Day of Rage

I've been reading articles, mostly tongue in cheek, about the stages of grief some of us need to pass through post election. It seems I rushed too quickly to acceptance and have been rollercoastering through the various stages in random order over the last week. My day of rage actually lasted the better part of two days, beginning on Sunday evening and lasting until mid-morning on Tuesday. . . . I was pretty useless for getting anything productive done other than searching the internet for evidence of vote fraud. I'm visualizing the steam that must have been coming out of my ears. It felt particularly galling to find all of the evidence for fraud, and nary a mention of it in the mainstream media. It was clear to me from the start that when pundits were trying to rationalize why the exit polls were so wrong, there was always a different explanation that was at least worth investigation. Indeed prior to the election, I posted about the importance of the audit function of exit polls.

There is a case that inflammatory reporting is imprudent until there is more than speculation to back it up, but still to not acknowledge even the possibility of it seemed like a cover-up or a coordinated taboo. Tuesday morning, I finally found an article in Slate which did acknowledge the speculation, while countering with numbers suggesting it wasn't so. While not convinced, this did calm me down, and I was able to pull out of my altered state. As I told my relative who pointed out more plausible explanations for the mismatch between exit polls and actual returns, "your explanation is plausible, but Karl Rove has demonstrated no scruples, so I'll assume none." Indeed I'm convinced that there is analysis which can and should be done which should show pretty conclusively whether massive fraud was perpetrated or not. Given the number of systems used with no paper trail, and the number of mismatches reported so far, the analysis certainly should be done.

A few links I found Monday:
Counterbias: The Case for Fraud
Joseph Cannon


www.blackboxvoting.org


Dissident Voice
None Dare Call it Voter Suppression and Fraud


Taipei Times
'Blog' blunder sparks debate on US exit polls

Pravda
Did Bush fix the elections?


Common Dreams
Bill C. Davis:

The ostensible narrative this week is that gay marriage ruined the Democrat's chance to defeat Bush. Statistics and polls are being fired at us like buckshot on a goose hunt. But beneath it all is the steady rumbling that the exit polls, as in Florida 2000, were right and that the machines and the vote count were rigged. This would replace the ostensible narrative with a more troubling story. That story would be that they – the occupants; the current force majeur – refuse to lose and they orchestrate their wins on a mechanical, technical level to secure the presidency of an essentially amoral man and then say he was elected because of moral values.

There are, of course, a lot more. And a recent email I received suggests Kerry has hinted that he might consider "unconceding". The ultimate Flip-Flop - what fun!


[UPDATE: As I continue to receive missives from various sources about fraud, from the credible to the ridiculous, it seems the most likely case for fraud that could have made a difference is from none other than South Florida. Slate reports. I have come to the conclusion that the media is wise to go slow on this and not fan flames prematurely.]