Why was Ohio much closer than expected? I think there was some funny business going on..
First off I can't say how happy I am that Obama won re-election, I knew he would win all along, but I always thought it would be Ohio which brought him over the top and not Colorado+Iowa+ and even Virginia
One thing that perplexed me about election day results was that Obama only won Ohio by only 1.9% points, in contrast to his 3% election day popular vote victory. In the states mentioned above Obama won by more than his popular vote margin (which was unexpected).. but in Ohio Obama underperformed his PV margin which was even more unexpected. Throughout the campaign everyone was saying Obama had an enormous Ohio structural advantage in ground game, voting operation, huge advantage in early votes and so forth in Ohio-- every single poll had him ahead by a decent margin, even Obama internals had him up a significant amount and Nate who understated Obama's margins in every swing state seemed to overstate Obama's lead in one state-- he had Obama UP 4 in Ohio.
Going into the election almost every pundit and analyst thought the election was essentially tied in the popular vote with an Obama EV advantage because of his strength in Ohio. We find out right before election day that an "experimental" patch will be applied to the Evoting machines to help "tally" the results... anyway election day comes and we find out it wasn't really a tie in the popular vote, but Obama was winning by about 2-3.. Ohio was called for Obama... and then we have Karl Rove on TV refusing to accept that Obama could've possibly won Ohio, that it had to be wrong, that it was impossible. I'm starting to think that there was some funny business between Karl and Crew and the voting machines, such that they thought they could flip the election in the event of a popular vote tie.
Statistically speaking in the event of a popular vote tie all the polls said Obama would win because of Ohio, while the others were a coin flip. If election day ended up being a PV tie as everyone expected and the trend we saw in Ohio on election day held... then Obama would've lost Ohio and the election... like John Kerry in 04... very interesting. Thank God for Obama's surprise strength in the other states like Colorado and Virginia, and the 50 state strategy.. otherwise I think this could've been stolen.
Anyone else think there was some funny business going on in Ohio, or was it just the result of statistical noise?
= new reply since forum marked as read
We defeated them with turnout in '06 and '08, we were defeated by lack of turnout in '10. Cheating only works if there's no reason to believe it's anything other than a dead heat.
rocktivity
Here's my summary of Ohio 2004, from a post about election fraud in the US:
THE DEATH OF MICHAEL CONNELL
“(Republican Dirty Tricks-boss) Karl Rove’s chief IT consultant, (the "Web wizard"
Mike Connell (..) mysteriously died in a private plane crash in (December) 2008.” The day after Connell was killed, the election protection organization VR wrote:
"
A) person close to Mr. Connell has recently been discussing with a VR investigator how Mr. Connell can tell all about his work for George (W.) Bush. Mr. Connell told a close associate that he was afraid that (..) George (W.) Bush and (then Vice-President) Dick Cheney would 'throw ((him) under the bus (i.e. sacrifice him, probably because of his role in a case about election irregularities in the swing-state Ohio in 2004).' A tipster close to the McCain (2008) campaign disclosed to VR in July (2008) that Mr. Connell’s life was in jeopardy (..). VR’s attorney (in the case about Ohio 2004), Cliff Arnebeck, notified (among others) the United States Attorney General (..) about these threats and insisted that Mr. Connell be placed in protective custody (as a witness)."
ELECTION FRAUD IN OHIO IN 2004?
"A lifelong Republican, (Stephen Spoonamore) is (..) one of the world's acknowledged experts on cybersecurity, with a resume that includes work for the U.S. armed forces and the FBI."
"
I)n Ohio's 2004 presidential election (..) there was a sudden and unexpected shift in votes for George W. Bush. (..) Spoonamore concluded from the architectural maps of the Ohio 2004 election reporting system that, 'SmarTech (a firm controlled by Republicans) was a man in the middle'" "Spoonamore further testified that the only purpose for such man in the middle architecture is to commit crime." "A 'man in the middle' is a deliberate computer hacking setup, which allows a third party to sit in between computer transmissions and illegally alter the data." "'(T)here were three points on election night when SMARTech's computers took over from the secretary of state' says (the abovementioned VR’s attorney) Arnebeck. 'It is during that period that we believe votes were manipulated.'"
"
A)t an IT conference in London (approximately in late 2006), Spoonamore confronted the pro-life Connell about the Ohio election (in 2004): '(Connell) said, 'I'm afraid that in my zeal to save the babies (from abortion by getting Bush re-elected in 2004), the system I built may have been abused.'
Three days later, in the back of a cab (..), Spoonamore asked Connell if he would be willing to talk to a Congressional judiciary committee about what he knew. 'I actually took Mike's hand and said, 'If I can arrange for a private meeting for you to sit down with the committee and explain what you think may have happened in 2004 and how your systems may have been abused, will you do it?' And he said, 'Yes.'' Connell never did talk to the judiciary committee."
MORE ABOUT CONNELL'S DEATH
"In September 2009, an anonymous letter was sent to (among others) the FBI (..). 'Enclosed is a document that is not meant to exist,' begins the anonymous writer. Included is what purports to be an 'afteraction report' by a black ops agent. ('A black operation or black op is a covert operation by a government, a government agency, or a military organization.') All names have been redacted, but the report provides a detailed time log of actions taken to install an AMD (microprocessor) in (..) Connell's plane (..) the night before he made his fatal last flight. (..) (A) number of experts from the intelligence community who have seen the document believe it to be genuine."
"Former CIA operative John Perkins wrote about such (assassins) in his book, 'Confessions of an Economic HitMan', and says: ‘It wouldn't surprise me a bit (if Connell was murdered). They've certainly assassinated a lot of people in this country. The Kennedys were assassinated. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. It's entirely possible that (liberal Senator) Paul Wellstone was assassinated. We've had a long, long history of assassinations.’”
