Yesterday in Georgia, Representative Cynthia McKinney, whose reputation -- for speaking truth to power, asking tough questions, and refusing to back down when she's right -- is entirely deserved, went through the first stage of the primary elections leading up to November, when she hopes to retain her seat in Congress.
The Democratic candidate is expected to win easily in November, and McKinney was expected to win easily yesterday. But then a funny thing happened.
What happened? Nice question! Voters who were trying to vote for McKinney on on Diebold touch-screen machines saw their votes flipped to her strongest opponent, Hank Johnson, as they looked on in disbelief!
It's as if the clerk at a McDonald's pressed "McChicken", and the screen lit up where it says "Quarter Pounder" ... and it kept happening over and over and over ...
Does this sound strange? Well it shouldn't. It's such a common phenomenon that it's already got at least two names: it's commonly called either "vote-flipping" or "vote-switching". And there's even a long history of similar incidents.
It's a shame that this doesn't get much coverage in the big media. But don't get me started on the failings of the big media: That's another story -- a long sad one. Instead let's concentrate on what happened in Georgia yesterday.
Guess what? Vote-switching was only one of the many so-called "irregularities" that the McKinney campaign has reported. None of which have made a single dent in a single big media outlet; and there are precious few other sites covering this story either.
I gave up blogging almost a year ago, or at least I thought I did. Now I can't believe I'm blogging again -- and even more bizarre: I can't believe I'm the only one on the whole internet who is blogging about this today.
Well, maybe I'm not the only one, but if any other blogger has posted anything at all about this story, I sure can't find it.
I will post some more details here when I can, but in the meantime you can read all about it at The BRAD BLOG, where this lowly and nearly frozen blogger is guest-hosting for a while.
Wouldn't you know it? He leaves me in "the chair" and within 24 hours all what-cha-ma-callit breaks loose!
Yesterday
REPORTS: GA Dem Primary Votes Flipping from Cynthia McKinney to Opponent Hank Johnson
Today
Atlanta Progressive News covers McKinney Vote-Flipping Claim