I don't want to sound like a paranoid jerk....

[ClarkJonathanKent]

but I don't think a lot of the results last night are legitimate. Here in Florida, I don't know ANYONE that said they were going to vote for Rick Scott except for a few people on Facebook. Additionally, ever since medical marijuana was put on the ballot, I hadn't met ONE person, in real life or Facebook, that said they were against it. We know for a fact that the game has been rigged before through indirect ways (voter suppression) and direct ways (rigging computers). I just can't shake the feeling that the game is MOSTLY rigged at this point.

[riderinthestorm]

1. Welcome to DU!

The big wins by people like Joni Ernst make me question the notion that the machines were rigged. If it were super tight, I'd be more persuaded.

I think there's a lot more compelling reasons the Dems lost so badly last night, much as I'd like to say "we was robbed"....

[MadDAsHell]

2. I don't think you're paranoid at all..

Even though I'm encouraged by the movement against video screen voting and other more manipulable (word?) voting methods, I don't think the cries are loud enough. Faith in the validity of our vote and the process in general is a bedrock of democracy; any candidate who made just that issue alone the foundation of her/his campaign would have my vote.

With that said, I haven't yet read enough about reported irregularities yesterday to make a judgment on whether tampering affected any outcomes.

I do think we need to be careful not to automatically assume that because the votes didn't go our way that the election was stolen, or that the voters are "fucking idiots" (as a long-time lurker, I've seen a lot of these posts after every election cycle), for a couple reasons:

1) Calling people "fucking idiots" because they think differently is not, generally, very persuasive
2) Many voters (on both sides of the aisle) are way too much in their own bubble, sounding a bit foolish when they say "I don't know anyone who said they were going to vote for this candidate;" I think we on DU are as guilty of this as anyone. Either some of us don't know many people, or maybe we know alot of people but heavily scrub our social groups of dissenters because in the case of Rick Scott, if the vote totals are valid, there's nearly 3 million people surrounding you that voted for him.

I'm as guilty as anyone of wanting to default to the easy way out, assuming either 1) the election was stolen, or 2) the electorate is not very bright. But automatically rejecting the notion that some (certainly not all) of our ideas just might not be that popular, or at least that we're not communicating/explaining them well enough, seems to be a surefire way to lose future elections in the same manner.

[tallahasseedem]

3. I lived in Tallahassee during the 2000 theft

You're not being paranoid at all.

When that "power failure" occurred, I knew we were screwed.