[Danno]

It would be nice to collect these storries and add them to some future project which chronicles Election Day 2004 and the weird happenings...

[piasa]

I wasn't panicked but there were a lot of people who were- most were newbies, though.

[doug from upland]

I then showered and lunched
===================================

Is "lunched" a verb? It sounds so elitist. :) I think my favorite is hearing where they "summered."

[Question Liberal Authority]

As I recall, it went something like this:

* Katherine Jean Lopez posted to National Review Online's The Corner that early exit poll had Bush up 8 in Ohio. This sparked a 1,000 post thread.

* Then K-LO corrected this to say she got new info and Bush was actually down 1.

* Meanwhile, wonkette published a bizarre list of exit poll data which showed Bush trailing by as many as 20 points in certain battlegrounds. This included some states listed twice with different numbers.

* Drudge posted something about the exit poll results being encouraging for the Kerry camp.

* Sean Hannity came on the air and was deflated a bit by the exit poll data - still told everyone to vote. He talked to Drudge at least twice. Drudge made fun of the exit polling, calling it "Media Polling" or something, but still ran sirens everytime some whisper came out. He also noted that exit polls from 2000 and 2002 were way off.

* At this point I couldn't take any more and went to Chuck E Cheese with my 3 year old.

[bonfire]

I didn't watch!!! I stayed blissfully ignorant ON PURPOSE. Cleaned, did laundry, and stayed busy. Stayed off FR too!

I knew I would panic, so I just calmly PRAYED and knew God would answer our prayers!

[GeronL]

There was a very very long election return thread

[guitfiddlist]

Well, seeing as you asked for something like this, I wrote an email narrative of election events up until early Wednesday morning, which I emailed to key relatives that would listen, but I'm positive I fouled up the details - so I would appreciate any comments to set the record right...

---

"It looks like it is in the bag. The only thing missing is a concession speech from a completely graceless candidate, and the integrity necessary for a profoundly biased mainstream media, Fox included, to broadcast the blatantly obvious. Bush is eminently gracious not to have come out by now and said "Look, I don't care if Kerry and his sycophantic press won't concede, the votes are in, I am the victor - and we will continue along the paths my administration has laid out." A concession would be asking too much from Kerry, who came waaaaaay too close to being President of a nation that I'm having a hard time recognizing anymore, seeing as he received 47% of the vote.

I was able to watch the drama of all this last night - because it has been day here in Shanghai - all through the election counting process. I have never seen anything like this - this has been one of the most outrageous displays of partisanship and outright cheating I've ever seen, by a supposedly neutral media - and Democratic election officials, in New Mexico particularly.

We cannot allow these people to ever gain power, because they have demonstrated by their attempts to STEAL power, that they should never ever gain it.

Let me start with the early calls from exit polling...

Early on, while polls were still open everywhere, the media started gleefully reporting on exit polling from key swing states, Florida, ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Michigan, among others. Florida and Ohio were critical to Bush's strategy. Based on zero votes counted - they started trumpeting that Kerry was significantly ahead in these completely unscientific exit polls. This served to demoralize our conservative base, and about 1pm - morale online at key conservative sites hit bottom. However, everybody urged everyone to get out and vote, since the only poll that counts is the counting of ballots. I turned in for the night, since it was 2am my time.

When I woke up, things had started to turn around somewhat, but the polls were still open. Florida and Ohio were still not looking too good, Pennsylvania was tanking, Minnesota looked pretty bad, and all the other states such as Iowa, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, Oregon, Washington were still too early in the voting process.

We all were on the edge of our seats, as mainstream media started looking forward to a Kerry win with gleeful smiles on their faces. Meanwhile, the very few conservative commentators reported that Team Bush was still confident, and then Mrs. Cheney was interviewed, which calmed quite a few online posters down.

But the news got better after the polls closed, and actual vote counting started. All eyes focused on Florida, and I think that Kerry took an early lead in the count, but it was widely known that the first areas to report in were heavily Democratic. Meanwhile Ohio started counting too, and that was going neck and neck. If Bush lost either one - we were probably going to lose the election. Then the media started calling states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Maine, New Hampshire and others for Kerry - with no votes counted yet!!

But they did NOT do the same for battleground states that Bush had a clear lead in. This continued all through the night. Now certain states were not battleground states - they were known to be clearly Kerry - or cleary Bush. States such as New York, MD,IL, Mass, CT, Maine, VT were all known to be Kerry states, whereas the entire South was known to be Bush territory, except for FL. All the focus was on Florida, Ohio, PA, MN, NH, NV, WI, NM, OR, MI, Iowa, HI, and kind of in that order. I may have missed a few though.

Anyway, first up was Florida, and the pundits were all over the map on which way it would go - as the votes were counted. Bush then developed a small but significant lead - but whereas they would immediately call a state such as Pennsylvania for Kerry - as soon as any lead developed - they absolutely refused to do the same for Bush. They were obviously gritting through their teeth when calling out vote counts for Bush states - but they would not drop battleground states into Bush's column.


Along about midnight though, the vote tally for Florida indicated a virtual mathematical impossibility for Kerry to catch up to Bush - and STILL.. none of the media would call Florida for Bush. The anger online spread from coast to coast. Meanwhile the media was prattling on about all the Kerry states they were allocating, when vote count totals were still below 50%.

Finally...one of the outlets called Florida for Bush, but only a few followed. Eventually, the various networks were dragged kicking and screaming into allocating Florida to Bush - but some still are making noises about possible absentee ballots changing that. Good luck - absentee ballots always tilt Republican...

But then the focus shifted to Ohio - come on Ohio! Although Kerry might have led at a few points, Bush developed a small lead there too. The pundits, though, continued to hold out that key Democratic precincts hadn't reported in yet. So we all looked at the outstanding counties waiting to report - and there was only one major Democratic county around Cleveland, where Kerry could possible overcome a 100,000+ Bush lead. That county failed to make enough of a dent in Bush's lead, and the remaining counties were likely to go half and half - or leaned Bush. Then suddenly, the Democrats and media started talking about 150,000 outstanding "provisional" ballots, which were vaguely defined as having to be amended at the last moment because of some foulup in local candidate listings, I think.

All the hopes and dreams of the Democrats shifted to these provisional ballots - which they somehow thought could go so profoundly for Kerry that they could overcome a 134,000 Bush lead. When this sounded a little too desperate, CNN started talking about a quarter million of these provisional ballots. The Ohio secretary of state corrected that attempted pig flight, and said there were 150,000 of these MAX. It was then reported that a plane-load of Kerry lawyers had left Boston, bound for Ohio. Meanwhile the precincts continued to report in, Bush's lead dropping, then rising until at 89% of precincts reporting in - it was 134,000 or 160,000 - can't exactly remember....and STILL, none of the media would give it to Bush - all while they continued to allocate states with much less of a Kerry lead - to Kerry.

Then finally one of the mainstream media called Ohio for Bush - acceding to math and the absolutely obvious. Few followed suit - because what that would mean was that Bush had essentially won. Ohio would give him 269 electoral votes - which would be at least a tie - which would throw it into the House, where the GOP-controlled House would then decide the next President. There was one sticky wicket, though. One little elector from the GOP state of West Virginia had publicly stated before the election that he would vote for Kerry no matter how his state voted. Just what I like about Democrats, the hell with the voters...it's what THEY want that counts.

However, it was quickly established that the West Virginian legislature could recall the entire slate of electors, and put in new ones pledged to honor the state vote - which is the only job of an elector in the first place. But this would have made it a doubly sloppy Bush win - since it would require first this legality - then a House vote to elect Bush, giving all kinds of room for Democratic whining and carping about the election being "stolen".

No, Team Bush needed a clear win. Sitting at 269 electoral votes, all he needed was one more state to clearly and unequivocally win the election. Still waiting to give a final determinative count for either candidate, was NM, NV, OR, WI, PA, Iowa, and Hawaii. PA, WI, OR were called by the msm for Kerry, so focus then shifted to NV, NM, and Iowa. Bush was leading in all three, by 30,000 in New Mexico with 101% of the precincts reporting in. 101%...not a typo, go figure. But Richardson had publicly promised that he would deliver NM to the Kerry camp. Democracy, Democrat-style.

Then suddenly, Governor Richardson announced that a whole pile of uncounted ballots had been discovered - 28,000 of them, and wouldn't you know it - there was not a single Bush vote in that entire pile! I am not kidding. Fraud at its most blatant. Bush's lead dropped to 1000. But Richardson didn't steal enough, and Bush's lead regrew first to 6000, then to 14,000 - with 103% of the precincts reporting in(?). Nobody can figure out exactly what's going on in New Mexico, although it's pretty obvious what is being attempted in general terms. (New Mexico has a long history of this, in fact - they pulled one of these in 2000, and stole New Mexico from Bush during the last election - but Bush decided to ignore that and concentrate on stopping a Florida theft-attempt, since if he lost Florida, New Mexico wouldn't have mattered anyway).

Team Bush decided to look at a cleaner state to get its clear unequivocal win - and that would be either Iowa or Nevada, strangely enough. Nevada was reporting 100% count and Bush had a small but absolutely clear lead. The Kerry camp stated it was contesting the results...on the basis that they don't like them. So here is where we sit, at 6:39 am EST.You have CNN, CBS, ABC and the AP calling Nevada for Bush, but not calling Ohio for Bush. Meanwhile, you have NBC and Fox calling Ohio for Bush, but not calling Nevada for Bush.

Andrew Card from Team Bush decided to put an end to this charade, and stated a little while ago that Bush won the election with 286 electoral votes - which includes the electoral counts from NV, NM, and Iowa. He also stated that Bush got 3.5 million more votes than did Kerry, and that Bush had received the most votes of any Presidential candidate in history. Game Over. But the classless, graceless, integrity-less Kerry camp and Mainstream Media still refuse to concede. So be it. It's not up to them anyway. The voters have spoken."

[Mona Lisa2]

Well, I decided not to ruin my day by watching the network windbags. I followed a Yahoo election map and read FreeRepublic. So straight away Bush was doing reasonably well. I missed the whole poll exit bluff.

I did turn on the news about 11:30 pm Pacific time. I got to watch Peter Jennings and Cokie Roberts deflate like hot air balloons struck by missiles. Of course, ABC and Jennings did manage to ruin my evening in spite of the good news. About 1:00 am, when it was obvious to everyone Bush was going to win Jennings wouldn't call it. He said Kerry was not going to give a concession speech and (supposedly) the White House was waiting for the networks to call Bush the winner. Jennings behaved like the petty, petulant man he is and said something like, 'well, they can just call it themselves.'

So the network windbags had their revenge on Bush and wouldn't let him have the celebration (finally) on the night he deserved.

[Sally'sConcerns]

I didn't sleep at all the night before the election because my mind was racing. Took an hour's nap around noonish Tuesday.

I had surgery in August for a perforated ulcer so I decided I wasn't going to watch television or even spend much time on FR. My rationale was that I wouldn't have any impact on the outcome at that time and I could find out Wednesday what was going on.

Periodically Tuesday during the evening I'd read FR. At times I was very up and at times I was a little panicky.

Tuesday night I mainly watched HGTV since I still couldn't sleep. Then about 3 a.m. Wednesday morning when I was laying in bed and still couldn't sleep I said "Self, go see if President Bush might have been re-elected." From threads here on FR there were two maps I started following and I saw where Bush was ahead. If I remember correctly Kerry had about 112 electoral votes when I first started to check. For the longest time he was stuck at 112 while Bush's increased.

I was watching the Yahoo map when the headline came across that Daschle had lost so I looked at FR to see if anyone else had posted it and then when they hadn't I fumbled around and posted the first thread about it...and I do mean I fumbled around. I was so tired I couldn't figure out how to post for what seemed like hours.

Someone posted an unsourced thread that Ohio had gone for Bush and I think by that time either Florida had been already called or else 95% of the vote had been counted.

It was about 4:30 a.m. and I had to be up at 9:00 so I decided to go on to bed feeling pretty comfortable Bush would win. Layed in bed for about an hour fretting about provisional balloting and the 10,000 lawyers but finally went to sleep. Up at 8:30 because of a 20 minute phone call. Came to FR and saw where some stations were calling it for the President and some weren't but that it really was in the bag.

Spent the rest of the day until 3ish reading FR and going to peek at DU's to read their lamentations. Took a nap from 3:00 until 6:00 this evening when my sister called. We celebrated over the phone til her cell went dead (22 minutes).

Oh, and I did listen via a C-Span link to Kerry's concession speech. I didn't listen to President Bush because by that time I was almost incoherent from lack of sleep and happiness about the outcome that I forgot to go back to the link.

I'm still up but about to go to bed. Even though my post isn't about weird happenings I wanted to document for myself here on FR my experience.

[GodBlessUSA]

Fun thread. I will come back and read more. I woke up and was very confident that Bush would win. I voted ten minutes after the polls opened.

Later in the late afternoon my optimistic feeling started to decline. It wasn't panic it was fear. Fear of fraud. I thought, oh no, they are setting up for another 2000 in Ohio. What kept me from panic and sane was FreeRepublic and keeping the television off. I listened to Laura Ingram instead.

The 2000 election affected me in such a negative way, I don't think my heart could tolerate that again. I have faith in our election process just not in the people who decide to take matters in their own hands. If I ever see someone staring at a card to decide a chad again, or play disenfranchise game, I think I would become a nervous wreck and never recover or have a heart attack.:) Thank God, President George W. Bush Four More Years!!!

[truth_seeker]

I'd wager it is a federal felony to attempt to subvert an election.

As such, an FBI investigation as to PRECISELY what took place is in order. Names, affiliations, paychecks, conspiracies, etc.

And hard time in prison.

[BJungNan]

[MattAMiller]

By Tuesday I was convinced that all the talk of weekend polling being biased towards Democrats was just delusional. So I retained some hope, but those exit polls just confirmed my worst fears. It became clear pretty quickly that there were some problems with the sample. But it was still unlcear what that meant exactly. Then the stock market and those Presidential betting markets began to crash. I figured that the trading firms, and at least some of the bettors knew something I didn't.

Then the results became to come in and Bush was up in Florida, when it became clear he was going to win there it was smooth sailing for the rest of the night.