Comments on: No one won NY-23

By: mschmitt

mschmitt — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 04:53:10 +0000

… seeing as you reco’d my work and all; but the parallel I’d draw is what happened in the Coleman-Franken Senate race. Coleman lost quite a few votes, and the election, after the fact (largely on bone-headed lawyering, but I digress); and after a couple of weeks, most Republicans just wanted the whole thing to go away. There were plenty of reasons to have a raised eyebrow there, too (though no statement from an election official suggesting a virus); and the stakes were much higher.

If there is a fix, it’s simply that the national party has conceded that not all elections are fair — and when you do get jobbed, it’s your duty to go home rather than create a scene. I don’t think the silence or lack of bite in this contest had anything to do with Hoffman’s party affiliation, I just don’t.

By: tenebrous

tenebrous — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 07:01:26 +0000

They’ll do it to anyone. Even though he was the best choice in the race, then when shenanigans happened, no-one cared, because everyone else had moved on already. And they moved on at lightning speed because Hoffman was a third-party candidate.

The fix is in, the narrative has already been established. Doug lost because he ran as a third party; third parties can’t win; we wash our hands of this embarrassing NY-23 episode.

It’s the same kind of logic that moderates us against us, and so some of us turn around and use it against third parties. In the end, conservativism doesn’t matter, only the brand name of Republican.

By: mschmitt

mschmitt — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:18:57 +0000

By: bk

bk — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:03:00 +0000

Maybe something fishy happened or maybe not, but it’s interesting to contrast the almost total silence here with the 100 million times or so we heard the KnownFact that Diebold rigged election machines in Ohio to steal the 2004 election from Kerry.

By: Finrod

Finrod — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 02:18:19 +0000

By: mschmitt

mschmitt — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:49:52 +0000

Take a look at this (this would be a diary update, but I’m not able to at the moment).

The Gouverneur Times isn’t backing down (good for them, particularly since their supposed ‘misrepresentation’ consisted of running with an accurate quote).

By: mschmitt

mschmitt — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:05:29 +0000

Incidentally, you're not the only one to give me so little credit. Sparky here was also duly offended.

By: edintexas

edintexas — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:37:59 +0000

I hope that was a joke. The town is Governeur, as in the early US politician Governeur Morris, one of the contributors to the Constitution.

By: mschmitt

mschmitt — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:37:39 +0000

… this kind of thing can’t just be ignored. If nothing else, what we learn here will help us defeat this kind of thing before it gets started in 2010.

By: Scope

Scope — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:31:51 +0000

I see your point about Hoffman not going forward with this however, to let it go just emboldens them further. It seems that anyone in the country still using these voting machines, and according to Hoffman they are ancient, should be required to get rid of them. There must be paper backup, pregnant chads and all.

By: mschmitt

mschmitt — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:41:59 +0000

Hard to say… They lost over 1000 Hoffman votes (10% or so) in Oswego county, which is (as far as I know) not one of the counties with the “glitch/crash” problem.

The official explanations, including for the two precincts which reported 0 votes is “human error” (as in, telling someone on the phone, “nope, no Hoffman votes here”). So, they’re claiming that there is no correlation whatsoever between the election night results and the glitch.

In truth, the election officials can not say whether there was or was not a virus, so they are just issuing denials and hoping that the media can embarrass Hoffman into sitting down and shutting up.

By: charleskirtley

charleskirtley — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:29:14 +0000

It is an embarrassment and possibly a crime that we can not count votes in this country. Both parties are to blame for making stupid rules that encourage this. We are the Banana Republic of America.

By: SoFiMil

SoFiMil — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 02:38:56 +0000

Is there a statistical breakdown/analysis for precincts where the infected machines were cleaned vs. machines that were not cleaned (whether needed or not)?

Also, I recall that there was at least one county and/or precinct that was not able to give *any* results until the next day. Was this issue is related to the computer virus matter? (see 8:44 pm) http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/66221-the-hills-new-york-23rd-district-live-results-blog

By: JadedByPolitics

JadedByPolitics — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:21:34 +0000

It is ALWAYS appreciated when a Redstater continues to follow up on one of their diaries when the facts on the ground change

By: Scope

Scope — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 02:40:22 +0000

When I first saw the article about being able to break into electronic voting machines way back when, I knew at gut level that it could really be a real problem with any forth coming elections. If I saw that article, which was linked on one of the news sites, then NY 23 had to know there could be a problem. If they didn’t then the maintenance people, as in the guy called in to repair the one machine, absolutely had to know there could be problems. If this isn’t addressed now, 2010 could be a nightmare. I always hear that voting machines can’t be replaced because of local funding for new ones, or because there isn’t enough time before the next election. Fine, it can’t be too difficult to require paper ballots everywhere, and, reps from both parties to monitor every election site. Jeeez, we’re not living in Afghanistan for cripes sake. Now wait, maybe we are, I do feel the whizz of liberal bullets flying over my head every day it seems.

By: mschmitt

mschmitt — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:49:46 +0000

By: civil_truth

civil_truth — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:48:27 +0000

This will alert readers that you’ve added information; otherwise they won’t look back again.

A comment will draw only limited attention

And if you expect to be continuing to add more updates, you might put date/time info, for example [Updated Su 11-22 8AM] and put a line at the top to check for updates at the bottom.

By: mschmitt

mschmitt — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:45:24 +0000

I think people are just a little hesitant to jump on the fraud bandwagon since if it’s not fraud, we look like sore losers. For what it’s worth, I’ve seen a lot of other sites running with half-true theories about how the virus works, etc.

With all due respect, I don’t think a lack of support of Doug Hoffman is really a realistic concern for RedState. Certainly, election fraud should be a top concern for any conservative candidates heading into the 2010 elections.

By: tenebrous

tenebrous — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:36:11 +0000

Hey look, I’m totally with you, but Red State as a whole isn’t. Other people have already declared NY-23 as lost BECAUSE Hoffman ran as a third-party. The conservative establishment (if here is any indication) is busy hanging Doug out to dry. I disagree with every red blood cell in my body, but what can I do? I’ll stand with you until I’m banned.

By: mschmitt

mschmitt — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:10:05 +0000