The 2008 election was a virtual duplicate of the 2006 midterms. The unadjusted exit poll differed by 9% from the final national exit poll (which is always forced to match the recorded vote). In 2006, a 120-Generic Poll trend model projected that the Democrats would win 56.43%. The unadjusted 2006 National Exit Poll indicated that they had 56.37%; the adjusted 7pm NEP gave them 55.2%. The Final NEP was forced to match the recorded 52.2% share. The Democratic margin was reduced from 15.1% to 6.3%. The pre-election Generic 120 poll trend matched the exit poll to within .07%! The Final 2008 NEP indicates that Obama's true margin was reduced from 16.1% to 7.3% by vote miscounts. As usual, the Final was forced to match the recorded vote. Once again, it revealed to be bogus, just like in 2006 and 2004. Obama won the official, recorded vote by 52.9-45.6% (9.5m). The Election Calculator True Vote model indicates that he won by 57.2-41.1% (22m). The assumption was that Kerry won by 52-47%, the state exit poll aggregate (114,000 were sampled). The 2008 exit poll report has not been released. Exit pollsters Edison-Mitofsky provided the 2004 report on Jan. 19, 2005 - one day before the second Bush inaugural. The unadjusted 2008 state exit poll data would very likely show that Obama won by at least double his 9.5m recorded margin. But will the mainstream media (i.e. the National Election Pool) which sponsored the poll, release it? Are you listening, Keith and Rachel?

Just so everyone understands, here's how it all started. National Exit Polls are released periodically throughout election day showing Kerry winning (up through the final poll of the day at just after midnight). We were not supposed to see them but great lawyer, statistician, thinker Jonathan Simon captured the unintentionally released exit polls. He knew there were problems when the vote count contradicted the exit poll results. So did many of us as we reviewed Ohio and the rest of the voter disenfranchisement efforts across the nation. TIA got a hold of the data and noticed something very wrong, outlining the case by Nov. 9, 2004. Simon and Alastair Thompson (althecat) wrote their article in “Scoop” Independent News, Nov. 17, 2004. The truth was out and TruthIsAll, Steve Freeman, Ron Baiman and the rest of the brave "math people" made the case on the exit polls while Bob Fitrakis, Ph.D., Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D., Cliff Arnebeck, and a host of wonderful activists all over America nailed down the rest of the evidence of voter suppression and disenfranchisement. Democratic Underground and its Elections Forum was absolutely central to the process...

A ballot initiative in Massachusetts for the November 3 election asked residents a simple question about Universal Health Care. And the result surprised noone except maybe Fox News and the Tea-baggers.

If the 'President' is elected to represent the people of the United states, then he/she should be elected directly by the people. The Electoral College, in which electors represent states --not people --must be abolished and the 'office' of President elected directly. The voice of the people needs no proxy. The voice of the people must be be heard directly, loudly and often.

Pundits were quick to point out that the percentage of Millennial voters (those 29 and younger ) in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial elections last week were roughly half of what they were in 2008. This led the voice of what passes for wisdom inside the Beltway, Charlie Cook, to proclaim, “we knew that young and minority voters who had never cast a ballot before they did for Barack Obama last year were very unlikely to show up at the polls this year or next.” His extrapolation of two state’s unique odd year election results into a guaranteed outcome in the 2010 general election is breathtaking for what it reveals about Cook’s own biases and those of his peers.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says he's made up his mind once and for all: There will be elections in January – and he will not be a candidate in them. Mr. Abbas's announcement Thursday night was the pinnacle of a dramatic day's events in which he gathered together his closest allies and senior members of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) to tell them that he was fed up and would not seek reelection.---In his speech, Abbas expressed disappointment in Israeli actions on settlements, and accused Israel of taking dangerous steps in Jerusalem as well as of "trying to destroy some holy sites around the Al Aqsa mosque," which he said threatened religious war. He hinted at a desire for international mediation in the conflict beyond the US as chief peace-broker. His comments seemed a clear complaint lobbed toward the Obama administration, seen by Palestinians and others across the Arab world as backpedaling from a harder line toward Israeli settlement growth. Mrs. Clinton's praise for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's limits on settlement growth, which she called unprecedented, have raised Palestinian ire about US evenhandedness. [Note: This is a real shame. And a testimony to the failure of the current administration to want to establish peace in the Middle East.]

When Democrats lost races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia this week, officials in both parties suggested that the outcome could undermine President Obama’s push for a health care bill, scaring off politically vulnerable moderate Democrats at the very moment the White House needed them to get the bill through. As Congress prepares to vote on a health care bill this weekend, however, there were indications on Capitol Hill that the Democratic setbacks on Tuesday were not high on the list of factors influencing even politically vulnerable Democrats as they decided what to do this weekend. In many cases, the results Tuesday came too late to be a major factor in the deliberations of both supporters and opponents of the health care bill.

To match the 62-59m recorded vote, Bush needed 51.1m of 93 million returning Bush and Gore Election 2000 voters. Kerry would have just 41.3m - a 9.8m spread. To just tie Kerry, Bush needed 6.8m more returning Bush and Gore voters. Bush needed 4.9m (10.5% of 46.7m) more Gore defectors than Bush defectors. But according to the 12:22am National Exit Poll, there was a net 2% defection to Kerry: 10% of Bush voters defected to Kerry and 8% of Gore voters defected to Bush - a 12.5% discrepancy from Bush's required 10.5% net defection rate. Given the 90-10% vote split, the exit poll margin of error was 1% for the 3168 respondents who were asked how they voted in 2000. So how did Bush do it?

Young people prefer progressive ideas, the reject the traditional party structure and tend to identify as more independent. They have much more progressive values. McDonnell's campaign focused on things like infrastructure, energy, and education. He did youth outreach. I don't know if Deeds did, but the consistent narrative around the Deeds campaign was that he wasn't really for anything. The additional narrative I hear is that VA isn't that democratic. This doesn't mean young voters have gone GOP, it means that when you put forth the effort to get young voters, you speak to their issues, and you get out the vote you get a good result.

Right-wing groups and conservative Republican leaders -- having forced out the official GOP nominee in a special election for an upstate New York congressional seat because they considered her "too liberal" -- thought they had the election in the bag with their $2 million advertising campaign on behalf of the Conservative Party candidate. But in the end, the voters of the sprawling district, the largest in the Northeast, had other ideas -- and in the process, made a bit of history.

Despite the chatter from the punditry, yesterday was a big day for Millennials. While they focus on two races with candidates that ignored the youth vote and wonder why turnout did not match 2008's all time high, a number of young people won local elections throughout the country. In New York, Young Democrats of America Democratic National Committeewoman Stephanie Hausner was the highest vote getter in her election to the Clarkstown Town Council. Former NYSYD National Committeeman David Carlucci won re-election as Clarkstown Town Clerk. Two former New York Young Democrats local chapter leaders, Dan French and David Fried, won local elections as well.

Watching election returns last night proved to be a very interesting evening. What became consistent was the impact of the lack of outreach on the youth segment of the electorate and the diminished rate of enthusiasm. In Virginia “Only 1,973,868 of a total 4,955,755 voters participated in the gubernatorial race — “a miniscule number when you consider there were 3.7 million voters in the 2008 election,” said Isaac Wood, assistant communications director at the University Center for Politics… He added that generally one-third of Virginia voters in presidential elections choose not to participate in gubernatorial elections, and that, as such, yesterday’s voter turnout was even lower than usual.” One difference this year than in 2008 was young voters had a candidate at the top of the ticket who actively sought their vote. This isn’t generally the standard in other elections, despite our efforts to teach candidates otherwise. Outreach is so important, asking young people for their vote is key, and peer to peer outreach is a must. All of these things happened nation wide in 2008, in large part because the Obama campaign placed a high importance on getting out the vote for young people.

Well, today is election day and there are several important races destined to be determined. I have read several articles in various blogs and newspapers, raising the question of "where are the Millennials and will they vote?" I fear "disengaged" youth will be to blamed for election day turnout (or lack there of). But what people have yet to learn is how to engage the youth in a empowering and meaningful way, Obama did it successfully, but others have not yet gotten the message. Paradoxically, members of Generation We are not quick to claim for themselves the mantle of being particularly active or politically engaged, even though they are, in fact, among the most involved young people in history. In our focus groups, many Millennials criticized their own generation as being “apathetic” or “materialistic.” There are a number of possible explanations for this paradox.