November 02, 2004
Pre-Election Thread
I will update this posting throughout the night as information comes in.Frank Luntz, GOP Pollster: 'Kerry is going to win' (says Wonkette)
Internet servers are going down all over the place. My poor reload button.
Screw Daylight Savings Time. If not for that, the polls would be starting to close right NOW.
The financial markets where you can bet on Kerry or Bush (Tradesports, IEM) show Bush tanking.
Right now the consensus is that if Kerry keeps his close leads in FL and OH, he wins, and if he doesn't, he loses. I don't really like being in that position, because again, these close leads are how the voters think they voted, but not how the votes have been counted.
Jesus, I just saw a live shot in lines in Georgia. It's horrible. They are actually too long - people will leave. That's horrible.
Even though FL and OH are close, OH had early voting that favored Kerry, so that's good.
The really good news is that Rove's backup strategy - of stealing upper midwest states - looks like it has completely failed. So it's really down to FL and OH for them, too, or stealing something completely unexpected.
I've heard from a few places that it's good news that there haven't been many reported problems with the e-voting machines. It ticks me off - the whole problem is that they can record a vote that you didn't cast, and you wouldn't know.
Ginsberg implies that Democrats are potentially bussing people around to vote at multiple polling locations. Dude, have you seen the lines? There wouldn't be time! He's saying that the problem is Democrats having all these false registrations. If you have a fake registration, who's going to show up? You going to conjure a real Mickey Mouse out of midair?
MSNBC is giving hints about a Kerry victory. Laura Bush reportedly forcing smiles. They refer to Bush campaign officials talking about how exit polling numbers are not going their way, and reassuring people not to trust the numbers...
I'm not sure which network to watch tonight. I'm thinking of watching ABC, even though Dan Rather might be more fun... polls start closing in a half hour.
Republicans are evidently trying to extend the closing time in New Hampshire. Not sure why. As long as you're in line by the time polls close, you can still vote even if it's two hours later. (Hmm... atrios retracted that later...)
Evidently, some states results are already being reported (not sure by whom). IN, KE. Bush is expected to win both handily, but evidently the margin is less than polls led us to believe...? Very few precincts reporting, though.
Hey, more exit polls - 6pm EST exit polls:
Kerry Bush PA 53 46 FL 51 49 NC 48 52 OH 51 49 AK 47 53 MI 51 47 NM 50 49 LA 43 56 CO 48 51 AZ 45 55 MN 54 44 WI 52 47 IA 49 49I've decided this is the pre-election thread. New thread starts at 7pm EST.