The polar bear ate your ballot
The Reality-Based Community —
November 06, 2008 [image] The polar bear ate your ballot Posted by James Wimberley Nate Silver smells a frozen rat in the Alaska count . Posted at 01:18 AM | TrackBack (0) | [image] | Thread: Election 2008 Comments Post a comment Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. ( sign out ) (If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.) URL: Remember me? Yes No ...
Make it 57
Rising Hegemon —
Jeff Merkley has apparently sent Republican Gordon Smith down to defeat in Oregon. Now, let's see what happens in Alaska which is very fishy... And the recount in Minnesota... Which could make it "59" ... leaving the Democrats with an outside shot because of a mandatory runoff in Georgia.
Early Morning Swim: Special Schadenfreude Edition
Firedoglake —
... Randy Scheunemann, fired for kissing up to Palin.
The battle between McCain and Palin.
Shopping sprees and wet towels.
Splitsville.
The Anchor Baby lashes out; RedState starts an enemies list.
"Loser McCain" gets his own coffee.
Merkley punks Gordon Smith.
Nate says Toobz may still go down.
From the notebook
The Sideshow —
... tube, "No he didn't! He was just elected, dammit!" There are constant references to "President Obama" as if he actually was. It's as if there weren't several dangerous weeks to go. This is now, people, so keep in mind that "eyes on the prize" isn't about one guy named Obama, it's about trying to save our country (and our world) and make it a better place. Bush and Cheney are still there trying to drive a stake through its heart. Gosh, it can't possibly be that someone is stealing the votes in Alaska, can it? Avram is not impressed by declarations that the ...
Weirdness In Alaska, Continued
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan —
Nate Silver is on the case. Something very, very strange has happened there.
SOMETHING SMELLS VERY FISHY IN ALASKA
The BRAD BLOG —
... always said if Democracy was a religion, voting would be the sacrament. I’m wondering if someone stole the body and blood of this election. I’m wondering if the wine isn’t poisoned. Take a few whiffs. Breathe deeply. See if you don’t come to the same conclusion. Where are the votes? Something stinks at the Alaska Division of Elections.
For more, see our good friend Brad Friedman's coverage concerning Alaska yesterday, and Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com who asks: "What the Hell Happened in Alaska?"
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Shannyn Moore is a Native Alaskan and a ...
Something stinks in Alaska
The Reaction —
By Michael J.W. Stickings "What In The Hell Happened in Alaska?" asked Nate Silver yesterday. Good question. As of right now, Republican incumbent Ted Stevens is leading Democratic challenger Mark Begich 48 to 47 (with 99 percent reporting) in their Senate race. The margin is 3,353 (with almost 210,000 votes counted). As I mentioned yesterday, however, there are tens of thousands of ballots left to count: absentee and ...
What the hell happened in Alaska?
AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth —
From Nate Silver: Although Ted Stevens holds a small lead in Alaska and is the favorite to retain his seat, the outcome is not as inevitable as it might appear to be. Stevens currently holds a lead of 3,353 votes, or about 1.5 percent of the votes tallied so far. But, there are quite a large number of ballots yet to count. According to Roll Call, these include "at least 40,000 absentee ballot, 9,000 early voting ballots, and an undetermined number of questionable ballots". Indeed, it seems possible that the number of "questionable" ballots could be quite high. ...
What The Hell Happened In Alaska?
Open Left - Front Page —
I have to chime in Shannyn Moore and Nate Silver: what the hell happened in Alaska?
In the extended entry, I look at the various irregularities, and weigh the current theories. 1. Was turnout abnormally low in Alaska?
Shannyn Moore wonders why, in the first election when an Alaskan was on the ticket of a major party, turnout in Alaska crashed. She writes:
Four years ago, 313,592 out of 474,740 registered voters in Alaska participated in the election-a 66% turnout. Taking into account 49,000 outstanding ballots, on ...
What Turnout Increase?
The Atlantic Politics Channel —
... Maybe the fact that Alaskans had mixed feelings about voting for their beloved convicted felon is responsible for what seem to be significant turnout declines in the state. Maybe Dem turnout was down because of the lack of a competitive presidential race. That, or Republicans are trying to ...
Reading the Lieberman Tea Leaves
Firedoglake —
... , Chambliss loses the runoff (which would probably only happen if Obama campaigned for him), and the extremely questionable election in Alaska comes down in favor of Begich, that makes Lieberman the 60th vote in the Senate. ...
Jane Hamsher: Reading the Lieberman Tea Leaves
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com —
... , Chambliss loses the runoff (which would probably only happen if Obama campaigned for him), and the extremely questionable election in Alaska comes down in favor of Begich, that makes Lieberman the 60th vote in the Senate. ...
Something Stinks in Alaska
The Moderate Voice —
“What In The Hell Happened in Alaska?” asks Nate Silver.
Good question.
As of right now, Republican incumbent Ted Stevens is leading Democratic challenger Mark Begich 48 to 47 (with 99 percent reporting) in their Senate race. The margin is 3,353 (with almost 210,000 votes counted).
As I mentioned the other day, however, there are tens of thousands of ballots left to count: absentee and early ballots, as well as questioned ones.
So what stinks?
1) As Nate Silver points out, even with all the ...
Alaska Stinks & Minnesota's on Edge, So Here's What Parties and Citizens Can Do to Try and Ensure Election Results with Integrity There and Elsewhere
The BRAD BLOG —
... results being reported in Alaska still stink from top to bottom. While it may be true that fewer voters turned out to vote for Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Barack Obama on this year's Presidential tickets than turned out to vote for Bush and Kerry in 2004 --- even with Alaska's record increases in voter registration and voter participation during their primaries and unprecedented turnout during early voting --- it does strain credulity, as noted by Anchorage's Shannyn Moore, by poll analysist/expert Nate Silver and others.
There could be some reasonable explanation ...
What’s Up With Alaska?
PoliGazette —
... The first strange thing is turnout. As we know turnout was expected to be massive for this election. Though it underperformed with respect to expectations, nowhere did it do so more than in Alaska. When the final vote is counted the turnout is expected to be 14% lower than in 2004. Consider the fact that this election had a homegrown candidate on the ticket and Barack Obama on the other ticket. Of all of the states, you wouldn’t expect a drop in turnout in Alaska. Nate Silver gives as a possible explanation that since the race was decided before polls closed in ...
Mark Begich Defeats Ted Stevens to Become Alaska’s Next U.S. Senator
Firedoglake —
... a full term in 1972, Sen. Stevens has never received less than 66% of the votes and is currently the longest serving Republican in the Senate. After his conviction on 7 felony counts a week before the election, Stevens found himself in a tough spot -- he was way behind in the polls.
Undeterred by, and seemingly in denial about his conviction, Stevens stayed in the race. On November 5th, it looked like Stevens had miraculously pulled out a victory, despite what the polls had projected.
The incumbent Republican's apparent victory was ...


