MyDD has a telling analysis of the situation in North Carolina where problems with vote counting (some votes apparently counted twice in some places, 4,500 votes completely lost elsewhere, etc.) may require a re-vote in all, or part, of North Carolina.
Nonetheless, it’s telling that, though the Republican candidates for President and U.S. Senate were able to claim victories down there, Democrats somehow had virtually all the rest of the success in NC.
The NC Democratic candidate for Governor won in a landslide (55%-44%), Dems won control of the NC House by at least 3 seats, and in the NC Senate the Dems added to their “already healthy” margin. Additionally, the first openly gay lesbian to be elected to the NC statehouse was also victorious in her Senate race!
That victory on the state level mirrors other results around the country, where Dems solidly increased their foothold, or took control of many State Legislatures and Governships.
Even Dallas, TX(!!!) elected a lesbian/hispanic Sheriff!
All of which just serves to make me even more suspicious of the election results.
Republicans control the “Solid South” says conventional wisdom — but then how does one account for North Carolina? “Value voters” showed up and gave Bush his victory, says CV, and yet gay and lesbian candidates had unprecedented victories in “solid” GOP strongholds.
It’s certainly reasonable to assume that voters preferred the GOP at the national level while opting for Dems back at home…for whatever reason. Had there not be so many other oddities in the days following this election, I’d likely not have given it all too much thought. But taking everything we now know about highly improbable disparities in the Exit Polling — where alleged “inaccuracies” just happened to only benefit Bush and never Kerry in the final results — along with everything else we now know about the manufacturers of the E-Voting and Counting machines, their secrecy and their exceedingly close ties to the Republican party, it all just adds to my existing suspicions here that something stinks. Bad.
Please keep following the story in North Carolina.
The State of NC should call for a re-vote because of the widespread e-voting failures. The state should also launch an investigation into the large discrepancy between the early voting ("absentee") counts (30% of total) and the Nov 2 counts. As I understand it –these counts differ widely ONLY in the results for Democratic Senate candidate Erskine Bowles and John Kerry. In other NC races the two counts line up similarly, showing no discrepancy. You are doing a great job.