Where The Votes Don't Count and the Results Are Made Up

Well, it’s late Tuesday night, I’m surrounded by junk food, and I’m still awake and writing… so there must have been a Republican primary or two, or three. Sort of, kind of, not really.

But before I delve into the results, I have to stall, because they’re not in yet. It’s sort of a recurring theme in the Republican primaries: the vote counts come in late and inaccurate. No one much said anything when Iowa decided Santorum won, not Romney, but by the time Nevada had trouble keeping it’s story straight on it’s vote count, something clearly smelled fishy.

Nevada awards delegates proportionally, so it was kind of important to get the whole vote calculated correctly, but they’re having trouble doing that. It turns out Republicans aren’t very good at this whole “democracy thing,” especially the counting part. Only a Republican could fail a test where the only questions are in the form of, “What number comes after X?”

It’s laughable that Republicans have been crying about “voter fraud” that amounts to a few dozens cases nationally when Republicans have lost thousands of votes in their own primaries. Then again, the push to disenfranchise poor voters by mandating photo IDs to vote had nothing to do with trumped up voter fraud, but in cutting off votes for Obama. If you can’t win clean, you play dirty, I suppose.

It’s already looking like Santorum won the all-unimportant, non-binding Missouri primary. In fact, all three contests today are being called “beauty pageants” by the press, and Santorum is undoubtedly happy to be the belle of the ball. Unfortunately for him, the results of none of these three contests will lead directly to any delegates being awarded. Still… let’s pretend it matters, on a psychological level… and because I wasted the time to write this, and I ought to feel like it was worth it.

In addition to Missouri, Santorum is also the current frontrunner in Minnesota, dontcha know? With 72% of precincts reporting, Santorum leads Ron Paul, 44.6% to 27.5%. Romney is currently third with 17%, with Gingrich garnering 10.6%. Romney is projected to win in Colorado, but it’s still speculative at this point.

Romney has to feel satisfied with the results today. The Not-Romney camp can’t decide between Santorum and Gingrich, with Midwesterners clearly favoring Santorum (I guess because they don’t have the internet yet) and Southerners favoring Gingrich (I’m assuming because he has no qualms with abandoning his civil unions). Romney is poised to coast into the nomination on the strength of the Northeast and Western States. Also, expect a big win for him in Michigan, where his daddy was the Governor.

I think people are burned out on politics. The race stopped being interesting a while ago, and the media’s bias has not been for or against any candidate, but in creating a real competition. Without the media elevating these nobodies who wandered aimlessly like Alzheimer’s patients onto the ticket, Romney would have been a breakaway favorite from day one. The media did a good job leading up to the Iowa Caucus, but it’s felt like bad reruns ever since.

Here’s hoping things get interesting when Romney faces off with Obama come August.