Poor Buddy Roemer. The former Lousiana Governor, 4-term U.S. Congressman and now GOP Presidential candidate who, even though he’s out-pacing Texas Governor Rick Perry in the latest NH pre-election polls, was still not allowed to participate in either of last weekend’s GOP Presidential debates, can’t catch a break.
For a while this morning, thanks to what National Journal describes as “a glitch”, Google was displaying “Results for New Hampshire Republican Primary” with “100% of precincts reporting” during some web searches.
The “results” showed Newt Gingrich finishing first, followed by Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, John Huntsman, Michele Bachmann (who has dropped out of the race) and then Mitt Romney (currently leading in the pre-election polls) in 6th place. Thereafter Perry and some eight obscure candidates are listed — but not Buddy Roemer!
Adding insult to injury, the “results” glitch — which, National Journal reports, had been corrected by 7:05am ET — were coming up this morning during searches for “buddy roemer”!…
Clearly, the results displayed by Google this morning do not reflect the actual intent of Granite State voters. On the other hand, they are at least as well-verified as the computer-reported results of 90% of the paper ballots cast will be tonight when the media announces their “winner” of the “First-in-the-Nation” primary — based on wholly unverified Diebold op-scan results — after the close of all polls this evening at 8pm ET (some close at 7pm ET).
Gee, why bother actually holding the election?
Just announce the results at the start of the day, then keep all the polling places locked so nothing happens to contradict those results.