I do not for a second believe that come November Barack Obama won’t emerge from Cook County, generally, and Chicago in particular with huge margins. Indeed, the later the polls in Chicago return their results, the higher his margin will be.
I do not for a second believe that come November Barack Obama won’t emerge from Cook County, generally, and Chicago in particular with huge margins. Indeed, the later the polls in Chicago return their results, the higher his margin will be.
Isn’t Michael McKeon the guy who played Lenny on Laverne & Shirley?
Seriously, I’m with you. There’s no way Obama is losing Illinois, and no way Romney is losing Utah. I’ve never heard of this pollster before, and that alone is a reason to take it with not just a grain, but an entire mountain, of salt.
I can’t disagree, but if there is one wild card, its the union protests against Illinois Democrats — even Obama’s name was booed at the State Fair last week. Where can the union go, when they are being told by the State that “the party is over, time for you to pay-up” by the pro-union party?
It would seem like the unions need to make some sort of symbolic show of their importance to the Democrats, or perhaps they just won’t show up. Many of the D districts were just gerrymandered to be noncompetitive for Republicans anyway, perhaps they could protest those? (and unintentionally hurting Obama)
Heh.
But no need for voter ID laws……
PS
Given the current quality of public discourse, one does have to ask if the value of a dead persons vote is any less valuable than a live ones…
Sorry..
Don’t forget, though, that Gore couldn’t carry Tennessee. If he had carried Tennessee, no one would have cared about Florida in 2000.
In my mythical constitution there will be a clause that a candidate cannot be elected to the Presidency or Vice Presidency UNLESS they can carry their home state with a simple majority.
@Drew- Here in PA, they admitted they could not find evidence of one case of voter fraud that would have been stopped by voter ID. OTOH, there is tons of absentee ballot fraud. I have a collection of some of the funniest, but they are largely just old ladies who get their dead husband’s ballot and think they should vote the way they think he would have wanted them to vote.
Steve
That brings up an issue I’ve been investigating. I’ve found a number of successfully prosecuted cases of voter fraud in various parts of the country over the last ten years. So far I haven’t found a single successful prosecution of a case of caging (voter suppression). There are a few cases making their way through the courts but I haven’t found any successfully prosecuted cases as yet.
In general Republicans complain about vote fraud and Democrats complain about caging. Which is the more serious problem?
A few years after the 2000 debacle here in Florida one of the newspapers started looking into voter roles down in Palm Beach County. They found a lot of snow birds that were voting in NY and FL. One article was published, then the story died from lack of interest. Given the snowbirds we still get, I imagine a fair amount of that still goes on. And remember 2000 – it doesn’t take that much to matter, even in a Presidential election.
http://www.theroot.com/views/black-voters-told-relax-don-t-vote
While both are rare, there are a bunch of convictions for absentee ballot fraud and fraud by election workers, but no legislation aimed at those. One of my favorite absentee fraud cases below from caselaw.
This case involves two conspiracies by the opposing candidates for county commissioner and their respective supporters to buy votes in the July 9, 1996, Dodge County primary election in Eastman, Georgia.   McCranie’s challenger was Doyce Mullis (“Mullisâ€), the former Dodge County commissioner.   Jones, the thirty-year incumbent sheriff of Dodge County, was charged in both conspiracies, because he had supporters in both of the county commissioner camps who bought votes for him.   The election was a mixed federal-state election because there were candidates for the United States Senate and the House of Representatives on the ballot, along with the contests for county commissioner, sheriff, and numerous other local races.
In the county commissioner’s race, McCranie won by only 31 votes.   Jones’s sole opponent for sheriff was Theo “Ted†Parkerson, Jr. (“Parkersonâ€).   Jones won the disputed primary election by only nine votes……
The government’s evidence at trial included the testimony of several co-conspirators who bought votes for the candidates.   Cooperation witness Charles Deloach (“Deloachâ€) testified about Jones’s participation in the “Mullis-Jones†vote buying conspiracy.   Early in the campaign Jones and Mullis met with Deloach at the county jail and discussed how much money to pay various voters for voting a certain way.   The parties discussed payment of $20 per voter….
  In addition to live testimony, the government also introduced bank records showing that during the campaign McCranie and Jones each obtained $15,000 in $20 bills from an Eastman bank.
The investigation revealed that most of the illegal vote buying occurred during the absentee voting period prior to election day.   The investigation disclosed that for the challenged primary, 1,647 absentee ballots were issued for a voting population of approximately 11,000 voters.   In other words, approximately 15% of all ballots issued were absentee ballots.   State election officials advised that issuance of more than 10% of absentee ballots for a registered voter population was considered extremely high.
The Dodge County election superintendent testified that 1,500 absentee votes (out of less than 8,000 total votes cast in the election), was unprecedented for Dodge County.   Out of approximately 1,500 absentee ballots counted in the sheriff’s race, Jones received 1,047 votes and his opponent, Parkerson, received only 449 votes.   In the county commissioner’s race, McCranie received 693 absentee votes, while Mullis received 794.
Incredibly, each of the two camps-McCranie and Mullis-actually set up tables inside the courthouse at opposite ends of the hall, where supporters on both sides openly bid against each other to buy absentee votes.
At trial, a Dodge County magistrate described the rowdy courthouse atmosphere during the absentee voting period as “a successful flea market.† (R3-446).   One of the vote buyers in the Mullis camp also testified that the open bidding for votes was “[l]ike an auction.† 
Steve
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