2004 Election Anomalies

Firstly, I would argue that the election was corrupt from the start - as you cannot hold fair elections in a society with such high levels of inequality (class, race, gender, sexual orientation, etc).

But since most people buy into the US electoral system - it is fascinating to observe all of its shortcomings.

CNN exit polls had Kerry winning by about 2.5% (if I recall correctly), whereas he officially lost by 3%. Here is a Research Paper on how likely that difference was to occur.

There is also another paper, more statistics-heavy in nature, that estimates that
Bush got an extra 130,000 votes in Florida due to electronic voting machines. Whether it was by machine error, voter error, or fraud.

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On a more positive side, the Vermont Progressive Party, perhaps the most successful progressive third party at the state level in the United States, increased its number of state house seats from four to six.