Before going any further, review the Zogby exit polls, which gave Kerry a win, with at least 311 electoral votes.

And yet in state after state, the early numbers are coming in much more Republican.  Much more.  Despite record new voter registrations, young voters, and overall turnout, all of which favor Democrats.

In my limited understanding, it’s not that unusual for early returns to lean to the right, since small, rural precincts are much easier to tabulate than large urban ones.  And absentee votes, which were unusually large and likely left-leaning, have yet to be added.  Still.  Something doesn’t add up.

Given how well the GOP has learned to spin the media, and given how many states have mostly GOP state officials… is it possible that some officials are slowing the release of data from Democratic precincts, which would create a false impression of a sweeping GOP victory for the media, thus enabling later shouts of "fraud" from the right when the votes are all finally tallied?

Just asking.  There must be something I’m missing.  I don’t know how else to explain this.

The urge to vote must be running pretty strong out there.  The poll at left, which, notice, is not even a poll, has already received over 450 votes.  So far, screaming about wrongdoing is winning by a comfortable margin.

Gotta admire the enthusiasm.  I hereby spin this as good for Kerry, on no basis whatsoever.

The urge to vote must be running pretty strong out there.  The poll at left, which, notice, is not even a poll, has already received over 450 votes.  So far, screaming about wrongdoing is winning by a comfortable margin.

Gotta admire the enthusiasm.  I hereby spin this as good for Kerry, on no basis whatsoever.

Watching the returns from Europe turns out to be a lot like watching from home: a fairly agonizing process, made all the more surreal by the late hour (it’s 2:30 am here as I write this).  All the swirls of blue and red and Wolf Blitzer carnival-barking look even more garish and insane than usual.

Florida is worrying.  An early CNN map showed the number of counties in which Bush or Kerry have won an increased percentage of the vote over 2000, and almost all were more pro-Bush.  That seems funky on its face, given the polling consensus of a narrow Kerry lead.  It’s entirely possible that Florida is simply more polarized than four years ago, and when Dade and Broward come in they’ll be more strongly pro-Kerry, but the touch-screen nightmares are disconcerting.

One big-picture note of some hope: a couple of months ago, the thought of election-day violence, either terrorism or poll-station thuggery, didn’t seem all that unreasonable.  Now it does.  That’s a good thing.

I’m finding C-SPAN’s map and the Kos diaries useful if you’re looking to busy yourself online.  For me, more caffeine… it’s gonna be a long, long night.

Watching the returns from Europe turns out to be a lot like watching from home: a fairly agonizing process, made all the more surreal by the late hour (it’s 2:30 am here as I write this).  All the swirls of blue and red and Wolf Blitzer carnival-barking look even more garish and insane than usual.

Florida is worrying.  An early CNN map showed the number of counties in which Bush or Kerry have won an increased percentage of the vote over 2000, and almost all were more pro-Bush.  That seems funky on its face, given the polling consensus of a narrow Kerry lead.  It’s entirely possible that Florida is simply more polarized than four years ago, and when Dade and Broward come in they’ll be more strongly pro-Kerry, but the touch-screen nightmares are disconcerting.

One big-picture note of some hope: a couple of months ago, the thought of election-day violence, either terrorism or poll-station thuggery, didn’t seem all that unreasonable.  Now it does.  That’s a good thing.

I’m finding C-SPAN’s map and the Kos diaries useful if you’re looking to busy yourself online.  For me, more caffeine… it’s gonna be a long, long night.