[ConsistentLibertarian]

If the Brown guy had led until 11pm and the Sanchez guy pulled ahead late when votes arrived from predictable Republican strongholds, would that have been evidence that Sanchez had committed fraud?

[GOPcapitalist]

Potentially, but not certainly. In fact, it is more likely a Republican precinct would come in later than a Dem one, because most Republican precincts are in the suburbs. Urban Dem precincts have only a few miles and even blocks to drive to turn in their ballots downtown. Some of the suburban precincts have drives in excess of 40 miles.

[tonyinv]

No, no matter how and when the votes came in, if the fix was in, it would have been put in place before the poles opened.

There was a strange situation that occurred just after Brown took that 7k lead. One of the local stations was speaking with a Dem Council Member at the Brown headquarters. This guy went nuts. He was accusing the County (which ran the eletion) of voter fraud and "disenfranchising" thousands of voters. It just struck me as a diversion tactic.

Even if there were problems, why go ballistic when your guy is looking victorious?

[Gracey]

What city do you reside? What do you know about Houston politics? Until you do, until you reside in Houston, until you understand the local potitics, SHUT UP!!!!!! Take care of your own city politics.

[VRWC_minion]

If the Brown guy had led until 11pm and the Sanchez guy pulled ahead late when votes arrived from predictable Republican strongholds, would that have been evidence that Sanchez had committed fraud??

If I am not mistaken the author of this thread is looking for information ie facts to back up his assertion that this late surge seemed strange. If the history of past elections shows the timing of the reporting to be unusual, then yes its evidence that warrants further study either way.

More importantly it shows that the level of trust regarding the handling and fairness of the counting in elections by the GOP side is very low. That in itself is telling.

[WOSG]

Depends on when the ballots were delivered from the precincts ... you need to ask WHY close-in precincts report later than suburbs???? What happens is they hold the polls open after 7pm and find the remaining no-voters and bring them in, while the honest precincts close. They take longer to tally (hmmmm), and they hold back until others report (double hmmm). These are advantages to win a squeaker, not as blatant as ballotstuffing but close enough - call it turnout stuffing; when you have a 96% reliable base, a body is as good as writing the ballot yourself.

They did this openly in Missouri last November if you remember, trying to keep St Louis open to 10pm, after all the other polls closed. Squeaked in enough votes in the city that got Ashcroft out of the Senate.