I don’t believe it was an “election” in any sense of the word, i.e. where voters go to the polls to find a candidate about whom they have made a considered decision based on their understanding of issues, even if it’s just “D” or “R.” It was a round up; voters who didn’t know anything about either side’s position were herded to the polls by community organizers who had been assigned quotas for each precinct, and told “just get it done.” This is why Nate Silver knew how many were going to turn out. The Obama campaign shared the quotas with him and he knew they’d be met, no matter what fraudulent means it took. So , if it looks funny that a precinct has a 10,000- 0 result, well that’s just factored in. However , the traditional campaign failed to ignite a real response, so Obama fell 4 m short of his 2008 total and election turn out , based on voting age population, will drop at least 5%. Leave alone why Romney didn’t do better; the reality is that this is the best the Democrats could do with their high tech, ground game skulduggery against a surprisingly unsavvy and disengaged Republican party ( the long ,expensive primary campaign is probably the main impediment.) Republicans have no reason to be quaking in their boots. The line has to be that Obama is the first President elected to a second term with fewer votes than to his first term in over 150 years.
It was the electoral version of “teaching to the test” if it wasn’t outright fraud.
It sure didn’t feel like a real election. Not to me.
What I had posted here 11 days ago:
If Obama had used Nate Silvers voting algorithms, he could have used very little in fraud effort. (Nate Silver of the NYTs).