Interesting read, but not sure if I agree. You say that we can't include 92 or 96 because of Ross Perot, but what about Bob Barr, who is likely to be popular in southern states such as Georgia? Won't he have a similar effect as Perot? Also, by only including 2000 and 2004, isn't the validity of the baseline in question as you are reducing the sample size?

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http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9615

GOP cyber-security expert suggests Diebold tampered with 2002 election

by Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane

Global Research, July 18, 2008
The Raw Story

A leading cyber-security expert and former adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) says he has fresh evidence regarding election fraud on Diebold electronic voting machines during the 2002 Georgia gubernatorial and senatorial elections.

Stephen Spoonamore is the founder and until recently the CEO of Cybrinth LLC, an information technology policy and security firm that serves Fortune 100 companies. At a little noticed press conference in Columbus, Ohio Thursday, he discussed his investigation of a computer patch that was applied to Diebold Election Systems voting machines in Georgia right before that state's November 2002 election.

Spoonamore is one of the most prominent cyber-security experts in the country. He has appeared on CNN's Lou Dobbs and ABC's World News Tonight, and has security clearances from his work with the intelligence community and other government agencies, as well as the Department of Defense, and is one of the world's leading authorities on hacking and cyber-espionage.

In 1995, Spoonamore received a civilian citation for his work with the Department of Defense. He was again recognized for his contributions in 2004 by the Department of Homeland Security. Spoonamore is also a registered Republican and until recently was advising the McCain campaign.

Spoonamore received the Diebold patch from a whistleblower close to the office of Cathy Cox, Georgia's then-Secretary of State. In discussions with RAW STORY, the whistleblower -- who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation -- said that he became suspicious of Diebold's actions in Georgia for two reasons. The first red flag went up when the computer patch was installed in person by Diebold CEO Bob Urosevich, who flew in from Texas and applied it in just two counties, DeKalb and Fulton, both Democratic strongholds. The source states that Cox was not privy to these changes until after the election and that she became particularly concerned over the patch being installed in just those two counties.

The whistleblower said another flag went up when it became apparent that the patch installed by Urosevich had failed to fix a problem with the computer clock, which employees from Diebold and the Georgia Secretary of State's office had been told the patch was designed specifically to address.

Some critics of electronic voting raised questions about the 2002 Georgia race even at the time. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, who was five percentage points ahead of Republican challenger Saxby Chambliss in polls taken a week before the vote, lost 53% to 46%. Incumbent Democratic Governor Roy Barnes, who led challenger Sonny Perdue in the polls by eleven points, lost 51% to 46%. However, because the Diebold machines used throughout the state provided no paper trail, it was impossible to ask for a recount in either case.

Concerned by the electoral outcome, the whistleblower approached Spoonamore because of his qualifications and asked him to examine the Diebold patch.

McCain adviser reported patch to Justice Department

The Ohio press conference was organized by Cliff Arnebeck and three other attorneys, who had filed a challenge to the results of that the 2004 presidential election in Ohio in December, 2004. That challenge was withdrawn, but in August 2006 Arnebeck filed a new case, King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association v. Blackwell, alleging civil rights violations in the 2004 voting. The case was stayed in 2007. On Thursday, Arnebeck filed a motion to remove the stay and allow fresh investigation.

Individuals close to Arnebeck's office said Spoonamore confirmed that the patch included nothing to repair a clock problem. Instead, he identified two parallel programs, both having the full software code and even the same audio instructions for the deaf. Spoonamore said he could not understand the need for a second copy of the exact same program -- and without access to the machine for which the patch was designed, he could not learn more. Instead, he took the evidence to the Cyber-Security Division of the Department of Justice and reported the series of events to authorities. The Justice Department has not yet acted on his report.

Allegations surrounding Ohio in 2004

At the Ohio press conference yesterday, the former McCain adviser said Michael Connell, of the Republican Internet development firm New Media Communications, had designed a system that made possible the real-time "tuning" of election tabulators once Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell had outsourced the hosting of vote counting on the same server which hosted GOP campaign IT systems. He said he didn't believe Connell was behind the alleged fraud, but that he should be considered a key witness.

Spoonamore also confirmed he's working with Connell on overseas election issues and that Connell is now working as John McCain's IT developer.

Connell has a long history with the Republican Party's IT infrastructure. In 2001, for example, he set up MajorityWhip.gov for then House Majority Whip Tom DeLay. He also helped built georgewbush.com, as well as the Ohio GOP site Spoonamore referenced.

Sources close to Spoonamore said he was very concerned that he would lose his contracts as a result of coming forward and would take a "large financial hit." These sources added that, despite his concerns, Spoonamore felt obligated to reveal what he knows to the public. "He felt he had no choice as an American citizen but to come forward, and he also knows the likely consequences of him doing so," one source said.

An audio file of the press conference is available here.

Could someone explain to me why no one is talking about "the numbers" in Mississippi's March 11 primary? The Republican Secretary of State predicted that between 80,000 to 100,000 voters would turn out for the primaries, both Republican and Democratic, which is similar to the turnout in 2004. Well, Secretary Hoseman was a little off. For the Republican primary, 143,286 votes were cast. For the Democratic primary, 434,152 votes were cast. That's ~ 3x's more Democratic votes than Republican! And keep in mind, this is the primary. The general election numbers should increase. Am I the only person who is witnessing this phenomenon? Mississippi just lost a U.S. House Seat that should have been safely Republican. I mean, please mainstream media, start looking at this race objectively. And objectively, this is an historical election that clearly favors Barack Obama, not in the media, but with the People, the voters, including voters in Mississippi. It's the media's job to report the facts. These are the facts.

Yes, but using just the 2004 numbers sidesteps THREE important issues:

1. The massive increase in support for Obama among the 18-34 voting block (yes, even among whites in the south)

2. The presence of Bob Barr on the ballot, especially in Georgia where he will undoubtedly siphon off tens of thousands of conservative voters from McCain.

3. MOST IMPORTANTLY - Obama will be getting a MUCH HIGHER percentage of the black vote than Kerry did. This article assumes Obama will get the same percentage of black voters that Kerry did - he simply won't. In some of the Southern states, Kerry only got 85% or so of the black vote. Obama will carry 95%.

Increasing black turnout in Georgia, for instance, by 30% and having Obama carry that group with 95% of the vote would alone net Obama an additional 293,041.

The Obama campaign is planning to try and register an additional 400,000 to 500,000 black voters than are currently registered. Currently, according to the Georgia Board of Elections, there are 1,330,751 active black voters on the rolls. And that doesn't even count inactive. It is not at all unreasonable to imagine a scenario where, once the Obama campaign registers the majority of the black voters, as many as 1.4 million African Americans show up at the polls in Georgia, with Obama getting 94% of that group.

This alone would net Obama 589,587 votes over John Kerry's total in 2004. Add to that Obama's much higher level of support than Kerry's among Hispanics, Asians, and the 18-34 white group, and you may have yourself an Obama victory in Georgia. I for one wouldn't be surprised in any way.

My prediction of Georgia is as follows:

...............Obama...McCain...Barr/Nader/Other
White 64%....26%.....68%......6%
Black 32%....94%.....4%.......2%
Other 4%.....48%.....48%......4%

Which results in:
Obama 48.64%
McCain 46.72%
Barr/Nader/Other 4.64%

@Clint

For your scenario to work -- i.e. Georgia vote being 64% white, 32% black and 4% other -- the following must occur (I'm relying on current voter reg stats): Black turnout needs to outpace white turnout by 12 to 14 points. It is usually the other way around. For example, in 2004, white turnout was about 80% while black turnout was about 72%. Granted, the black electorate will be more enthusiastic this time around, but this would require a near 100% turnout among black voters. Furthermore, your scenrio requires turnout among the "other" group to be less than half (it was about 60% in 2004).

Interesting article but I am not sure it is relevant. First of all, I don't believe Obama is going to be competitive in the South. One of the main reasons is that no southern state, even with Bill Clinton on the ballot (and Perot was not on the 1996 ballot), could pull off a win, and he had heavy AA support.

As far as the House election goes, in the Childers election, something that MSM has always failed to mention: Childers won by saying, unequivocally, that "He did not know Obama and had never met him." This is not exactly ringing endorsement for Obama's Southern strategy. Once again, Tip was right, "All politics is local."

Just like Idaho, Utah, Nebraska, etc., these states are never going to be Democratic states. Those are the facts. Another fact that all this analysis does not mention, which is also a fact that has never been proven wrong (except once), when a candidate loses the state in the primary, he never wins that state in the general election. Therefore, Obama will lose PA, OH, FL, MA, NY, etc. The only exception was in 1976. Carter lost NY in the primary but won it against Ford in the general election (which gave him the White House) because several weeks before the election the headlines in the NY Post said: "Ford to NY, Drop Dead!" That was when the NYC was in financial straights and asked the government for help.

Obama is going to lose NY because he will not win Long Island and Upstate, two major Republican strongholds that Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer have won with hard work, even though they are Democrats. Obama is not in that category.

So, we can speculate all we want to. In the end, I say, Obama loses 40 states. Not quite 1972, but probably as close as Democrats would want to be to the 49 state loss of George McGovern. Incidentially, McGovern was also put at the top of the ticket by the political left wing pooh-bahs.

That has to be the most unintelligent remark I have read today: "Obama loses 40 states." What have you been smoking???? Obama will win the whole Northeast with its 117 electoral votes. He will hold on to all of the states which Kerry won in 2004. That gives him 252 electoral votes. McCain has a solid lead in states which total 86 electoral votes. Obama has solid leads in Iowa with seven electroal votes, Iowa has voted Democratic many times in the last thirty years. Obama does not have to win one state in the South and he can still win the election. All Obama has to do is force McCain to defend the South by spending money is these states. Obama will win every late north of the Ohio River which gives him 31 electoral votes in Indiana and Ohio. All Obama has to do is pick up two or three states and it's over. The margin of error for McCain is slim since he will not carry one stated in the north. It looks like a North v South election with the battleground states in Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada. etc.

>>>"Another fact that all this analysis does not mention, which is also a fact that has never been proven wrong (except once), when a candidate loses the state in the primary, he never wins that state in the general election. Therefore, Obama will lose PA, OH, FL, MA, NY, etc."

Horse hockey.
There are plenty of instances in which a candidate did not win the primary in a state but won that state in the general election.

Bill Clinton did not win the Iowa caucuses nor the New Hampshire Democratic primary, but won electoral votes from both those states in 1992.

What about Jimmy Carter, who won Rhode Island in 1980 general election, but had lost the Democratic Primary there to Ted Kennedy?

You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. Please look up some.

>>>"Obama is going to lose NY because he will not win Long Island and Upstate, two major Republican strongholds that Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer have won with hard work, even though they are Democrats."

We're talking about the State of New York, right? The one in the United States of America -- over in the upper-right of the map, right?

Look -- New York has 62 counties, of which, five are the boroughs of the City of New York -- Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.

Nearly 50 percent of the state's voters reside within the City of New York. This voting group typically votes 90-95 percent Democratic.

The upstate urban counties -- Erie, Monroe, Onondaga, Chemung, Broome, Albany and Schenectady also vote Democratic, unless Ronald Reagan is running for president.

Together, New York and these seven urban counties control 60 percent of the total vote, although this is declining as Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse depopulate.

Meanwhile, the Republican regions -- the 40 or so upstate farm counties -- and Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, and Duchess, Orange and sometimes Westchester in the Hudson Valley -- control a minority of the statewide vote.

Republicans are the ones who face an uphill climb, somehow turning out the vote in the quickly depopulating upstate, or converting unionized Democratic voters in the aging inner-ring suburbs of Buffalo and Rochester to throw their lot in with a Republican.

Meanwhile, NYC continues to grow at much faster rate than the rest of the state -- adding Democrats all the while.

A Democrat will win New York this fall. There's no way to stop the demographics.

Well, since we're going with opinions as predictions, I'll go with "Obama will win all 50 states, but will concede to Dave Barry as the actual winner."
Anyway, you mention assumptions, Jennifer, but you don't examine yours. Your underlying assumption in this whole analysis is that 2004 and 2008 are similar enough election years that we can isolate the voting results (specifically one segment of the vote) of one and use them to predict the overall results of the other. I think this is not credible. In baseball terms, it's like changing the height of the pitcher's mound and then using the previous season's records to predict the next season's top batting average. Sure you can do it, but you're very likely to be wrong. I'm not sure that you can actually get a good basis for comparison, but maybe a 'Bill James approach' would be more useful. Try to find several years as similar as possible in social and poliical conditions and use them as comparison. It may be too intractable, but over-simple analyses give misleading results.

The idea of barack losing a state like New York is as believable as him losing California, or McCain losing texas because of the large Hispanic population and blacks in Houston and Dallas. That said, McCain could possibly steal PA and maybe Michigan, it'll be hard to while running on free trade though. Barack could steal one of the two Carolinas and Virginia. He has shown tremendous strength in those states and the GOP are a bit more apathetic about this election while Dems are exuberant about it.

To use a 2004 baseline is to ignore the most important factor, the way the political winds were blowing. In 2004, Bush used the concern over national security and the gay issue to energize his base. The "wind" was in Kerry's face. In 2008, by a large margin, voters think the country in on the wrong track. The economy is getting worse and everybody but a small minority want us out of Iraq. The "wind" is very much in McCain's face. His base is demoralized and will not be as energetic in walking their neighborhoods and maximizing turnout for McCain. It was estimated that the values voters generated an extra 4 million votes in 2004. Nothing on the political horizon suggests they'll be motivated to participate again, especially since their issues were not pushed by Bush.

On the contrary, Obama has a grassroots energy among minorities and the young which will definitely show up in increased turnout. It is an open question whether it will be enough, but the South should at least be more competitive in 2008 than it was in 2004. McCain will be forced to defend those electoral votes as Bush did not in 2004.

None of the comments have picked up on the essential point of ideology. The South is still fundamentally conservative. Partisanship ebbs and flows, but ideology remains constant. When I see polls showing ideological movement then I'll think the South can go Democratic. The Southern state that most reliably votes Democratic, Arkansas, is also among the least conservative of Southern states.
http://blackpoliticalanalysis.com

None of the comments have picked up on the essential point of ideology. The South is still fundamentally conservative. Partisanship ebbs and flows, but ideology remains constant. When I see polls showing ideological movement then I'll think the South can go Democratic. The Southern state that most reliably votes Democratic, Arkansas, is also among the least conservative of Southern states.
http://blackpoliticalanalysis.com

Thank you Polcomm for opening my eyes to the weaknesses of Obama. He lost NY, New Jersey, California, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Ohio, and many other states in the Democratic primaries. And since no candidate wins ANY state they lose in the primaries, John McCain will sweep the nation in a landslide victory. Republicans will take California's electoral votes for the first time in 20 years, and New York's for the first time in 24 years. Yes, even Massachusetts will have no choice but to choose McCain, because without Hillary Clinton Democrats could never win in such a red state. So McCain will become president, we will start World War III with Iran and Russia, gas will go to $20 a gallon, electric companies will instate rolling blackouts, the skies will darken with ominous clouds, and Americans will be stricken with weeping sores over their entire bodies while frogs rain from the sky.

WHY oh WHY didn't we have the foresight to prevent Vizier Obama from usurping the throne of the rightful Empress of the United States?!? How could voters have stabbed her in the back after all her years of clawing her way to the top??? Huh? Better Robert Mugabe for president than the charlatan Obama!!

[/Bizarro World]

Given the bankruptcy of Republican ideology, not to mention the erratic behavior of McCain and his campaign, this year really ought to be a landslide the likes of which we haven't seen since Reagan's win over Mondale. That's not going to happen of course. The USA as a whole has become so reactionary since 1980 that Sarkozy, a center-rightist in his own country, would be seen as a flaming radical pinko here. Nationalized single-payer healthcare?? BLASPHEMY YOU INFIDEL!

This article neglects the significant upsurge of young voters, and by that I mean voters aged 18 to 21. I have been a poll watcher and election official for many years, and I have never seen such a turnout of young voters in my precinct as I did in the primary this past February. Except for one young man who voted in the Republican primary, all the young voters voted in the Democratic primary. Based on the election returns in this precinct, my guess is that almost all of them voted for Obama.
As for their ethnicity, they were all over the place.