South Dakota Suspicions

National Review ^ | 07 Nov. 2002 (original publication date) | Byron York

[txradioguy]

Ok...now before anyone tries to have this thread yanked, IMHO this story needs to be told again. We are seeing on a larger scale a repeat of this scam this year.

To me...this story and how the RATS stole this election from Thune...is the EXACT blueprint for what Kerry/Edwards will try to pull this year in the Presidential Election.

[Sockdologer]

As a South Dakota, I thank you for posting this.

[txradioguy]

Election Fraud Warning PING!

[txradioguy]

Hey, speaking of Mr. Thune how is he doing against Senator Shocked!...Shocked!

[McGavin999]

I don't think the votes of ANY precincts should be announced until they are all in. It was the same in Florida, the dem precincts are always the last to report.

[MarkeyD]

I'm from Idaho, but gave $200 to Thune. I guess I'll have to give a little more.

[txradioguy]

This story has stuck in my head for the last two years. And when I heard that Kerry and the DNC were deploying 6,000 lawyers to ensure "every vote counts" and then when Edie Bernice Johnson called on the U.N. to monitor OUR elections I KNEW the RATS were gonna try a South Dakota on a national level this year.

[HP8753]

My bet is that a lot of Wounded Knee Vets from the Native American side voted Democrat.

[writer33]

Great post! Thanks for the ping!

[Mortikhi]

Im hating rats more every passing day ping

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

If you recall the media tried to give FL to Gore in 2000
VNS was a private consortium owned by
ABC News, The Associated Press, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and NBC.
4 of the 5 of the networks and cable newsrooms
(only ABC waited till both time zones closed)
"announced" Gore had won
BEFORE the 2nd time zone in FL had closed.
This cost President Bush votes in the FL panhandle.

I was at a friends house and the State of FL election website results showed President Bush was winning

In fact, the networks which called Florida for Gore did so early in the evening—before polls had even closed in the Florida panhandle, which is part of the Central Time Zone. NBC called Florida for Gore at 7:49:40 p.m., Eastern Time. This was 10 minutes before polls closed in the Florida panhandle. Thirty seconds later, CBS called Florida for Gore. And at 7:52 p.m., Fox called Florida for Gore. Moore never lets the audience know that Fox was among the networks which made the error of calling Florida for Gore prematurely. Then at 8:02 p.m., ABC called Florida for Gore. Only ABC had waited until the Florida polls were closed.

About an hour before the polls closed in panhandle Florida,
the networks called the U.S. Senate race in favor of the Democratic candidate.

The premature calls may have cost Bush thousands of votes from the conservative panhandle, as discouraged last-minute voters heard that their state had already been decided;
some last-minute voters on their way to the polling place turned around and went home. Other voters who were waiting in line left the polling place. In Florida, as elsewhere, voters who have arrived at the polling place before closing time often end up voting after closing time, because of long lines. The conventional wisdom of politics is that supporters of the losing candidate are most likely to give up on voting when they hear that their side has already lost. Thus, on election night 1980, when incumbent President Jimmy Carter gave a concession speech while polls were still open on the west coast, the early concession was blamed for costing the Democrats several Congressional seats in the West, such as that of 20-year incumbent James Corman. The fact that all the networks had declared Reagan a landslide winner while west coast voting was still in progress was also blamed for Democratic losses in the West; Congress even held hearings about prohibiting the disclosure of exit polls before voting had ended in the any of the 48 contiguous states.

Even if the premature television calls affected all potential voters equally, the effect was to reduce Republican votes significantly, because the Florida panhandle is a Republican stronghold. Most of Central Time Zone Florida is in the 1st Congressional District, which is known as the "Redneck Riviera." In that district, Bob Dole beat Bill Clinton by 69,000 votes in 1996, even though Clinton won the state by 300,000 votes.

So depress overall turnout in the panhandle,
and you will necessarily depress more Republican than Democratic votes.

A 2001 study by John Lott suggested that the early calls cost Bush at least 7,500 votes,
and perhaps many more.

At 10:00 p.m., which network took the lead in retracting the premature Florida win for Gore?
The first retracting network was CBS, not Fox.

Over four hours later, at 2:16 a.m., Fox projected Bush as the Florida winner,
as did all the other networks by 2:20 a.m.

At 3:59 a.m., CBS took the lead in retracting the Florida call for Bush. All the other networks, including Fox, followed the CBS lead within eight minutes. That the networks arrived at similar conclusions within a short period of time is not surprising, since they were all using the same data from the Voter News Service. (Linda Mason, Kathleen Francovic & Kathleen Hall Jamieson, “CBS News Coverage of Election Night 2000: Investigation, Analysis, Recommendations” (CBS News, Jan. 2001), pp. 12-25.)

The big 5 media TV and Cable newsrooms are the real threat to the 2004 election.

..."Early on Tuesday, November 7th 2000, TV stations and various media based in Florida reported that Gore has won Florida which was a big surprise for everyone because of strong republican support. Bush's brother Jeb is governor there and Florida usually gives support to the Republicans. Some of them questioned that and during the night CNN showed 52% Bush's lead over 46% for Gore. It is almost impossible to believe that media could have been that blind and biased to report Gore's victory."...

[RushingWater]

Yeah, strong Republican precints should stall and have their votes counted AFTER Shannon county votes are in!

[ApesForEvolution]

BTTT

[MHT]

Federal election observers on reservations should correct the problem this time.

This is what they did in St. Louis in 2002 after the 2000 voting debacle. Thanks to poll-watching, we have Senator Talent!

[Future Useless Eater]

Here are two threads from the wee hours of that election night....

Thune camp "giddy" for GOP Senate win in S.D. -- All but predicting victory now

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/783277/posts?page=63#63

ABC says Thune wins by 188 votes

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/783539/posts?page=66#66

...........does anyone know if Shannon County will still be voting this year with stacks of 'IMB cards', hammers, and 'metal punches' ???

[RockinRight]

Democrats - "Anything to win!"
Republicans - "Have you seen my testicles?"

I don't get it.

[knuthom]

It happens every election in Missouri. The most rural counties somehow manage to report their ballot counts faster than Kansas City and St. Louis. Only after the rest of the state is tallied, do we get the votes from those cities, when they figure out how many they need to come up with.

[txradioguy]

Republicans are the kids on the playground who always...no matter what...plays by the rules.

Democrats are the schoolyard bullies who'll do whatever whenever to make sure they win at all costs.

[mlocher]

"It's the stupid party forever I guess"

perhaps. many historians believe that nixon beat kennedy, but nixon kept his mouth shut. he decided it best to live to fight another day, i suppose.