Elections 7 NOV 2017

[boutons_deux]

Explicit racism is on the ballot tomorrow

If Ed Gillespie wins, the GOP's transformation into a Trumpian racist party will be complete.

https://i1.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/temp14.jpg?w=750&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C420px&ssl=1

https://thinkprogress.org/racism-ballot-virginia-gillespie-84db1f3192a8/

Gillespie has been out-Trashing Trash as white supremacist, xenophobe.

If Gillespie wins, expect other Repugs to follow his hate-filled, paranoia-saturated success

In VA, it's the usual educated, urban blue areas vs the uneducated, working class rural areas.

[RandomGuy]

Northam Heads Into Virginia Governor’s Race With A Small Lead
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-virginia-governors-race-might-not-be-predictive-but-it-could-really-matter/

Unlike, the NJ governors race which will be a blowout.

[boutons_deux]

How Twitter Bots And Sockpuppets Used Trump’s Tweets To Mess With Virginia’s Governor’s Race

Race-baiting gets amplified by a dedicated cyber troll network.

A Twitter network of bots and “sockpuppets” played a critical role last month in amplifying President Donald Trump’s race-baiting tweets in support of Ed Gillespie, the Republican candidate in a mud-flinging Virginia gubernatorial race that will be decided tomorrow.

During his campaign, Gillespie, who was endorsed by Trump, reached deep into a rucksack of racist chicanery to smear his opponent, Democratic Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam. Gillespie tied Northam to the violent El Salvadoran MS-13 gang and blasted him for suggesting that Virginia’s Confederate statues be relocated to museums.

The tight race promises to be a bellwether for white grievance politics in the 2018 midterms as well as the overall direction of the Republican Party.
It might also be a sign of how unwilling or unable Twitter is to crack down on abuse on its platform. A week ago, Twitter’s acting general counsel, Sean Edgett, testified before Congress about the steps his company has taken to prevent election-meddling.

Since at least the beginning of the year, a mysterious network of accounts on Twitter has fueled divisiveness in American political discourse, including in the Virginia gubernatorial race.

This network, which includes sockpuppets (accounts operated by actual people under false identities) and bots, was identified by Susan Bourbaki Anthony (SBA), a team of data scientists with whom I collaborate to track the spread of propaganda on social media (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/twitter-ignored-this-russia-controlled-account-during-the-election_us_59f9bdcbe4b046017fb010b0?zu9).

For the Virginia gubernatorial race, SBA looked at almost 135,000 tweets mentioning “Gillespie” from more than 70,000 unique users.

The tweets in our sample were all sent between Oct. 13 and Nov. 2.

Of those 70,000-plus users, 1,672 accounts belonged to the so-called cyborg network, which put up over 3,000 tweets.

Around 90 percent of those tweets were retweets of others’ content.

And 35 percent of the retweet total amplified messages from just one user ― Donald Trump.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/twitter-bots-sockpuppets-trump-virginia_us_5a01039de4b0368a4e869817?utm_medium=em ail&utm_campaign=__TheMorningEmail__110717&utm_content=__TheMorningEmail__110717+CID_840ce451 3f266b08a168bf72a39e12f4&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=amplifying%20race-baiting&ncid=newsltushpmgnews__TheMorningEmail__110717

[boutons_deux]

Virginia ACLU sounds voter suppression alarm over phone calls telling Dems to go to wrong polling place


supporters of Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie may be using dirty tricks to suppress the votes of Democrats.

In a tweet before Tuesday’s voting got underway, the ACLU explained that Democratic voters are getting phone calls falsely telling them that their polling places had been changed.

“The Prince William Democratic Committee received notification this morning that Democratic voters in the greater Prince William area… are receiving calls from out of area telling them their polling place has changed,” a statement attached to the tweet said. It was not immediately clear if the statement had been made by the ACLU or a third party.

The statement noted that the calls had been identified as coming from Gloucester, VA and Adairville, GA.

“We must make sure that everyone knows that these phone calls are fraudulent and attempted voter suppression,”

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/virginia-aclu-sounds-voter-suppression-alarm-over-phone-calls-telling-dems-to-go-to-wrong-polling-place/?
utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

Lies, cheating, and dirty tricks, are all the Repugs EVER have, because they love America, the Constitution, and FREEDOM! so damn much.