The "Old Fashioned Election Night Channel." Maybe someone will come up with it someday ... like the no-announcer NFL games they did a few yars back. That would be wonderful. I'll be surfing madly on the 7th for results having trained myself away from the loons, hacks and Bush-worshippers that populate TV ... just tonight on MSNBC, Matthews, Fineman, Moron O'Donnell and somebody else all agreed that the states where they don't "love this guy" (Bush) are the states that "don't like religion" (apparently about 45 of them).

why were the exit polls inaccurate for the national election in 2004?

As an American living in China I get it easy on Election Night. It's already Tuesday afternoon here and the East Coast polls will be closing well before I get up on Wednesday. And of course I have no television access to CNN, MSNBC, CSPAN, ABC, CBS, NBC, or any other cable or broadcast American news network. (And no, the vastly superior CNN International doesn't count).

I suppose there are masochists who'll be up all night hitting "refresh" on CNN.com, but overseas websites pass through the Great Firewall's Official Foreign Sippy Straw. [Insert Chinese Water Torture joke here.]

Ever think about hiring someone in the field of political science to write one of these pieces? Their writing style can be dry, but then again, they actually know things.

Many thanks, Mr.Shapiro----yur excellent article evokes nostalgia for the early days of television political reporting, from 1948 to the tense night of the Kennedy-Nixon election.

Many polling places in NH will be open until 8 pm, not 7 pm as stated in your article. I realize this is just a detail to most readers, but getting the facts right strengthens your credibility.

Source: Nashua telegraph

http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061106/NEWS01/61106002

So, here in the PA 10th district I'll be going out to vote on a touch screen today. So, if Sherwood pulls of the "miracle comback" to win after being down an average of 11% or so, we'll all know why.

If Sherwood, Santorum and Swann all manage to win today, the Dems would have very strong reasons to cry "Foul!", wouldn't you say? Too bad a recount won't be possible.

After the body politic took a complete detour into never-never land last time, I'm figuring that the Democrats will LOSE seats in the house and senate. After all, better the job-shipping, people-cheapening, brown-people-murdering, hatred-spitting, sexually hypocritical troglodyte you know...

The tight Virginia congressional race pits challenger Phil Kellam (not Keller as you stated) against Republican incumbent Thelma Drake.

I have champagne and anti-depressants at the ready. And I'm off to face my neighbors, including the York County Republicans massed at the door of my polling place in Tidewater Virginia. First time in a long time that my vote for congress might actually matter in this red state--

Ohio isn't split between two timezones.

You've also misspelled the name of Indiana's (idiot) John Hostettler.

The average age of poll workers is geologic. I predict nothing but goodness when the simplest of scanners breaks down. I don't understand why they don't just dump all the ballots in the landfill across the street from my polling place and pull numbers out of their asses.

I apologize for the spelling errors of candidate names in an earlier version of this article. (They are being corrected on Tuesday morning). Variable poll closing times in New Hampshire (and perhaps other states) raise a more complicated problem. I relied on a chart prepared by Congressional Quarterly, normally a very authoritative source, which listed New Hampshire at 7 pm. As a reporter who has covered the last seven New Hampshire presidential primaries, I should have known that there would not be a single one-size-fits-all answer for this fiercely independent state. But as near as I can tell (without checking every town government website in the state), the 7pm close is indeed the norm.

The headlines on Wednesday morning will read "Republican Sweep All Close Elections". That's right--the GOP is going to keep control of both the House and Senate and, as another writer pointed out, they might even gain a few seats.

Best of all, it has absolutely nothing to do with what voters really want (in some abstract sense) or even with what the polls tell us they want. Why? Because Republicans control the election machinery in all the close states. The formula is quite simple: Those strict new voter ID laws + the electronic voting machines with no paper records + all those polling stations in predominately Democratic areas with hilariously few machines = Republican sweep.

Face it, Americans do not live in a democracy. Even if you ignore all the outright suppression of Democratic voters, our system of government has fundamental structural defects that promote the rule of the minority. As the New Yorker put it this week, if the Republicans were facing an election as the ruling party in any other democracy, no one would have a shred of a doubt that they'd be kicked out of power. But since we live in a country with gerrymandered districts, winner-take-all elections and no proportional representation, the unpopular Republican majority gets to keep control of the government. Not exactly a democracy, is it?

And yet, when Democrats held the White House, the Senate and the House (in '94), the Republicans pulled togther and swept the Democrats out - and I don't recall anyone complaining of cheating - and this was before electroic voting - so how did they do it?

They rallied their base and they got out the vote.

If we do the same, we'll win...

"Conversely, if by 8 p.m. Eastern, the Republicans have held their losses to, say, three seats, then the Democrats will once again be reeling from the hidden power of the GOP's turnout operation. "

Isn't it about time we started refering to the Republican "turnout operation" with the proverbial quote marks?

There seems to be more scrutiny of voting processes by everyone, Dem, Republican, even independents this time around.

This is a good thing as it emphasizes the importance of keeping things as much above table as possible.

I just hope there are no more big scandals to place doubts in people's minds as to the results of the election.

(I would like to see the Dems get the house to balance out the power in Washington, I am crossing my fingers)

- Rob

http://www.fiertek.com

Inspiring 9/11 Posters- The Power of Hope