According to the BBC web site, the news organization has obtained evidence that Florida Republicans have compiled a list of voters in a majority black district to challenge on election day. It’s a bit unclear to me from reading the article on what basis those voters would be challenged– it appears to have something to do with returned campaign mailings. Is there a claim that these voters are registered using false addresses? No such specific claims are made.
The article also reports that private detectives are watching those in Florida who are voting early.
Really this is a very scary situation. In an election where the margin of victory is projected to be so very thin in key states like Florida, Ohio and elsewhere and there are so many questions about voting procedures that the legitimacy of the entire system is open to being challenged. Very scary for the worlds sole hyper-power to be teetering on the edge of chaos like this. The real deal killer is that whoever wins on Tuesday, unless they win by an unexpectedly high and wide margin in the states they need to win to get to 270 electoral votes, the other side is not going to accept the legitimacy of the election. Republicans are claiming voter registration fraud on the part of the Democrats (think old school Chicago politics), and the Democrats are claiming voter intimidation on the part of Republicans (think old school politics in the deep south).
Along these lines, I actually had a dream last night that John Kerry actually ended up with a significant margin in all of these key states. In my dream all of the news reports were focusing on how all of the polls could have been so wrong to show a close race. Wishful thinking on my part, perhaps.
August, I agree with you – I think Kerry will win by a HUGE margin – I sure hope so for our country.
My brother actually had an interesting comment on this when I told him about this dream. He was wondering what impact the fact that a growing number of people (especially young people) rely on communications media that pollsters cannot address. His example was the growing percentage of young people who have no land lines but use only their mobiles, which tend to not be included in phone directories, etc. I’m not sure if a mobile used on a voter registration document would make it into the official roles, since I can’t even recall if I had to provide a phone number when I registered to vote (i.e. when I renewed my dirvers’ license). But this is a good Dewey-beats-Truman point: has technology impacted the ability to conduct accurate polling?