So is there an election scandal in Alaska or is my tinfoil hat a little too tight?

I have been talking to everybody who will listen to me about this issue both yesterday and today.

I have found many people who are just as confused as I am and really believe there is something afoot. Then there are others, many good activist friends, who think my cart is waaay out in front of my horse.

So this is what I have to work with so far.

Voter turnout is the second lowest in the history of Alaskan politics. Why?

We had over 4,000 Democrats who were excited enough to caucus on one of the coldest days on record in February of this year. The old record for turnout in a caucus was 254 set in 2004. Are we to believe that they crammed the halls of the Begich Middle School just to stay home on Tuesday? Really?

By the way here is the webpage for the Division of Election in Alaska. On it you can look at the voting, precinct by voting precinct, and see how everybody supposedly voted.

And from that site here is an interesting observation. In Anchorage the largest concentrations of African Americans live in Fairview, which only shows a turnout of 25.61%, and in Mountain View, which is broke up into three voting precincts with 30.82%, 26.38%, and 36.38% respectfully.

Now it seems to me that if you are an African American living anywhere in this great country, and for the first time you believe that your vote might finally help break the color barrier that has kept the Presidency lily white for two hundred years, you would crawl through glass to cast that vote. And yet those are among the lowest numbers for turnout in the entire state.

Now I am certainly not the only Alaskan blogger wondering about this election.

Shannyn Moore has two great posts here and here on the subject.

And Mudflats has pondered what this all means here.

If you want to see and hear what MSNBC's Rachel Maddow has to say about all of this then just click here. And as her guest she also has fivethirtyeight's Nate Silver who is also more then a little concerned over the numbers.

So what does this all mean? Right now not a hell of a lot.

But it does mean that ALL progressives have to sharpen their senses and pay very close attention to the final count of early votes, absentee ballots, and questioned ballots. It means we do not take ANYTHING at face value. It means that we show unity in our desire to make damn sure that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF OUR VOTES GET COUNTED!

If there is nothing to this, then fine, no harm no foul. But if we find that somebody has decided to piss on our democracy and take away from us the very thing that makes us Americans. Well then we need to make damn sure they are caught, tried , and punished.

They will find plenty of company in Alaska prisons with other Republican politicians and henchmen who also thought that they could take advantage of the people of this great state.

We have a new leader in our country and he has called on all of us to stand with him in protecting this nation.

Personally I am planning to answer that call to action.

Are you?