In New Jersey, voters reported seeing their touch-screen votes flip from Obama to Clinton. Obama should demand that New Jersey use hand counted paper ballots in November.
Tuesday's reports of election problems, intimidation, suppression, and possible fraud, for whatever reasons, all seem to have worked against Obama. And, of course, many such problems cannot be repaired. Vote counts on DRE machines can never be verified. But we absolutely must shake free of the idea that we can be sure of election results quickly. The only results we can be sure of are paper ballots counted by hand publicly on location, but even that would take time. With the crazy system we have now, significant time is needed to determine the actual results. The media's rush to decide is irresponsible and destructive.
Of course, in other countries their media and ours use exit polls to check the accuracy of vote counts. In this country, our media outlets use exit polls to predict winners, but when the official results begin to come in straying too far from the exit polls, rather than questioning the results, U.S. media outlets "adjust" the exit polls and publish those adjusted exit polls, hiding the unadjusted numbers from the light of day.
I would like to hereby challenge Limbaugh to publish the unadjusted exit polls on his website and name his source. Many of us will be more than delighted to disabuse him of the notion that we would sacrifice election integrity for Hillary Clinton.
Limbaugh may have been getting his numbers from the Drudge Report website, which did not name its source but posted what appeared to be unadjusted exit poll results for some of Tuesday's races. Here is what appeared on that site:
<blockquote>"WARNING: EXIT NUMBERS EARLY AND DO NOT REPRESENT ACTUAL VOTES:
OBAMA: Alabama: Obama 60, Clinton 37... Arizona: Obama 51, Clinton 45... Connecticut: Obama 53, Clinton 45... Delaware: Obama 56, Clinton 42... Georgia: Obama 75, Clinton 26... Illinois: Obama 70, Clinton 30... Massachusetts: Obama 50, Clinton 48... Missouri: Obama 50, Clinton 46... New Jersey: Obama 53, Clinton 47...
CLINTON: Arkansas: Clinton 72, Obama 26... California: Clinton 50, Obama 47... New York: Clinton 56, Obama 43... Oklahoma: Clinton 61, Obama 31... Tennessee: Clinton 52, Obama 41... "</blockquote>
Now, the results above that showed Clinton winning turned out to be quite in line with the official results reported later that evening, although Obama lost 5 percentage points in California if you believe the official results. Some of Obama's leads and wins, however, oddly disappeared.
In Arizona, an Obama win of 51 to 45 became a Clinton win of 51 to 42. In Georgia Obama's 75 to 26 win became a 67 to 31 win. In Massachusetts, a 50 to 48 Obama win became a 56 to 41 Clinton win. And in New Jersey, where noticeable machine malfunctions were reported, a 53 to 47 Obama win became a 54 to 44 Clinton win.
I don't know whether the official results in all of these states are accurate, and I don't know that the Drudge Report didn't simply make up these exit poll numbers, but I do know that the exit polling is done as well as it can be done and is widely believed by election experts around the world to be an important tool for judging the validity of elections.
Any member of Congress, including the Senator from Illinois or any of his colleagues serving on his campaign, or any committee chair, could request or subpoena the unadjusted exit poll numbers if they chose to do so. This would be a non-partisan step toward election integrity, a move by the Democrats to verify their own internal affairs. Or a Republican member of Congress, perhaps one who listens to and agrees with Rush Limbaugh, could take this step on behalf of all of us.
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