If by some strange chance the official voting results should differ strikingly from the exit polls, in favor of the Republican candidates, I have no doubt that Ann Coulter et. al. already have their commentaries written up and ready for publication. Remember how in 2004, Coulter's instant reaction to the strange discrepancy between exit polls and official results was a full-screech attack on the liberal press for supposedly deliberately skewing the exit polls?

Yeah, right. It wouldn't convince poll watchers in a third world country, but they may just pull it off here, after we've spent 6 years passively letting a Fascist putsch destroy the Constitution.

How the hell can an exit poll inacuractely favor Democrats? The only way an exit poll is inaccurate (despite the small margin of error) is if the voting machines are not matching what the voters vote! How stupid is this country?? Can anyone explain how the hell their can be any other reason why the exit polls don't match the results? Do exit pollers only talk to people who "look" like Democrats? It's rediculous! This election isn't even over and I'm already pissed.

Gee, do you think in about 50 years or so some historians will figure out what actually happened to exit polls starting in the year 2000?

Will Karl Rove give a death bed confession when he's old and wrinkled that will be disputed or ignored like former CIA-head and Reagan campaign manager Bill Casey's was?

In 20 years will some ex-Diebold programmer reveal that Diebold's CEO needed to be able to upload software patches without the assistance of technical support?

If the election results someday are obviously contrary to 70% of the public's point of view will anyone do anything or will we end up with a series of incompetent and corrupt but all-powerful presidents much like the Emperors of Rome before it fell?

electronic counting. Diebold knows when to change votes to the RIGHT side.

The claim that exit polling provides inaccurate data is patently false. Anyone who is familiar with the science of poll data and statistical analysis knows how remarkably reliable exit polling is. In fact, it was the exit polling in the Ukraine that this same Administration relied upon to lobby for the Orange Revolution. But because they intend to pull out on their usual bag of magic tricks this election, they need to come up with enough plausible deniability to explain yet another come-from-behind victory. Karl Rove's "math." They hope to so discredit statistical analysis and polling data that they can eliminate it entirely in the future. So all we will have are suspicions and trade-secret, no paper trail counts on Republican machines, supervised by partisan officeholders.

And we will have yet another two years of wondering how the Republicans expect to govern with a 30% or less approval rating. History indicates that such conditions tend to precede military coups.

and we had better be prepared to do something:

2000 - Florida shenanigans and a Supreme Court pass

2002 - serious poll discrepancies in Georgia for Max Cleland, governor - a trail run

2004 - wide-spread poll/tally discrepancies, every one ultimately favoring a Rep

2006 -

"The United States is deeply disturbed by extensive and credible indications of fraud committed in the Ukrainian presidential election. We strongly support efforts to review the conduct of the election and urge Ukrainian authorities not to certify results until investigations of organized fraud are resolved. We call on the Government of Ukraine to respect the will of the Ukrainian people, and we urge all Ukrainians to resolve the situation through peaceful means. The Government bears a special responsibility not to use or incite violence, and to allow free media to report accurately on the situation without intimidation or coercion. The United States stands with the Ukrainian people in this difficult time." The White House, November 23, 2004

"Once, happenstance; twice, coincidence; three time, enemy action." Ian Fleming

One, this isn't the election where the Diebolds are going to lie. Everyone's too ready for it. This is the election where everything will go smoothly and we'll be lulled into thinking the machines are really okay, they're our friends to be trusted. Later, when the stakes are higher, that's when the machines will turn on us.

Why aren't the stakes high enough now? Because when you think about it -- do the conservatives really want to win? If rising interest rates lead to home reposessions lead to consumer non-spending lead to more unemployment lead to more home reposessions and the already-tapped-out-by-Bush-policies-and-his-dirty-little-war Federal Gov't can't do anything about it, won't it be kind of handy to have Democrats in the congress to point fingers at? Won't it be handy to say, "See? You couldn't fix Iraq, either!" in a year or so? There are so many unattractive scenarios for the immediate future, one can easily imagine the Republicans wanting to at least share the tar baby.

It never changes. And we're all to believe that the Republicans and Moderates and Independants are on the verge of throwing out Chris Shays and Johnson but want instead Bushs new best friend Joe Lieberman??

As a Democrat I'd take a thousand Chris Shays over Joe in a heartbeat. Chris is more trustworthy.