Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. We start at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Some of us will show up even earlier to enjoy the fine cuisine.

Tonight we’ll tune in to The O’Reilly Factor for his annual War on Christmas™ comedy special. Perhaps we’ll construct some “hard left” holiday tree munitions decorations at the same time. And we’ll catch the tail end of the War in Georgia.

Not in Seattle? Check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

Join us for a pre-holiday evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We start at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Some of us show up earlier for dinner.

If you’re not in the Seattle area, no worries. check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. We start at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Some of us will show up early for dinner.

Tonight we will raise a toast to Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, who turned 85 years old and lost his re-election bid—on the same day. We wish Sen. Stevens luck as he transitions from a great institution to another, um…lesser, institution.

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, check out McCranium for the local Drinking Liberally. Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

What the hell is going on with Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty (R)? Has he, too, become a shameless propagandist?

Last night (Wed.) on FOX News’ Hannity and Colmes Pawlenty said:

Minnesota has a reputation of clean and fair and good elections. […] However finding 32 ballots in a trunk of a car and supposedly forgetting that they were there is suspicious.

The “32 ballots in the trunk of Minneapolis Elections Director Cindy Reichert’s car” story is a fabrication (or, a bizarre misunderstanding) by one of Sen. Norm Coleman’s lawyers.

David Brauer, a political reporter at MinnPost, documents the rumor’s origin and demise:

Reichert is all too happy to provide an explanation. She says the “car ballot” story is “just not true,” painting a picture of normal balloting procedures twisted into something grotesquely misleading.

The “car ballot” story emerged Saturday from the mouth of Coleman lawyer Fritz Knaak, who, according to AP, told reporters, “We were actually told ballots had been riding around in her car for several days, which raised all kinds of integrity questions.”

Knaak never provided a source and did not return two MinnPost calls for comment. However, he was already backing off his story at the same press event. As that day’s Pioneer Press noted, “Knaak said he feels assured that what was going on with the 32 ballots was neither wrong nor unfair.”

It’s odd that Pawlenty continues to propagate a rumor that was, essentially, retracted by the rumor’s creator on the same day it was created.

At this point, those who continue to spread the rumor are either willfully ignorant, or are happy to lie in order to “catapult the propaganda.” Which is it for Pawlenty?

During the 2004 gubernatorial contest in Washington state, the Republicans, as part of their “election fraud” propaganda campaign, needed an enemy with a name and a face.

Their primary victim was King County Records, Elections and Licensing Director Dean Logan, who was mercilessly vilified through the contest, court case and even afterward. They might have gone after our Secretary of State, Sam Reed, except that he’s a Republican. (They did go after him to a lesser extent after losing the lawsuit).

In Minnesota, it looks like Secretary of State Mark Ritchie is going to be the Republican’s first target. TPM Muckraker has obtained a three-page “backgrounder” put out by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC).

The NRSC origin of this memo highlights one big difference between the Washington state 2004 gubernatorial election and the Minnesota 2008 Senate race—the addition of an important target audience for the latter. Ultimately it is the Senate who will seat either Franken or Coleman. The election results, certified by Secretary of State Ritchie, will be used to guide the Senate (as per Article I of the U.S. Constitution) in seating the winner.

One long-shot strategy for the Republicans is to discredit Ritchie enough to cast doubt on his impartiality in certifying a close Franken win. The Republicans would challenge the election in the Senate (as sometimes happens) with the aim of not seating Franken.

Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. Officially, we start at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Some folks show up early to enjoy the cuisine.

Tonight’s activity?

Gloating.

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, McCranium shoud have the scoop on the local Drinking Liberally. Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

The fledgling right-wing propaganda war continues in the Senate race between Sen. Norm Coleman and Al Franken. As of yesterday’s midnight deadline, Franken trails Coleman by 206 out of 2.9 million votes.

The latest error-prone Wingding propaganda piece comes from Dr. John R. Lott, Jr. writing an opinion piece for Fox News. Lott, a right-wing academic, begins his article by insinuating something sinister behind the changing vote tallies:

[On Wednesday morning,] Senator Norm Coleman led Al Franken by what seemed like a relatively comfortable 725 votes. By Wednesday night, that lead had shrunk to 477. By Thursday night, it was down to 336. By Friday, it was 239. Late Sunday night, the difference had gone down to just 221 — a total change over 4 days of 504 votes.

Amazingly, this all has occurred even though there hasn’t even yet been a recount.

It is hard to know if this is genuinely spin or whether Lott is simply unaware of elementary elections procedures. Changes in vote totals are almost guaranteed in the days leading up to initial certification. There are numerous reasons for this, including ongoing tallying of absentee and provisional ballots, correction of tabulating and reporting errors, and resolution of disputed ballots. In Minnesota, however, the changes are mostly corrections of tabulating and reporting errors because absentee ballots must be received by election day, and with election day registration possible, provisional ballots are not used. (In 2006, Minnesota had no provisional ballots cast. I am unclear whether provisional ballots play any role in Minnesota’s new voter challenge procedures.) Some ballots do remain uncounted at the time the polls close on election day:

Ramsey County found 55 absentee ballots which arrived on time to be counted on election day, but which were not. Those results have now been included in the new totals.

Counting these ballots will obviously affect subsequent reporting.

Contrary to Lott’s insinuations, the only thing unusual about these changes is that people are paying attention:

…county auditors are finding minor errors as they’re proofing their unofficial numbers before shipping them to St. Paul, said John Aiken, spokesman for Secretary Mark Ritchie.

“The counties are trying to be as accurate and transparent as possible. You’ll see fluctuations here and there,” Aiken said.

It happens all the time in every election, he said. The only difference is that for most elections, the margin is much wider and the election less prominent. Here, he said, “The eyes of the nation are on this Senate race.”

Lott goes on to “analyze” the errors, and he offers alarmist rhetoric that overlooks the specifics of known cases. For example, one case of an additional 100 votes for Franken simply reflected a typo:

In Pine County, an election official accidentally entered 24 votes for Franken on Tuesday night instead of the 124 he actually received. The mistake was caught on Thursday and the numbers changed, said Jim Gelbmann from the Secretary of State’s office.

In another case, the change reflected a failure to report any result at all:

In northeastern Minnesota, the town of Buhl’s ballots had been cast but not counted in statewide totals. It turns out election officials there counted the votes but never called them in. […]

Election official Mike Buchanan said that when Buhl election officials arrived a work at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, “we received a phone call from St. Louis County — they wanted our election numbers.”

They got them.

Coleman received 152 votes in Buhl and Franken got 343, for a difference of 191 in the Democratic candidate’s favor. Not enough to change the results, but enough to tighten the contest even more.

Sinister! Sinister, I tell you!

Lott’s specifics-free discussion of the precincts from which Franken’s votes came ends with this bit of factually challenged, pure Wingnut propaganda:

It was also true that precincts that gave Obama a larger percentage of the vote were statistically more likely to make a correction that helped Franken.

This is the kind of statement that somehow seems authoritative—I mean, using words like “statistically more likely” and all. But it is bullshit technobabble. Statisticians use the term “statistically more likely” to refer to a result that exceeds some benchmark by an amount that is (probabilistically) outside of the sampling error. When the entire population is surveyed (as, say, when all voters in an election are considered), there is no sampling error. A difference is just a difference (or every difference is statistically significant). So Lott either doesn’t understand statistics (doubtful) or he is trying to bullshit us.

Lott offers more sloppy propaganda:

The recent Washington State 2006 gubernatorial recount is probably most famous for the discovery of ballots in heavily Democratic areas that had somehow missed being counted the first and even second time around. Minnesota is already copying that, though thus far on a much smaller scale, with 32 absentee ballots being discovered in Democratic Hennepin County after all the votes had already been counted.

In fact, the 32 absentee ballots in Hennepin County (and the 55 absentee ballots found in Ramsey County) are part of the first count. Even so, it is possible additional ballots will be found in the Minnesota recount. What of it? The whole purpose of a recount to ensure that every ballot is counted and counted correctly. Ironically, it was Republican Dino Rossi’s campaign in the 20064 Washington state race that ended up hunting down additional ballots—after the second recount.

Lott then goes on to downplay expectations that the recount will affect much about the election. He poo-poos an AP article about the magnitude of the undervote, and its possible significance. He incorrectly suggests that voters are warned about undervotes in Minnesota. This is simply incorrect—overvotes are flagged, not undervotes.

Optical scan machines do make mistakes. Minnesota estimates this error rate after each election by conducting audits in about 5% of precincts. The 2006 results gave a rate of 53 errors in 94,073 votes cast. Indeed, in Ramsey County yesterday, the machine audit found Franken gaining one vote out of 7,700 counted.

Lott uses his misunderstanding of the optical scanning machines to raise the same old tired talking points against “voter intent”:

There should be no role to divine voters’ intentions. If a voter wanted a vote recorded for a particular race, the machine tells him whether his vote in all the races was counted.

Yes, there really is a role for discerning voter intent—it’s the law. Minnesota, as a voter intent state, provides clear guidelines on how voter intent is to be discerned.

Finally, Lott offers a Wingnut taking point that has no place in this discussion:

With ACORN filing more than 43,000 registration forms this year, 75 percent of all new registrations in the state, Minnesota was facing vote fraud problems even before the election. Even a small percentage of those registrations resulting in fraudulent votes could tip this election.

Un-huh. I suppose it is possible that Lott has been in a vacuum and actually believes this crap. More likely, he knows better, but just throws this out as Wingnut bullshit designed to cast doubt on the election. Specifically, he is exploiting the widely publicized fact that some ACORN employees have made up registrations (i.e. they have defrauded ACORN, who pays them for registering new potential voters)—information that has come to light in some cases because ACORN has reported what they believe are fake registration forms. Unless Lott believes that dishonest workers subsequently go on to recruit people to go vote as Micky Mouse, there is no link between real people registered by ACORN and “vote fraud problems” at the polls.

So…that is the latest in wingnuttery over this race. Get ready for the howls of “election fraud” when the voter crediting numbers turn out to be less than the numbers of ballots cast.

Right Wing Nut House proprietor Rick Moran writes at American Thinker:

No one is saying that the Democrats are trying to steal the Minnesota senate race between GOP incumbent Norm Coleman and Democratic clown Al Franken – yet

And after citing an article comparing the Minnesota Senatorial election to the Florida 2000 debacle, Moran goes on to suggest that the election is being stolen, but in a slightly different way:

This is shaping up more and more like the transparent way the Washington state governor’s race was stolen by Democrats in 2006 when hundreds of ballots were suddenly “found” in Democratic King County – many of them coming from people (it was later determined) with unverifiable addresses.

Here we see the seeds of the type of propaganda effort, based on twisting of the truth and downright factually incorrect information (what is called, in less polite company, fucking lies), that occurred during the previous Washington state gubernatorial contest.

Interestingly, the the previous bullshit propaganda is cited as “evidence” to bolster the new propaganda efforts. I guess this is what Bush meant by “catapult the propaganda.”

Let’s ignore the first error—the race in question was 2004, not 2006. That’s an honest mistake that any out-of-state Wingnut could make.

The propaganda begins by the suggestion that ballots were “suddenly ‘found,'” in King County, as if nobody had any idea where the ballots came from. The implication, of course, is that they were manufactured after the election and thrown into the mix to change the outcome

There were several batches of “found” ballots in King County. The first batch resulted when elections workers put aside ballots from people whose signatures had not been previously scanned into the computer system. The workers were supposed to check the signatures against the paper records, but they didn’t. This was only discovered because King County Councilman Larry Phillips was one of the victims. A total of 561 absentee ballots were “found” this way.

The other source of found ballots came from the insides of secured voting machines and trays stored in a secure warehouse. There were 723 ~160 of these ballots literally found. But they were valid ballots cast during the election, and the voters who cast them were entitled to have them counted. The Republicans sued to prevent these ballots from being canvassed. The state Supreme Court rejected that idea.

The other implication in Moran’s statement is that, somehow, King County stood out as the source of “found” ballots. There were other counties that also “found” ballots. In fact, King County did not have the highest “error rate” in the state—there were four counties with higher rates. King County did have errors, but only at a rate slightly higher than the background rate for the whole state. King County also had a substantially higher voter load, with the same amount of processing time as other counties, so this is hardly surprising. The Republicans lost the election contest lawsuit in every way—except for the propaganda wars.

The final bit of propaganda in Moran’s statement is an irresponsible falsehood. He states that the “found” ballots in King County had “unverifiable addresses.” Um…no.

I don’t know where this notion came from. Perhaps Moran is confusing the 2004 election contest with a 2005 Republican scandal in which the senior vice president of the King County Republican Party, Lori Sotelo, challenged 1,944 voters days before the election, based on some sloppy attempts to find voter addresses that were not real residences (mailbox outlets or storage facilities). The challenges were potentially perjurious, fradulent, and hugely error prone (only 58 ballots of 1,944 challenges were disqualified). The episode had nothing to do with the contested 2004 election.

In sum…Moran doesn’t know what the fuck he is talking about.

He probably doen’t care…truth and accuracy are not what it is all about. It’s the early stages of a shameless propaganda effort.

Let’s hope the politicians, the political parties, the media, and the bloggers do a better job with fighting Republican bullshit about election-fraud in Minnesota in 2008–2009 than they did with Washington state in 2004–2005.

Obama	McCain
100.0% probability of winning	0.0% probability of winning
Mean of 363 electoral votes	Mean of 175 electoral votes

The first analysis of today, based on 34 newly released polls in 15 states showed Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain by a mean of 362 electoral to 176 electoral votes.

An afternoon update, based on 12 new polls in 10 states gave Obama an expected 363 electoral votes to McCain’s 175. Finally, this evening I added six new polls in five states that were released late.

This evening, after 100,000 simulated elections, Obama wins 100.000 times (including the 0 ties), and McCain wins 0 times. Obama receives (on average) 363 to McCain’s 175 electoral votes. If the election had been held this evening, Obama would have had a near-100.0% probability of winning.

Detailed results for this analysis are available at Hominid Views.

Methods are described in the FAQ. The most recent version of this analysis can be found on this page.

Finally, we are getting some clarity in the Washington state gubernatorial race. The last four consecuitve polls have had Gregoire up by +2%—all within the margin of error.

A new SurveyUSA poll shows Gov. Christine Gregoire (D) leading Dino Rossi (“G.O.P. Party”) by a modest +6% (52% to 46%). The poll of 663 likely voters was taken from 30-Oct to 02-Nov and has a margin of error of ±3.9%.

The same poll also found Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain in the state by a +16% margin (56% to 40%).

The race between Gov. Christine Gregoire (D) and Dino Rossi (“G.O.P. Party”) remains only slightly clearer than mud today with the release of a new Strategic Vision poll. The poll shows Gregoire leading Rossi by +2% (50% to 48%).

That makes four +2% leads in a row, as Gregoire’s led by +2% in the three previous polls as well: a Washington Poll poll (50% to 48%), a SurveyUSA poll (50% to 48%), and a Strategic Vision poll (49% to 47%).

Before that, Gregoire held a +6.4% (51.4% to 45.0%) lead in the previous Washington Poll poll taken from 18-Oct to 26-Oct.

The recent polling shows Gregoire with a small, but consistent, lead in the weeks leading up to the election:

In fact, Gregoire has led in all eight polls taken since mid-October. The last time Rossi held the lead was in mid-September.

The new Strategic Vision poll also shows Obama leading by +15% (55% to 40%) in the state. (The poll of 800 likely voters was taken between 31-Oct and 02-Nov, and has a margin of error of ±3%.)

Obama	McCain
100.0% probability of winning	0.0% probability of winning
Mean of 362 electoral votes	Mean of 176 electoral votes

There are lots and lots of new polls today, so this analysis is the first of two or three I’ll offer today. There were 34 new polls in 15 states released this morning. The polls show a little more tightening up of the race, but Obama maintains a strong lead.

Yesterday’s analysis showed Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain by 366 to 172 electoral votes (on average). Today, after 100,000 simulated elections, Obama wins all 100,000. Obama receives (on average) 362 to McCain’s 176 electoral votes—McCain makes a net gain of four electoral votes. If the election had been held today, instead of tomorrow, Obama would have a 100.0% probability of winning.

Detailed results for this analysis are available at Hominid Views.

Methods are described in the FAQ. The most recent version of this analysis can be found on this page.

Obama	McCain
100.0% probability of winning	0.0% probability of winning
Mean of 366 electoral votes	Mean of 172 electoral votes

Yesterday’s analysis showed Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain by (on average) 369 to 169 electoral votes.

There were 18 new polls from 14 states that add into today’s analysis. The polls show some races tightening up slightly, and McCain gets the better of it.

Now, after 100,000 simulated elections, Obama wins ’em all. Obama receives (on average) 366 to McCain’s 172 electoral votes—a gain of three votes for McCain since yesterday. The simulation results still suggest that Obama would win an election held today with 100.0% probability.

The long term trends in this race can be seen from a series of elections simulated every seven days using polls from 02 Mar 2008 to 02 Nov 2008, each time including polls from the preceding seven days (FAQ):

Detailed results for this analysis are available at Hominid Views.

Methods are described in the FAQ. The most recent version of this analysis can be found on this page.

Obama	McCain
100.0% probability of winning	0.0% probability of winning
Mean of 369 electoral votes	Mean of 169 electoral votes

Yesterday’s analysis showed Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain by a mean of 369 to 169 electoral votes. Today we get 18 new polls in 14 states to weigh in on the race. But there were really no surprises in the polls—just some tightening up on both sides.

Today, after 100,000 simulated elections (based on 137 “current” state head-to-head surveying 95,785 respondents, mostly in the past seven days), Obama wins all 100,000 times. Obama still receives (on average) 369 to McCain’s 169 electoral votes. Obama would have a near-100.0% probability of winning if the election had been held today.

Detailed results for this analysis are available at Hominid Views.

Methods are described in the FAQ. The most recent version of this analysis can be found on this page.

With just a few days to go until the election, Governor Christine Gregoire (D) holds onto her slight lead over challenger Dino Rossi (“G.O.P. Party”). This election is the rematch of the famous 2004 election that resulted in two ballot recounts and ended up in a six month legal challenge.

A new Washington Poll, a non-partisan, academic survey from the Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, finds Gregoire leading Rossi by 50% to 48%. The survey was conducted from 27-Oct to 31-Oct on a sample of 387 registered Washington voters; the margin of error is ±5.0%.

This poll yields results identical to the previous two poll, the first by SurveyUSA taken from 26-Oct to 27-Oct, that was 50% to 48% in Gregoire’s favor. And before that a Strategic Vision poll taken from 25-Oct to 26-Oct, had Gregoire up 49% to 47%—again a +2% edge over Rossi. One must go back ten polls to find Rossi in the lead—that’s all the way back to mid-September:

A combined analysis of the last three consecutive polls—which spans the range 25-Oct to 31-Oct—gives Gregoire 50.8% of the “votes” and Rossi, 49.2% of the “votes.” If the election had been held today, Gregoire would have had a 68.4% probability of winning.

Here is the distribution of votes generated by the analysis (i.e. this is the distribution of possible election outcomes in terms of the percentage of votes for each candidate):

The poll also finds Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain in Washington state 51% to 39%. The +12% margin is narrower than the +17% (56% to 39%) Obama lead found in the SurveyUSA poll, but it matches the +12% (54% to 42%) lead over McCain found in the Strategic Vision poll.

(Cross posted at Hominid Views)