Kevin Willis on the sudden accuracy
of voting machines
Kevin Willis posted this in blog comments but it was so good I wanted to put it here:
Elections going to the left are seen as evidence that democracy is "working". Elections going to the right are a priori evidence of fraud. I yaked about that before in Democracy Still Works! Thanks, MoveOn.org! One of the significant differences (that has both good and bad parts for both sides) between the left and the right is that the Republicans and conservatives don't have the same feeling of entitlement to power that the left does. We don't immediately assume that losing at the ballot box means that there were voter machine problems and fraud, and that a lawsuit is the answer. We generally take responsibility for our losses and sometimes even go overboard blaming ourselves (or our conservative ideology, which I think is wrong, wrong, wrong). But what were major Republicans and conservative pundits doing after Democrats won big? "We lost our way," they said. "We clearly made mistakes." "It's obviously time to re-think our strategies." "We're too disparate, not speaking with a unified voice." And on and on and on.
What were the big Democrats saying after the last several elections in which Dem's repeatedly lost? "Voters were disenfranchised" "The election was rigged" "Voter machines malfunction" "Voter intimidation blamed" "A victory for the Republican noise machine, or just exploiting America's homophobia?" "Republicans are crooks and criminals" and so on. On the plus side, for Dems, any vandalism of campaign headquarters? Any Republican places getting set on fire or having bullets fired in to it, or tire-slashing the day before the election? If not, maybe there's a New Tone in Washington, after all.
Elections going to the left are seen as evidence that democracy is "working". Elections going to the right are a priori evidence of fraud. I yaked about that before in Democracy Still Works! Thanks, MoveOn.org! One of the significant differences (that has both good and bad parts for both sides) between the left and the right is that the Republicans and conservatives don't have the same feeling of entitlement to power that the left does. We don't immediately assume that losing at the ballot box means that there were voter machine problems and fraud, and that a lawsuit is the answer. We generally take responsibility for our losses and sometimes even go overboard blaming ourselves (or our conservative ideology, which I think is wrong, wrong, wrong). But what were major Republicans and conservative pundits doing after Democrats won big? "We lost our way," they said. "We clearly made mistakes." "It's obviously time to re-think our strategies." "We're too disparate, not speaking with a unified voice." And on and on and on.
What were the big Democrats saying after the last several elections in which Dem's repeatedly lost? "Voters were disenfranchised" "The election was rigged" "Voter machines malfunction" "Voter intimidation blamed" "A victory for the Republican noise machine, or just exploiting America's homophobia?" "Republicans are crooks and criminals" and so on. On the plus side, for Dems, any vandalism of campaign headquarters? Any Republican places getting set on fire or having bullets fired in to it, or tire-slashing the day before the election? If not, maybe there's a New Tone in Washington, after all.
posted by Walker at 12:07 PM
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