***Operation 4 More Years - Situation Room - Day 1 - LIVE THREAD***

Various | 2 November 2004 | Various

[An.American.Expatriate]

As I and many of my fellow expatriates are often hard pressed to get any non-biased information from the media (we are often stuck with CNN-International!!), I have decided to start this thread in the tradition of the Operation Iraqi Freedom Situation Room threads.  I hope this meets with the approval of Jim & John and the Admin guys . . .

The purpose of this thread is to be a place to collect information from all sources into one area for discussion.  Specific threads for specific topics and cross linking are highly encouraged.

[hankbrown]

There is this woman in my office who has announced to the whole office that the line was so long this morning, she decided to wait until after work to vote. She also stated that if it was too long on her way home, she would go home and then go back to vote right before the polls close. You just know she is never going to get there. I think I will nose around and find out who she would vote for (if the lines aren't too long). If it for Bush, I will encourage her to go and if it is for Kerry I will tell her that her single vote is meaningless anyway so why go through the hassle.

[RockinRight]

High turnout. But my manager who lives in a 70% Republican precient said lines were very long there also!

[ozzysmom]

the long lines to pay their respects to President Reagan showed what stuff we Republicans were made of...bet most of those folks who tough it out in the really really long lines are voting for President Bush...

[afnamvet]

Two votes for President Bush and Vice president Cheney sent in almost 2 weeks ago. Let us make today a victory!

VERY busy at the polling place on the street corner in Rocklin,CA. Heavy turnout is expected.

Confidence is very high.

[cosulo res publica]

Weather forecast for the state of Ohio:
Overcast with intermittent rain all day, heavier showers developing in the afternoon and evening. (Esp for Cleveland)

[David1]

GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Definitely try to find out who she is voting for. Be prepared to encourage her big time if she wanted to vote for Bush. It is all about GOTV!!!

[Lee Heggy]

Kansas City, Mo. Went to the polls at 7:30. Huge line of voters. My part of town is predominantly black and most of the in-line discussion was pro Bush. As I left I noticed that over the sign in front bearing the name of the church someone had stretched a plastic printed sign that had a different name from the original. I went back inside and informed one of the election judges of it and they went out with me and removed the fake sign. I have a feeling that while this stuff is endemic to Missouri's dirty politics tradition we may be seeing this sort of stuff elsewhere across the country. Keep your eyes open and be on the lookout for such tactics! GO BUSH!

[ARCADIA]

Throughout the day political insiders will be getting the 'real deal' numbers and projections and will be whispering it to the media. Those who can watch the talking heads today should be looking for clues and hints by the demeanors as to what's happening.

I think so, too. One of the reasons for all the nervousness among Republican media types in the last few days must be that they know the results of early voting exit polling.

In your opinion, around what time do you start picking up signals? I saw some definite Republican nervousness yesterday.

[samiam1972]

Voted in Clay County, MO this morning at 7:30. We made the kids go with us. There was no wait at all and it went very smoothly! My 1st grader got to vote at his own booth. He knew what to do for the president but we had to show him how to look for the word Republican to finish the rest of the votes. My 4 year-old groans every time she sees a Kerry sign. "We don't want him to win, do we mom? He lies. Not everyone can be as smart as daddy. GO BUSH!!" I love my kids!!!

After voting I began to feel a little helpless so my daughter and I went to morning Mass to pray a little harder. God help us!!

[hflynn]

Voted in Long Island, New York. While waiting on-line I noticed something very interesting. A lot of voters spent an inordinate amount of time in the booth, 4 - 5 minutes.

I concluded alot of Democrats are having a hard time voting for Kerry.

[NYC GOP Chick]

Report from lower Manhattan:

9th ED (a few blocks east of the WTC site)

I got to the polling place at about 9:20 this morning and was in line for about 45 minutes -- read "National Review" and "Weekly Standard" to kill time -- and was the 202nd voter in the 9th ED.

As I was walking toward the building (a senior citizens' center), I saw some young people walking up, looking through the windows and leaving when they saw long lines. Probably Kerry voters, so I just giggled to myself.

Only voted for President, Senator and Congress. Judges were all cross-endorsed (too much like the old Soviet system); idiotic state senator (leftist tool) running opposed; state assemblyman (Speaker of the Assembly - Sheldon Silver, a loundmouthed jackass) opposed only by an Independence Party (Lenora Fulani, Fred Newman, Tom Golisano's freakfest of a party -- Reform Party in NY) stooge.

Also, I took a quick walk afterward and noticed that the security at the Federal Reserve Bank has been noticeably stepped up since yesterday. More cops, including some on patrol away from the FRB, carrying machine guns.

[ARCADIA]

I think anyone with "internets" savvy will know the score by mid-afternoon . . . I don't see how they can restrict exit polling info in this data-rich environment (FR, Drudge, bloggers) . .

What's the best place for clues?

[cake_crumb]

Quick post while there's time: DNC operatives are bringing boxes of illegal absentee ballots to Philly courthouses.

[Mrs.O'Strategery]

Dressed up myself and my girls today in red hoping we will live in a red state by the end of the day!! I just cast my vote for W. here in Monroe County, Wisconsin. I didn't want to wait for my hubby to get home from work to vote with him because I thought it would be too busy then.

To my shock, in my little town there was traffic problems by the polling place! There were mostly many older people there casting their votes. There was a big line!! I think this is good for us! Every one seemed to be in a good mood.

WI for W!!!

[BladeLWS]

Good, give them something to think about!

[rwfromkansas]

Nice.

Looks like turnout will be hopefully fairly even as Battleground predicts in their polls with us ahead.

[rwfromkansas]

Bush mostly it appears

[JesseJane]

If You See or Hear About Vote Fraud, Call the Deptartment of Justice at 202-514-2000


Posted on 11/02/2004 5:23:44 AM PST by jmstein7


If You See or Hear About Vote Fraud, Call the Department of Justice at 202-514-2000

Ask to speak with an attorney at the Voting Rights Division, and explain that you have specific information.

Also, you may contact the FBI at https://tips.fbi.gov/

Of course, it helps to have a camera to catch them in action.

[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."...

[duffthor]

I want to see Alan Colmes cry tonight!