We've got new voting machines to contend with this time. We used to have hybrid systems that had a printed roll inside them that scrolled, now we have LCD screens that aren't as easy to read, with different technology behind them, so that's not helping the speed of things either.

Everything changed, so we've got to be careful and get it all done correctly.

Thanks for your patience.

A comment by Skibum49 on Bob Cesca's live blog said he was watching Fox and they have a reporter in Lake County who said they have "a bunch of older people" counting the absentee ballots and "its just a slow count".

Apparently "she who lies well" has canceled all her appearance's on the morning shows.

:-) restraining my smiles for now.

Sorry forgot the
link

and repairing my other smiley

a disgrace, dems.

Northwest Indiana Times: Blogs: Indiana Primary Elections
Could Gary flip it?
It’s very lopsided,” Clay said, pointing to a hand-written list of precinct results...
Clay said the election is seeing a record turnout in the city.
“We’re used to having maybe a 22, 23 percent turnout for a primary. We’re seeing numbers as high as 85 to 95 percent,” Clay said. “The Gary people took care of business.”..
COMMENT: LOL - 85-95 percent turnout? Saddam would be proud. A little stuffing of the ballot boxes going on there, perhaps? *wink wink, nudge nudge*
http://nwitimes.com/blogs/election/?p=47

Hey Mike - Don't rush on my account! Would rather have ya'll get it right, than get it quickly. On the other hand, I'd also prefer it be verifiable, but I fear with some of the machines you guys use up there, that may be technologically impossible.

That said, kudos to our friend skippy for, hands down, the best disenfranchised Indiana nuns headline of the day...

Pat - Got any evidence? Or just out and out smears with nothing to back them up? If the latter, color me unimpressed, and please help yourself to taking it elsewhere...

And to Wolf Blitzer who, after CNN just called Indiana for Clinton just reported that tonight was a "split decision"...

Hmmm...Obama reportedly won the night by more than 200k votes between NC and IN and it's a "split decision" to Wolf.

And yet, in 2004 in OH, when Bush was said to have "won" the state by just 118k (6 votes counted in each OH precinct for Kerry instead of Bush would have meant we'd have a different guy in the WH now), that was considered a "decisive" "mandate".

Darn that liberal media!

Here's some background.

Yeah, I've been watching the numbers on that county too. It had voted 65% for Obama, till close to the end. Projecting that when 95% of all votes in Indiana were counted, it seemed that Obama would win by 2000+ votes in Indiana. Suddenly, the 65% in Lake County changed to 55% and Clinton picks up 20,000 or so votes against the trend. Weird, eh? Deja vu Ohio . Amazing machines, those, wish the ATM's were as useful to me as those are to the party hacks.

Something smells fishy in Lake County.
Or was it magic?

Wolf Blitzer (CNN) and 2 other people were talking to the guy in charge of counting the votes in Lake county. For about 20 minutes they kept pressing him about why all the other counties had 90+ pct votes in and Lake didn't. The guy kept saying they were hand counting the 10,000+ early ballots and would have the whole count soon. They kept asking why the rest of the count had not been reported. He kept saying they were waiting on the hand count of early ballots. All od a sudden CNN reports 98% of ballots counted in Lake - at the same time the guy in charge of counting the votes said they would have a count soon. Too bad Wolf didn't keep talking to the guy counting and waiting for confirmation that count had been sent, and then Wolf could tell him that the count was already 98% and probably considered 'near complete'. Hope someone recorded CNN for posterity.

River-

My comment at 10:30 PM this eve on the "Students, Nuns, Denied RIGHT to Vote in Indiana Today..." thread:

"Obama had over 60% of the Lake County vote and 49.4% of the total vote with 95% of the total Indiana (and Lake County) precincts reporting. I refreshed the browser (a couple minutes later) and everything had changed, especially in Lake County which was supposed to go heavily for Obama. It showed Obama now down to 55% of the Lake County vote, and down to 49.1% of the total vote with 99% of Indiana (and Lake County) precincts reporting. I wish I'd got a screen shot of the total votes because Hillary must have won about 90% of the votes from the 4% that came in when I refreshed my browser!"

Very strange!

The 10:30 PM time noted in my previous comment was Pacific Daylight Time.

You can't buy a beer or cigarettes or fly on a plane without a photo ID. Stop the lies this is all about illegial aliens and dead people who vote for democrats. Making sure only legal and registered voters will stop the liberals from crying voter fraud at every election.

Alan S-

You're about as ignorant as they come. What right wing site did you troll in here from? Please site one example of voter fraud in the history of Indiana that could have been avoided by photo ID. Also, it the Republicans, not "liberals", that have been "crying voter fraud at every election." Perhaps someone needs to explain the difference between election fraud and voter fraud to you.

Steve #12, That looks like "The Bush Bounce" doesn't it? (practice for November).

Alan S, did you copy and paste that from a previous post?. Either that or it's a nice robotic talking point.

What's interesting to me, besides many of the thoughtful posts here, is that it is now mainstream to question what's going behind closed doors. The Washington Post Blog approaches it cautiously, as does UPI. And at least one story out there tonight mentions electronic voting machines - errr not that they're unverifiable. Post-Trib.com quotes the Lake County Elections Director Sally LaSota as saying that the county is now using

"a single type of voting machine, which she said would likely eliminate computer crashes resulting from trying to consolidate data from different machines."

Has that been the problem in the past? So they've experienced this kind of thing repeatedly in recent years and this time was supposed to be different? And the eventual circumstance "forced local law enforcement figures to defend the protracted vote-counting process" according to the Post blog?

Some astute person out there must've grabbed some screen shots of posted results at that time. Hope so.

I'd also like to be respectful of officials wanting to get things right rather than rushing. Instant gratification should never trump integrity. But I do hope that a resurgence of critical thinking into the mainstream coverage of election results could inspire more than a few local officials to really take the time to get it right in November. Starting now.

Steve,
You described the weird clinton 'surge' better than I did. I checked CNN website when 95% of Indiana was counted, and used their numbers to calculate the probable result. I assumed Obama would get 60% of the as yet unreported votes. That calculation actually favored Hillary, since he was getting around 65% in the three counties that were not yet 100% reported (except Union County which was still at 0% but had too few voters to make much difference). My result showed Obama should win by 2200+ votes. I showed my calculations to a colleague, and said to him, "I bet the delay in Lake County means that is the place where the 'fix' will be applied, where a machine hack will be used to change this outcome." He smiled at my conspiracy theorist comment. A few moments later, I refreshed CNN, and the 65% in Lake County had changed to 55%. Somehow 20,000 or so *extra* votes for Clinton came in at the last count update!? My colleague was very astounded, and was convinced he had witnessed a nearly impossible deviation from my calculated prediction. I would have been astounded, but after 2000 and 2004, it's all just deja vu!

The "code" is racism..The worst offenders are chosen ...... where the worst election fraud is going on. Ohio is very racist.Granville Co., NC is so racist a book was written about it. Blood Done Sign My Name by Tyson.True story of race riots in the 70's that erupted when a Klanner killed a black man in town and was tried by jury...verdict innocent. This out right fraud can't take place without local govts. being complicit. One relatively small Baptist church in Granville country has cars parked up and down the road now that the preacher preaches Bush.Used to just have cars in the parking lot. Johnston County NC used to have a huge billboard at the county line. Welcome to Klan country.Those with the most money are often leaders in the church and community , office holders , and racist.Jesse Helms made the statement many years ago(private converstion) not to worry about money They could get all they needed from the PTL club...out of Charlotte. ...from the widows and orphans. After it was found out Jim Baker had an affair...the US district attorney investigating tax fraud was fired.Jerry Falwell stepped in to save the huge money making machine before the fall. He was independent Baptist...Jim Baker was Pentecostal. anybody familiar with the inner workings of fundamental churches will tell you ...these 2 groups do not mix.The tongues aspect of PTL would be considered "the devil" by independent baptists..Falwell.They all make money while pushing racism not christianity.As an example. Rev. Moon donated over a million to Falwell.Moon believes he is the messiah...and treats women like the cult out of Texas. The connection to election fraud is very tied to churches and racism.

If churches were truly investigated for tax fraud...a lot of election fraud would stop. Money has to change hands.Is it just a coincidence that NYPD started carrying sub machine guns in the subways,Sean Bell's murderers were declared innocent and the dem. primaries (guarded by NYPD)had )declared 0 votes for Obama in Harlem and brooklyn?

Next fall the Bush Bounce will have to be changed to the McCain Miracle.

Re: Lake County:

How about this: Figure out the time that 90% of precincts, state-wide, needed to count 90% of the vote in the last general election. Add a 50% fudge factor. Result: New law: For precincts that haven't reported at least half the vote in that time period, send in the marshals, seize the works, take it to a neutral place & have independent auditors count it.

Hillary's win is total crap.

With the massive crossover vote in Indiana it's the republicans that gave her the win. This proves that she is viewed as the least electable of the two. That's why they want her to be the nominee. Other democrats should realize why repubs are crossing over for her. They see her as the loser she is.

I'm writing from Cha Am, Thailand where we retired two years ago.

At either 11:47 or 11:27 p.m. Indiana time my screen had Obama at less than twenty thousand votes behind with only 28% of Lake County reported....I was looking at the county map provided by the newspaper that I've been unable to bring up since is mysteriously dissappeared a few minutes later. I spent a couple of hours trying to bring it back up to now avail, and then saw the Clinton had been declared the winner by over 20K votes.....I had just looked at Monroe county showing a 54% reporting before the website went down....according to some very rudimentary math it would have been impossible for this to happen as both counties showed Obama with about a 60% vote count......I've been wondering if anyone would blog this all night.....I can't do much from here obviously and no, I don't have any screen shots...but there is definitely something very fishy here and I hope you guys closer to the action can keep the pressure on until this is made right.....it CANNOT be correct unless there was some major malfunction on the earlier counts. Please keep up the pressure for an accurate evaluation of what happened.

I'm getting tired of the concept that Hillary is least likely to win against McCain and thus Repubs are voting in Democrat primaries to make sure she gets the nod.
The problem is that Hillary is VERY electable against McCain, just as Obama is VERY electable against McCain.
In fact, nearly every poll shows that either Democrat would easily win against McCain, especially once the party unifies after the primary.

To me, the real issue with why Repubs are voting for Hillary is because conservative, right wing, stay the course, voters do NOT want to see even a chance that a half black/half white man get into the presidency.
The rest of all the pundit commentary on all the political shows keep skirting around the MAIN reason why Repubs are voting for Hillary in the Democrat primary.
The reason should be clear; Repubs KNOW that either of the 2 Democrat candidates WILL win against McCain, and it scares the conservatives that a black man could be the president of the United States. That's why Repubs are being liars and voting in a primary they have no business voting in.

BTW, it doesn't matter that Hillary won Indiana. If you know the WHOLE of Indiana, then you should know how conservative the Democrats are in this state. Obama didn't lose because his supporters didn't come out. He lost because there are a LOT of closed minded conservative Democrats in Indiana, along with plenty of Repubs who are simply messing around where they shouldn't be, and it's basically wrong to do. But, the Repubs have never cared about impropriety against Democrats. They'll try anything to win...a lot like what Hillary does.

BTW, Maye\or McDermott, your appearance on CNN last night was appalling and disgraceful. You showed why Lake County politics will remain divisive, angry, and segregated. Your inflammatory comments were pathetic as you have NO evidence for what your were stating.
Now, since Hillary got a BIG jump in numbers, do you still old that there may be something wrong going on in last nights count? You made that accusation when you thought Obama might win, but once the count came in and Hillary retained her slim advantage, I don't see you still accusing the counters and asking for a recount.
Hmmm...politics and accusations change when you're winning, huh Mayor?

Alan S foolishly parroted:

You can't buy a beer or cigarettes or fly on a plane without a photo ID.

That's odd, I buy beer and cigarettes all the time and am never asked for a Photo ID. Go figure. And while I don't fly very much these days, a Photo ID is not needed for that either, though it's more convenient for you if you happen to have one. Corporations (unlike Indiana) realize that not everyone has such an ID, so they have accommodations for those who don't.

Other than that, you may not have heard, but buying cigs, beer and flying on planes are not Constitutional rights, but voting like everyone else is. So why do you hate the Constitution dear, misinformed, Alan S?

Stop the lies this is all about illegial aliens and dead people who vote for democrats.

Lemme know when you find 'em, chief, and we'll toss 'em in jail. Until then, even the Bush DOJ hasn't even been able to find 'em (and believe me, they've tried!), so gosh, it's almost as if you're just making the above up out of whole cloth. I'm shocked.

Ask not what your blog can do for you . . . . . ask what you can do for your blog . . .

The story is is... Chris Matthews using an "Ubermann special comment" to condemn/blast limbaugh for thwarting democracy with his "operation Kaos"

Good on ya Chris !

How many minorites in Florida and Michighan had their votes taken from them? Anyone know that number?

You do need cash to buy beer and cigs though. And it costs even more to purchase an ID.

Reply to Brad, #27

Sims v. Reynolds, USSC, 1964

"The right of suffrage is denied by debasement or dilution of a citizen's vote in a state or federal election."

Brad, why do you believe that the citizens of Indiana are no longer entitled to their 14th Amendment protections?

Anyone know what the hell happened in UNION CO.?...
Baffled as to why we still only have 99% of INDIANA PRECINCTS REPORTING as of noon today EST. Is UNION CO. still out? Isn't it only about 7,000 voters?...

Mark Cook#31

Whose vote is being diluted or debased by the nonexistence of a Photo ID law?

Remember, please, that no instance of anyone falsely voting (claiming to be another person) has been either charged or proven.

Union County, Indiana has a population of just over 7200. I am not sure how many registered voters are in the county, but using 2006 census numbers and 2004 election averages, I would think that there may be approx. 3900 potential voters.

They have reported that Hillary won the county 803 votes to Obama's 387.

Reply, Soul Rebel #33

"Remember, please, that no instance of anyone falsely voting (claiming to be another person) has been either charged or proven."

I would agree only to the point that we are discussing "in-person" voter fraud in Indiana. If we include other states, and absentee voter fraud, then I would not agree with your statement.

The Indiana lawsuit, the court found several examples of such fraud across the county. The 2004 Washington State Election had more than 100 case of "in-person" voter fraud. This was a race that was decided by 133 votes.

When should Indiana act? After an election is stolen? Why shouldn't Indiana take a pro-active stance to protect the Constitutional rights of it's citizen?

i have been reading and disseminating bradblog articles to hundreds of people since the website first went up. i have even begged some "progressive" websites to put a link to bradblog on their sites, with no success.
last nite, brad said the late release of lake county results "beats me". thinking the "handwritten" bit on an indianan newspaper blog might be important,i posted a link from talkingpointsmemo, plus a comment from that newspaper blog, with my own input being a mere 3 words "a disgrace, dems", referring to the way the results were being held up.
today i returned and found this response to my link: "Pat - Got any evidence? Or just out and out smears with nothing to back them up? If the latter, color me unimpressed, and please help yourself to taking it elsewhere...".
oh well i thought, some poster has failed to see i was not the one making any allegations but, when i looked, it was actually brad insulting me and telling me to go elsewhere.
as someone who has believed from the start that the two 'minority' candidates were 'chosen' by the corpmedia in the first place, in order to divide dems and usher in another four years of republican rule and, having been concerned that dems showed time and time again that they are uninterested in electoral reform, i now realise my input is not wanted on bradblog either.
farewell bradblog. i shall be posting here no longer.

Gary by Josh Marshall
A hand-written list of precinct results?
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/193588.php

Lake County's vote-handling comes under fire
http://www.post-trib.com...935926,electmess.article

Lake County's corrupt image attracts latenight national spotlight
http://blogs.post-trib.c...ys-corruption-image.html

The Region Strikes Again
http://www.washingtoncit...he-region-strikes-again/

Slow Vote Count Plagues Northwest Indiana
http://cbs2chicago.com/c...diana.vote.2.718034.html

On Cnn they said that the northern (more urban) areas of Lake County were counted first, and then the more rural areas of south Lake County came in at the end. This could explain the discrepancy between the early numbers for Obama being so high, and the later votes for Obama being much lower because Clinton did much better in the rural areas.

(insert insulting joke about the intelligence of the rural areas here)

Hey wait! My mom is from the rural areas of Indiana!

I thought of that, too. But isn't it strange that overall in Indiana, the rural counties hit 100% counted early on, while it was the urban counties that were not done until late? So, why were rural counties in Lake County so slow, compared to all the rest of Indiana? Smells fishy.

Looks like that same ole cheatin split to me!

Hey girls, these are our children.

Its not strictly the economy....its the Constitution...dummy. Health care works, but the WAR is worse.

Pat #36, this seems to have been a misunderstanding. If so, there's no need to give up on participating in the dialogue.

I also think Obama and Hillary were pre-selected. It's tough to prove, but it reminds me of how McCain and Bradley got snuffed out of the equation those years back. This year, I found it curious how John Edwards got pushed out so quick. With Operation Chaos, a media asleep at the wheel, and apparent election fraud, imho, this idea of yours is more likely than not.

That Hillary/Obama fighting just doesn't add up. Hearing so much about Obama's pastor and not McCain's just hasn't added up.

I'd cut Brad some slack. I too read your original post as a "ballot box stuffing" meme. Peace.

If you don't know what's going on in Lake County, you don't know what's going on in Amurka ... rejoice in being in what the MSM calls the "MA jor ity" (the mother of all stories) ...

A comment from the Chair of the Union County, Indiana Election Board:

While we use equipment manufactured by Diebold, it is certainly not true that Diebold "runs the place". In fact, our election board chooses to encourage voters to use the paper-based optical scan system instead of the DREs unless a physical disability makes the DRE the only viable option. This means we have the only voter-verified audit trail in Indiana for the recent election.

This voter-verified paper backup enabled us to detect an error in the tabulation software at 8PM, work with GBS to get the error corrected, and then re-tabulate every vote before 2AM.

Please don't make the mistake of believing that small counties are under the thumb of large corporations. In fact, more often the opposite is true- Small counties are one of the few units of government remaining where committees are small and nimble, officials are directly accountable to the voters and good decisions happen regularly.

For more on why we don't trust DREs in Union County, see http://www.fankhausers.c...rticles/tabulation.shtml