3 PM UPDATE-- MICHAEL STEELE IS TAKING HIS LAST NAME LITERALLY

We'll be getting the first results in from parts of Kentucky and Indiana any minute now.

The Sacramento Bee isn't exactly a bastion of liberalism or a partisan Democratic Party outlet. But when they smell a rat trying to undermine democracy, that're off on a tear. And that rat? John Doolittle, one of the dozen most corrupt members of the House. The RNCC and his political machine have been making illegal robocalls to try to swing voters against Democrats. Today's editorial makes the problem crystal clear, regardless of how much the Goebbells-contingent at Fox screams its head off about Democrats.

Voters in the 4th Congressional District, featuring a contest between incumbent John Doolittle and Charlie Brown, have received lots of attention.
For one, they're getting a lot of prerecorded phone messages, so-called "robocalls." Most calls are on the up and up. Callers clearly identify themselves and say who is responsible for the call at the beginning of the message, as FCC rules require. They state their message, and the caller is free to listen or hang up.
But voters in Doolittle's district -- and in at least 53 competitive House districts nationwide -- have been getting harassing, deceptive calls.

The calls begin with, "Hi, I'm calling with information about ," giving the appearance of being from the Democratic candidate. If you hang up early, you get called back, up to eight times. Only at the end does the recording say the call is being paid for by the National Republican Campaign Committee. The NRCC has spent $2.1 million on such calls. The aim is to disgust voters enough to keep them from going to the polls.
If you don't like these robocalls, at least make sure you know who is calling before you hang up. FCC rules require not only that prerecorded calls identify the sponsor of the call, but also give a telephone number.
Then hang up and vote. This is your day to send a message.

One of the most tried and true methods Rove and Mehlman (waterboard, waterboard) use to hold down voter turn-out is to cause long lines and delays and discourage voters in Democratic precincts. Democratic lawyers across the country are already going to court and asking that polls stay open later to make up for problems like too few voting machines and broken voting machines, which always seem to happen in inner cities and never in wealthy suburbs. What a coincidence!

I voted a few hours ago. Turn-out in my precinct was steady and the poll worker thought it was about average or maybe a little better. A.P. reports that in Connecticut voter turnout is high, always a good sign for Democrats.

Meanwhile, the kids are alright-- or at least they're voting. "Early numbers show significantly higher young voter turnout in a number of student-dense precincts; in fact, in four youth-dense precincts in Maryland, Michigan, and Ohio, student turnout at 2pm was already higher than the final vote count in that same precinct in 2002. More info on young voters and the specifics on patterns in these precincts can be found here.

The Maryland GOP is reaching new depths in the art of dirty tricks. Steele and Ehrlich are bouncing around a real all time low in American politics. They distributed misleading sample ballots that pretend Ehrlich-Steele are Democrats and that Jack Johnson and Kweisi Mfume endorsed both of them. Steele's campaign pretended not to know who was responsible for this when their campaign hired buses to pick up workers at homeless shelters in Philadelphia and ship them to Maryland. I don't remember all this stuff from when I was a kid, do you?


UNCOMFIRMED EXIT POLLS PROVE WITHOUT A DOUBT THAT GOD HATES FASCISTS

I don't know if these are real or not but they come from a reliable source:
The early exit polls are devastating for the right-wingers. Democrats are up hugely, across the board: VA (53-46), RI (53-46), PA (57-42), OH (57-43), NJ (53-45), MT (53-46) and MO (50-48)...
These numbers look too high to me. Exit polls... who knows what they mean?
Although... Fox just released exit polls too and they are very good news for Democrats too. Don't break out the champagne yet though. Rove, no doubt, intends to steal as many races as he can. Let's watch and see what happens.


UPDATE: KENTUCKY RESULTS START TO TRICKLE IN

Exit polls show progressive Democrat John Yarmuth up over rubber stamp nitwit Anne Northup, 51-47 and far right wing imbecile Geoff Davis beating slightly less far right Democrat Ken Lucas 66-32 with less than 1% of votes counted (i.e.- totally meaningless).
UPDATE ON THE UPDATE: KY RESULTS COMING IN

There is only one progressive running for Congress in Kentucky, John Yarmuth and with 15% of votes counted he's beating Anne Northup 51-48%.