Maybe the Shell-Shock is Real

For the first time, I think I actually believe President Bush on something: He truly didn't expect to take a "thumpin" on Election Day. I've mentioned in earlier posts how there seemed to be a lack of a Plan B of any kind, and I've had trouble believing that such consummate professional politicians would be that careless. I mean, anyone who's ever heard of the phrase "Gallup Poll" would have known that Democrats were leading in the double-digits across most races. Only an ostrich-esk force of will to shove your head underground would have prevented the somewhat obvious possibility of loss to enter one's mind. I think I've come up with a viable hypothesis as to why exactly this occurred: Plans to rig the election failed.

Think about it: What were some of the first stories you heard Tuesday morning? There were stories and stories of electronic voting machines not coming online and poll-workers were having to resort to using paper ballots. Let's assume that you're a crooked politician that has gone through lots of trouble to fix an election using tampered electronic voting machines. How well would you fare if those machines were bypassed altogether?

And yes, I think that some tampering was present. In this CNN article, poll workers are quoted as saying "The company that made the machines said the PIN numbers were wrong on the cards needed to activate the machines," and while I don't know these machines specifically, I imagine that swapping out a memory card might affect the associated PIN value.