I've been seeing more and more allegations of voter fraud going around. I think it's good and right to count all the votes (provisional and absentee), and I also think it's grand and necessary to audit the fuck out of electonic machines.

However, I have yet to see any actual evidence that there was organized fraud on a scale that could have tipped the balance 150,000 votes, which is what people are talking about with Ohio. That's not easy. An audit and full count is in order, but the actual mechanics of shifting the balance to that degree make it highly unlikely.

Also, I'd like to say it's highly depressing when people forward me emails containg quotes like, "It's a statistical impossibility that Bush got 8 million more votes than he got last time."

That's bullshit. It's not in any way a statistical impossibility. It's reflective of the worst stereotypes of liberal elitism. Here in the reality based community, we know there were 128 million registered voters in the 2002 election, with 80 million more of voting age but unregistered (source: census). Turnout in this election was about 115 million. There's plenty of room in there for anyone to pick up 8 or 10 million more supporters just by shifting alliances among the already registered, to say nothing of bringing in new people.

The fact is, there are a lot of people out there who really like Bush, or at least voted for him. Believe it. Contemplate it. Figure out what to do.