thank you for joining me.  

ABC News Has Pertinent Information for the Day

ABC News is presenting information on key races, and Presidential activity regarding the election.  One headline here continues to forecast a Republican win (bogus), so use with caution.  The main video appears to be fairly straight-forward.  All video and graphics here are first-rate.  Use the link below for more.  

ABC News Has Pertinent Information

Far Right Reaches Turning Point, Ratchets Up Importance of Election

In a Salon report, the author reports on why new far-right activity puts this election in a searing spotlight.

Read it here:  

Far Right Influence More Dangerous Than Known: Salon Election Report

Voting News Reports Thirty-One States Trying Out New Voter Laws Today.

via Voting News --

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan organization that supports legislators nationwide, the number of states with some form of voter ID legislation has jumped between 2000 and 2014, from 14 states to 34. (However, voter ID laws in three of those states aren’t in place for Tuesday’s elections.) ”It has been a steady increase,” explained Wendy Underhill, NCSL elections program manager, adding that “strict voter ID laws are the ones that are often taken to court and are worrisome to some voting rights advocates.”

Blogging Election 2014

VOTING PROBLEMS IN HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT PROMPT CALLS FOR LONGER VOTING HOURS.  


See story here:
Voting Problems in Hartford

Urgent Analysis from Huffington Post: Democrats May Be Poised to Win Afterall

In short, those fancy models that show probability of victory are only as good as their ingredients, and if the polls are wrong, the poll aggregations will be wrong as well.

In an important article, Huffington Post shows four ways polls can be wrong.  And all four ways end up with numbers more favorable to Republicans than they should be.  I won't repeat the content of the article here.  However, the information  is likely to misrepresent several current races, all currently within a few percentage points.

So much for a calculated, mathematical model for trying to predict the outcome of an election.

(Thanks to Sam Wang for the link to this article.)


Polls Have Likely Hidden Errors


Kudos to Sam Wang for linking to an article which proves he may be wrong.  

Democrats Look Surprisingly Strong

If you have been following The Musical Patriot blog, you know the Democrats are strong this year.  I know this flies in the face of all the blather from Pundit World.  However, when you look at the overall picture, including governor's races, the picture does indeed look good for Democrats, certainly not the blow-out some among the pundit elite are still predicting.

Officially, Sam Wang has taught us to be careful about polls in mid-terms and I subscribe to this caution.  (See the Princeton Election Consortium web site).  And the gerry-mandering which has gone on regarding House seats is very disturbing.  (I'll have more on this in the future.)

Regarding those elected officials closest to the people the Democrats should have a net gain of one or two governorships.  I have not yet found any polling or analysis of state legislative races.  (I will look for some.)

Last night I was privileged to hear a live broadcast of President Obama in Pennsylvania campaigning for Tom Wolf,

the Democratic candidate for governor there.  Not only did the President say the right things, he said them in the right way, with oratorical skill, polish, and passion.  He talked movingly of the Party which fights for mothers, the elderly, and the everyday worker.  These are the kinds of politicians we need -- the Democrats, both small and large "d."

Help the Democrats Here