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Fox Desperately Stokes Fears of Flawed Election
Check out FoxNews.com's frantic effort to lay the groundwork for the claim that Obama's expected win is illegitimate, the product of a chaotic and fraud-prone election system and voter intimidation carried out by violent African-Americans.

At one polling site in Vermont, voters could maybe even look over and see each other's ballots! The election is ruined!
Not to pooh-pooh the importance of a secret ballot, but this is really grasping at straws.
In a way, you can't blame Fox. In stoking fears of an illegitimate election, it's only following John McCain's lead.













TOUGH!!! Get over it..!!! Paybacks are a bitch..FOX
November 4, 2008 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh noes!!! Black Panthers intimidating voters!!!
Leaving aside how they knew they were Black Panthers (aren't they all about 70 years old by now?), how come there was no outrage over GOP operatives harassing voters elsewhere?
November 4, 2008 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, you guys totally whiffed on pointing out Fox flacking the "Black Panthers" story. Without that, there IS no huge frontpage banner trying to stoke election fears. They just made the editorial decision to not lead with that because they wanted to maintain a smidge of plausible deniability when people call them on stoking racial resentment.
They'll leave that for Drudge.
November 4, 2008 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
hello_world, we didn't whiff on anything. we didn't want to give fox's ridiculous and offensive black panthers claim any more direct attention than necessary to make the larger point.
November 4, 2008 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I notice Fox also has a headline about Sarah Palin releasing her medical records. She did no such thing, of course. It was a two-page medical "summary" from her physician.
"Sarah Palin's doctor in Alaska says she's in excellent health with no known health issues that would interfere with her ability to function as vice president if she and Republican John McCain are elected Tuesday."
That news will certainly turn the election...
November 4, 2008 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are those actual ballots, anyway? Or printout images of what you will see once you enter the booth like we had at our polling place?
November 4, 2008 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
They've dumped that image in favor of a photo of a white guy riding a horse past "Ruby Town Hall".
November 4, 2008 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I live nearby, so I can say that those look a lot like the optical-scan ballots typically used around here.
Note, by the way, that there's plenty of room depicted in the photo for people to fill their ballots out more privately; the voters in question simply didn't bother to do so. Why would they think anyone but a nosy Fox stringer cares how they voted?
I'm not sure of the population of Calais (which has perhaps a dozen roads to its name), but I'd be surprised if it's as much as a thousand.
November 4, 2008 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's a lovely little town, though. Pronounced "KA-liss", btw, not "CaLAY" as you might expect. Because they're Vermonters. :)
November 4, 2008 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
The same for CAL-iss, Maine. Chalk it up to a certain stubborn real-NewEnglandy thing, like BER-lin, Connecticut.
November 4, 2008 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
A complete piss-in-their face gloating extravaganza can be found at
www.MacYapper.blogspot.com
November 4, 2008 3:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some much of the story is a crock (with a few shards of legitimate reporting on real polling place problems in between).
But the Vermont photo is highly misleading. That polling place does have booths where people can vote in private -- the folks you see on the church pews are folks who choose to vote there rather than wait in line a bit longer (and in Vermont that is never very long) for a booth to free up. The big turnout produced lines even in tiny Vermont towns. They were voting in full view because they wanted to!
Of course the "Black Panther" b.s. is the heart of their ugly racist fear-mongering, their one last try to scare white people and cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election. I guess we shouldn't expect anything different from Fox.
November 4, 2008 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
After the election we need to go after Faux Noise. It is essentially a propaganda machine for the Republicans. Between Faux and Friends, Sean Hannity, Bill O'reilly, Mark Levin, Mike Church and Brit humes. They have done a pretty effective job of disseminating GOP talking points to these low information getters. Its amazing how synchronize these shows are on a daily basis spewing misinformation to their audience. You could easily flow charts this crap (Mchate->Gop surrogates->Matt Drudge->Faux Noise et. al.) Anyway lets cross our fingers for an Obama Victory tonight and then lets set our site on Faux Noise.
November 4, 2008 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Black Panthers?! What is this, 1971? Hey guys, hop in the Torino, we'll go check it out!
November 4, 2008 3:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm a Vermont resident. I was comparing our early (absentee) voting to a friend's in Massachusetts. In MA, you're not allowed to take the ballot out of the clerk's office. In Vermont, you can take it home with you, fill it out at your leisure, and bring it back, as long as you seal and sign it correctly. I don't understand why MA does it the way they do. I mean, once I've taken my absentee ballot, my name gets crossed off the list and I can't vote normally. What issue does MA have with people taking the ballot home with them?
November 4, 2008 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
generally that kind of restriction is viewed as "protection" against someone taking their ballot home and being forced to vote a certain way by their spouse (etc), or from selling their vote and filling it out in front of the person buying it.
Of course that is a ridiculous justification, but that's what some folks offer as their objection to voting at home, by mail, etc.
November 4, 2008 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a resident "Masshole" I have to ask: do you really expect there to be a reasonable "issue" underlying this type of regulation? This is Massachusetts we're talking about. We loves our regulations.
November 4, 2008 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope Obama wins by a huge margin; I am sure that the Republican machine is ready with "lawsuits" to disenfranchise voters if any key states are won by small margins.
Of course, my guess is that the Obama team is ready for this. They seem too clear in their thinking not to have a game plan in place for such a scenerio.
November 4, 2008 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let them, I truly don't care. There is NOTHING they can say or do to halt this oncoming landslide, nothing and they will have to swallow their medicine this time.
November 4, 2008 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, with any luck Barack Obama should be named President Elect at approximately 9:00 pm tonight. At approximately 9:00 pm and 5 seconds we can expect Fox News to start referring to the "Tainted Obama Victory" a phrase that will be used under direct orders of Generalissimo Rupert to describe the election along with "Triumph of Left-Wing Fascism". Let's face it, these guys were vicious when they were in power; I can only imagine what they're going to say when they're out.
November 4, 2008 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Scroll down the Fox News page and you'll find
"Features and Faces:" which highlights five white female beauties...Tisdale, Lohan, Spears, Winslet, Underwood...and Obama. Kind of a two-fer "celebrity" and "country club" oldies but goodies salvo.
November 4, 2008 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I came across a comment on a different forum which stated the building the 2 Old Broke Back Black Panthers was NOT a polling place??? anyone else came across that info
November 4, 2008 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, puleeze
And some Obama supporters are saying the same thing vis-a-vis Virginia. In fact, your very next entry is "Virginia Looking Like Ground Zero For Voting Problems" -- Kos has a similar story, and some commentators are thinking the election is going to get stolen.
Let's lighten up. These days _all_ the election-day stories (until polls come out) are about problems at the polls: TPM, DKos, and Fox included.
November 4, 2008 4:41 PM | Reply | Permalink