Exit polls

No, I don’t mean polls of US liberals fleeing the country. But here’s a puzzling thought. There’s much discussion in the US media about the fact that that exit polls (which indicated Kerry was winning) turned out to be wrong. How to explain the discrepancy. Did people leaving polling stations lie to pollsters about how they had voted? Was there something wrong with the sampling methodology of those conducting exit polls? Or was there something, er, wrong with all those polling machines? After all, we knew in advance how flaky they were — and how vulnerable to tampering. I only ask.

Election response #4

From Andrew Sullivan:

“What we’re seeing, I think, is a huge fundamentalist Christian revival in this country, a religious movement that is now explicitly political as well. It is unsurprising, of course, given the uncertainty of today’s world, the devastating attacks on our country, and the emergence of so many more liberal cultures in urban America. And it is completely legitimate in this country for such views to be represented in public policy, however much I disagree with them. But the intensity of the passion, and the inherently totalist nature of religiously motivated politics means deep social conflict if we are not careful. Our safety valve must be federalism. We have to live and let live. As blue states become more secular, and red states become less so, the only alternative to a national religious war is to allow different states to pursue different options. That goes for things like decriminalization of marijuana, abortion rights, stem cell research and marriage rights. Forcing California and Mississippi into one model is a recipe for disaster. Federalism is now more important than ever. I just hope that Republican federalists understand this. I fear they don’t.”

Election response #4

From Scott Rosenberg:

“What’s disturbing is how clearly split the country is geographically. The red/blue split first noticed in 2000 looks less like an anomaly of a tight election and more like a long-term alignment of the American people: The coasts, the Northeast, the Midwest — almost anywhere that people are gathered in big cities — for the Democrats; the West and the South for the Republicans. The last time the nation faced this kind of split, in the mid-19th century, we ended up shooting one another. I don’t think we face an actual civil war this time around, thankfully, but we do face something like its cultural and political equivalent.

So let’s remember that we’ve just lost a big battle, and that hurts, but it’s not the end. Richard Nixon won a gigantic landslide in 1972 and was out of office two years later. Ronald Reagan swept the board in 1984 but we survived and regrouped and recaptured the White House in the 90s.

The good news is that the country’s split still leaves the Democrats within a stone’s throw of winning an election. The bad news is, we couldn’t win it — even with a stagnant economy and Americans dying abroad in an ill-conceived war. Now the important thing to do is figure out why, and learn from our mistakes.”

Election response #3

From Dave Winer:

“Arrived in Palo Alto. Listened to Kerry’s concession speech about a dozen times on the radio. It was great. Next time, be careful about nominating a guy who gives a great concession speech. The best concession speech is an overdose of sleeping pills, or a self-inflicted bullet wound in the head. You want a guy who can’t conceive of losing. The Democrats have had too many great losers. I want a great winner in 2008.”

Election response #2

Pete pointed me at a moody, guitar-backed song, “Look at Miss Ohio” by Gillian Welch. Opening lyrics read:

Oh me oh my oh, look at Miss Ohio
She’s a-running around with her rag-top down
She says I wanna do right but not right now

Gonna drive to Atlanta and live out this fantasy
Running around with the rag-top down
Yeah I wanna do right but not right now

It’s over, let it go

This is the headling on the best comment on the election result, so far — from Larry Lessig’s Blog:

“Wrong, wrong, yet again, I was, we are, wrong. I was on an airplane last night, from SFO to London, so at least I didn’t suffer the minute by minute awfulness of this result. But it’s 5am PST, and we should remember some principles: When Bush ‘lost’ in 2000, we said it was because (1) he had lost the popular vote, and (2) he had short circuited the count in one state to win in the College.

Bush has won the popular vote. And it would take a freak of nature to imagine the 220,000 provisional ballots would fall strongly enough to shift Ohio. He will win the College. He is our President — legitimately, and credibly.

Our criticism of this administration must now focus narrowly and sharply: on the policies, not on the credibility of the man.”

The best US election site…

… is Electoral-Vote.com. The big surprise is that it is the creation of one man — Andrew Tanenbaum. Who he? Well, in geekdom, he’s a real celeb — an expert on operating systems who created Minix, a miniature Unix-like OS developed for teaching purposes. Why is that interesting? Well, Minix was the catalyst which stimulated Linus Torvalds to embark on the creation of Linux. The story has often been told — e.g. here. I had no idea Andrew was interested in politics. His site is terrific. Wish I’d known about it earlier.

Bush photoshopped

This from Salon. Photoshop is usually used to conceal things (like wrinkles). But it can also be revealing.

Bin Laden losing his marbles?

According to the Washington Times, “the complete transcript of Osama bin Laden’s most recent videotape reveals his intention to attempt to bankrupt the United States”. Hmmm… he’ll have to hurry if he’s going to beat Bill Gates to it.

Forebodings…

If the US election turns out to be as close as the polls predict, then there’s really serious trouble ahead because the e-voting technology used in many states is riddled with flaws and security vulnerabilities. See this Blog by e-voting specialists if you’d like chapter and verse. And of course in many cases, the technology makes it impossible to have a recount or even an independent audit because the machines don’t provide a paper trail.