Senate Races Up For Grabs

Three senate races remain undecided, and election machinery/chicanery may play a role in all of them.

Georgia: Saxby Chambliss (R) vs Jim Martin (D): Because Chambliss did not get 50% of the vote, there will be a runoff in December. Georgia is a state that uses “faith based” voting – that is, there are no paper records of votes at the time of voting, and election officials are 100% reliant on the inner workings of the Diebold machinery to fairly report the results. A recount would merely duplicate the original results, as the machines would re-report their original tallies. So it’s completely up for grabs – throw out the pre-election polls and exit polls – there’s no way of knowing who really wins down there. It’s a very stupid state.

Minnesota: Norm Coleman (R) vs Al Franken (D): Coleman currently holds a 236 vote lead, with 2.4 million votes cast. Minnesota uses paper ballots and optical scanning. There will be a full hands-on recount there, so it will be a good test of the o/s machinery. The thing to keep an eye on there is ballot security during the recount process – chain of possession and lock and key and overnight guards and all of that. That’s what messed up the attempted New Hampshire recount earlier this year. But no matter the outcome, the results should be reliable.

Alaska: Ted Stevens (D) vs Mark Begich (D): Stevens surprised everyone with an election night turnaround. Alaska sounds like it is totally corrupted. Just a few facts: The election was hotly contested; there were long lines in early voting; a very popular favorite daughter was on the presidential ballot; participation in the state primary (before the Palin nomination) was up 12.4% over four years ago – forget all of that – election officials say that turnout was down 11% this year. Pre-election polls showed both Ted Stevens and Don Young down by 6-10 points. They also showed that the gap between McCain and Obama had closed to a 14% lead for McCain – final tally was a whopping 25 point win for McCain. Stevens “won” with a 16 point turnaround from polls, and Young won too. It’s an election night miracle!

The State of Alaska has been sued twice now, in 2004 and 2006, to get them to release raw election data for people to review. In the 2004 suit, prior to release, Diebold was allowed to “manipulate the data”. The election department up there is a crawling can of worms. If there is a recount, which is unlikely anyway, it would be overseen by the Palin Administration. Don’t hope for any sunlight up there this winter. There will be no mavericky challenging of the Republican election machine.

I didn’t consider this: Alaska is a couple of times zones over, and after everyone heard there that Obama had won, interest dissipated and lines dwindled. That doesn’t explain poll discrepancies, but might explain low turnout.