I would agree if Obama wins because of Ohio I will call it fraud, but if he wins because he took a number of other states that its looking like he will take, and the youth vote really does come out for him... then he won fair and square. Its the youth vote that will push him over the top if they come out.
It's funny you mention that state because we (Ohioans) all said the same thing about Bush in 04:
""Like many Americans, I spent the evening of the 2004 election watching the returns on television and wondering how the exit polls, which predicted an overwhelming victory for John Kerry, had gotten it so wrong. By midnight, the official tallies showed a decisive lead for George Bush — and the next day, lacking enough legal evidence to contest the results, Kerry conceded. Republicans derided anyone who expressed doubts about Bush's victory as nut cases in "tinfoil hats," while the national media, with few exceptions, did little to question the validity of the election. The Washington Post immediately dismissed allegations of fraud as "conspiracy theories1," and The New York Times declared that "there is no evidence of vote theft or errors on a large scale2."
But despite the media blackout, indications continued to emerge that something deeply troubling had taken place in 2004. Nearly half of the 6 million American voters living abroad3 never received their ballots — or received them too late to vote4 — after the Pentagon unaccountably shut down a state-of-the-art Web site used to file overseas registrations5. A consulting firm called Sproul & Associates, which was hired by the Republican National Committee to register voters in six battleground states6, was discovered shredding Democratic registrations7. In New Mexico, which was decided by 5,988 votes8, malfunctioning machines mysteriously failed to properly register a presidential vote on more than 20,000 ballots9. Nationwide, according to the federal commission charged with implementing election reforms, as many as 1 million ballots were spoiled by faulty voting equipment — roughly one for every 100 cast10.
The reports were especially disturbing in Ohio, the critical battleground state that clinched Bush's victory in the electoral college. Officials there purged tens of thousands of eligible voters from the rolls, neglected to process registration cards generated by Democratic voter drives, shortchanged Democratic precincts when they allocated voting machines and illegally derailed a recount that could have given Kerry the presidency. A precinct in an evangelical church in Miami County recorded an impossibly high turnout of ninety-eight percent, while a polling place in inner-city Cleveland recorded an equally impossible turnout of only seven percent. In Warren County, GOP election officials even invented a nonexistent terrorist threat to bar the media from monitoring the official vote count11.
ut what is most anomalous about the irregularities in 2004 was their decidedly partisan bent: Almost without exception they hurt John Kerry and benefited George Bush. After carefully examining the evidence, I've become convinced that the president's party mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004. Across the country, Republican election officials and party stalwarts employed a wide range of illegal and unethical tactics to fix the election. A review of the available data reveals that in Ohio alone, at least 357,000 voters, the overwhelming majority of them Democratic, were prevented from casting ballots or did not have their votes counted in 200412 — more than enough to shift the results of an election decided by 118,601 votes13. (See Ohio's Missing Votes) In what may be the single most astounding fact from the election, one in every four Ohio citizens who registered to vote in 2004 showed up at the polls only to discover that they were not listed on the rolls, thanks to GOP efforts to stem the unprecedented flood of Democrats eager to cast ballots14. And that doesn't even take into account the troubling evidence of outright fraud, which indicates that upwards of 80,000 votes for Kerry were counted instead for Bush. That alone is a swing of more than 160,000 votes — enough to have put John Kerry in the White House15""
Link to works cited:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen/10
We watched news footage and stories from a conservative TV station WBNS 10TV
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WBNS-TV
which is owned by the Wolfe family, who endorsed Bush for both of his elections in 2000 and 2004
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper_endorsements_in_the_United_States_presidential_election,_2004
and now is endorsing McMaverick
http://www.dispatch.com/live/conten...ath2.ART_ART_10-19-08_G4_GUBKEGH.html?sid=101
about polling centers in the low income, high population areas with only 2 machines, yet our precinct (middle class 175k-300k neighborhood) with a dramatically lower population had 12 machines. It took me all of 9 minutes to walk in, vote, walk to my car.
I have to laugh about how the GOP has been playing up this "steal the vote" thing. It reminds me of when Eric Mangini left the Patriots to go coach the Jets then busted out ol Bill Belechick for the cheating spygate.
It's the same thing as the kid that hits you at school, but when you chase him down to beat his ass he runs to the teacher and says "He's gonna hit meeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!"
This isn't just some theory anymore, this was an event the entire country witnessed first hand, and many, many people outside the US observed as well. So when you conservatives (you TOO) start throwing a pity party and whining about an "honest" election, no one is listening to your blather but your own party, no one cares about what you're worried about this time around. We've been down that road, there is a reason the DNC is running out an army of attorneys to battleground states to observe polling centers.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/state/article883412.ece
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/29/AR2008092902832.html
http://www.michigandaily.com/content/democrats-send-lawyers-monitor-polls
Sucks when mom and dad are holding on to the cookie jar and you can't sneak into it huh?
