So Who Won?

"As you go to the polls, remember, we're at war."
- George W. Bush

See TPMCafe's election scoreboard for the latest results.

The New York Times says the results may not be clear for days:

With control of both chambers of Congress possibly hinging on narrow majorities, and with late polls showing tightening margins in many of the closest races, just determining which party will lead the House and the Senate next year may prove difficult.

Concerns about new voting systems and polling place rules also could complicate this year’s tabulations.

In Indiana’s Delaware County, voting in 75 precincts was extended from 6 p.m. until 8:40 p.m. because of problems with voting machines there.

Problems with electronic voting systems also will keep the polls open an extra hour, until 9 p.m., in Pennsylvania’s Lebanon County, where Chief Clerk Elaine F. Ludwig said she could not predict how that would affect vote counting there.

“Long and late is all I can say,” Ludwig said.

Indiana and Pennsylvania were among 10 states flagged for possible voting difficulties in a report released two weeks ago by Electionline.org, a nonpartisan organization that monitors election procedures and technology. New identification requirements for voters in some states, including Indiana, and complications involving new touch-screen voting machines and voter registration databases are among the possible culprits cited in the report.

If the worries about widespread election systems turn out to be over-hyped, the large numbers of absentee votes and provisional ballots that election officials anticipate receiving still could contribute to delays in the final counts in some key races.

Is it time to Bring in the lawyers?

More than a third of the electorate voted on new electronic machinery, and anxiety about the experiment in computerised democracy was evident from the beginning as reports came in of glitches.

In Florida, there were complaints that touchscreen computers had wrongly recorded voters' choices and Democrats called for the machines to be impounded. In parts of Indiana and Ohio, computer problems meant polling stations failed to open on time, with voters being turned away or given paper ballots.

"It's an unmitigated disaster," said Warren Stewart, the political director of VoteTrustUSA, a watchdog organisation that is deeply sceptical about the introduction of electronic voting. "There is no way to overestimate the problems. I was expecting it to be bad, but not this bad."

It was unclear how many voters were affected. Any suggestion of a malfunction or fraud in the many close races for the House of Representatives, Senate or governorships was expected to spark a legal challenge in an election fought against the backdrop of a divisive and unpopular war...

Following the 2000 presidential election, which brought Mr Bush to power after a legal battle in the supreme court, lawyers have played an increasingly important part in party strategies. The justice department sent a record 850 poll watchers to 69 cities and counties as a safeguard against fraud. Meanwhile, the Democratic party recruited more than 7,000 lawyers to watch polling stations on its behalf, and the Republicans are believed to have fielded a similar number.

Kos says today is the end of the electronic voting machine:

Here's the bottom line -- no one trusts those machines anymore.

Meanwhile, Greg Palast cites all the GOP-made hurdles and challenges readers to steal back the vote:

It's true you can't win with 51% of the vote anymore. So just get over it. The regime's sneak attack via vote suppression will only net them 4.5 million votes, about 5% of the total. You should be able to beat that blindfolded. If you can't get 55%, then you're just a bunch of crybaby pussycats who don't deserve to win back America.