So this is one for the philosophers- Why does Brock care that his ballot won't be counted until Nov 17? It's still one vote- if things are close enough that his vote will matter, then they'll count it, and if the races are decided, his vote won't matter. But it's one vote either way- if his was the very first vote counted, it would still have the same weight but he wouldn't be complaining.
(A riff on the whole "Your vote doesn't matter, but everyone's vote matters" paradox)
Something similar happened to a co-blogger, Brock.
1 leaves aside the provisional part and the possibility it won't be counted at all- assume it will be counted, just later. I agree the possibility it will just be thrown out sucks and there's no way to guarantee it won't.
I dunno, LB. The poll workers at my usual place (at which I'll be voting for the last time today, sniff!) are very sweet, very incompetant little old ladies in church hats. That's who the permanent residents in that area are, and that's who volunteers. If we had switched over to electronic machines already, I'm afraid that these ladies would be completely unable to handle any problems that came up. I don't know exactly what the answer is. These ladies have been there every election, every primary, for the last six years, and probably long before I moved into the area. They're good people, but not, I fear, technologically competent.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the electronic voting machines in my district created paper receipts. I was less pleasantly surprised to discover that they had all been set up the wrong way around, so that the backs of the voters (and hence their screens) were turned towards the voting judges and all the people waiting to work. All those great LARGE TEXT and HIGH CONTRAST options afforded by the electronic machines made it next to impossible to avoid seeing what many of my fellow voters were up to.
I was about to open my own voting-stories thread when I saw yours. My recent experience was mixed. On the up side, I had the option of a paper ballot, and it was handled in a careful and professional way. (A little more secrecy would make me feel better, but otherwise it was fine.) On the down side, getting to that point took longer than it should have, thanks to the glacial oldsters in charge of IDs. I hope there are more poll workers there during peak hours, or there'll be some lines.
More generally, yes, outrageous that there are any polling problems at all, and even more so in poor districts. How are voting budgets (for machines, etc.) run? Is there some explanation for why it seems harder to vote in poor areas?
I suppose this comment should have gone here. Sorry.
For the record, I do live (and vote) is a relatively poor neighborhood. And in past elections when I lived in more affluent neighborhoods I had very, very different experiences.
4: That's true, but it's not related to funding. My grandmother was an ancient church-lady poll worker until she got ridiculously too old for it, and we've got the same type in my neighborhood now. But there's no systematic reason for rich neighborhoods to have competent pollworkers, and poor neighborhoods to have incompetents.
I just voted in Charlottesville, Va. They asked for an ID, a request I don't recall from past elections (I just voted in the June Democratic primary). Not a huge deal; I handed over my driver's license. I have a sort of compilcated last name and I was a bit groggy and it was just easier than questioning. But now I'm wondering what people without IDs are doing.
7: I don't have a good explanation other than malice. There may, of course, be one, I just can't think of what it could be.
I don't think anyone in my old neighborhood would dare suggest that Grandma So-and-so was too old to be working the poll anymore. In 2004 there was a young earnest volunteer at the polling place; he'd been thoroughly sidelined by the long-term ladies.
My vote was completely effortless, but the only NC-wide races this cycle are for judges, my Democratic representatives in the State House and State Senate were both running unopposed, and my 8-term Democratic US Representative has a sacrificial lamb opponent. Very poor target for shenanigans.
It's kinda nice living in a one-party district.
Oh, no one told Grandma to quit. You could get hurt doing something like that: she was scary. She quit when she moved to Atlanta to be near my uncle.
Idealist is working the polls in Nassau County, and reports that at 50, he is by far the youngest poll worker at his location.
14: Yep. All the energy in my district was around some judicial races -- no one else even campaigned. I meant to check and see if someone was running against Rangel, but I forgot.
Making things more lively at my polling place, which is in the lobby of an apartment building that is partly or wholly an assisted living facility, was the toppling over of a voter. He did it very impressively, like a tree, and claimed that it was his knees giving out. I'm not sure what happened to his half-completed vote, aside from being particularly visible to everyone for a while. Our poll-worker incompetence was otherwise wholly unconnected to any of the new technology, just the usual incredible decrepitude on display in verrrry slowwww leafing through the books of names.
I live overseas and vote in Indiana. I requested my absentee ballot in August. It showed up in the mail last Thursday after 15 days in transit. I wonder why they even bothered to send it.
When I called the election board they told me my ballot was in the first batch to go out, so somebody seriously dropped the ball and disenfranchised every overseas absentee voter in my county. (Wonder if the military found a way around the problem?)
They let me submit my ballot by fax (thanks to HAVA), so I was only robbed of the right to a secret ballot.
You know what problem I had when I voted today? I don't have any fucking congressional representation.
Hate when that happens. What'd you vote for? Is there a mayoral election or something?
And check out the update -- really nasty shit in Virginia.
DC has a non-voting congressional delegate who's elected today.
19 - You couldn't be trusted with it anyway.
The mayoral and city elections were all sewn up in the primary election—GOP don't live here—but today voters can make it official. There's a school board election that matters, and District voters get to pull the lever for thumb-twiddling shadow senators.
21: Seriously, people should have to go to prison for that. Not white-collar prison, but full-on get-stabbed-in-the-shower state penitentiary time. It won't stop until that starts happening.
This voter suppression shit just makes me so miserable. I hate people.
Calls are going out to Democratic voters
How can this sort of thing occur without leaving behind all sorts of very clear evidence? Calls leave electronic records.
I haven't voted yet today, but all this talk of pollworkers reminds me of my polling district in Grad School City, which was staffed by the usual little old ladies and, every election, a kinda haggard-looking black drag queen.
She and the little old ladies seemed to get along great.
25: I can't believe this, and I'm certainly no Virginia state law maven, but it looks as though shit like that is a goddamn misdemeanor. Jesus H. Christ on a fucking pogo stick.
Idealist is working the polls in Nassau County
It's cracking me up that he lives in Nassau County. I had him pegged for a Suffolk man.
The update is so bad I almost can't believe it's true.
Sometimes I think that's what the Republicans are banking on--just utter disbelief.
Shadow senator sounds very cool- it's all Babylon 5.
No, people! We on the west coast just woke up and are still feeling optimistic and patriotic!
Argh.
shit like that is a goddamn misdemeanor
Well then, vigilante violence it is.
31- it's being reported on NBC, so I assume it's not pure fluff.
All my optimism is gone. I just want the night to be over now.
I voted! There were elderly ladies in suits crossing out names in triplicate and I got to pull a lever! I flicked the switches and pulled a lever!
(I've never voted non-absentee before.)
29- WHAT?!?
Who are the legislators that sit down and decide "hmm... election fraud? Seems harmless enough. Let's make it a misdemeanor". I bet it's felony to carry around an ounce of pot, though. Gotta keep the kids safe.
Damn I'm getting angry this morning.
And it really should be a holiday, because I'm not getting shit done.
I really like the lever machines. Not for any good-government reliability reasons (although that too, I suppose) they're just so early 20th Century mechanical technology. It's like the pneumatic tubes at the main branch of the NYP Library (if they still use those.)
Oh, I should say that I'm in Cuyahoga County myself, though not that polling district, obviously. Even though things went smoothly enough while I was voting, it doesn't fill me with confidence about what's going to happen at the end of the day.
Brock, do you know how much an ounce is? That's a lot of fucking pot.
40: I know! It was like I stepped into an Asimov novel, except without robots! LEVERS! SWITCHES! I got to pull a lever!
God, I'm giddy. Voting rocks.
43- you're right, Jody, it is a lot. Obviously a worse offense than election fraud. What was I thinking?
(And just so you know, possession of amounts smaller than that not packaged for distribution probably is not a felony. I don't know Virginia law, but that's my guess.)
A friend points out that we live in a whiter part of Cleveland Heights; perhaps no wonder that our polling place got all working cards.
If you're feeling pessimistic you might want to go put some money down at TradeSports (not through a U.S. bank, though!). The SENATE.GOP.2006 contract is currently trading at 68, after lingering in the mid-70s last week. HOUSE.GOP.2006 is way down to 16.5; it opened last week at 35 and has barely dipped below 20.
Oh, and some good news. My ward is overwhelmingly minority, and there weren't any hassles at the polling station, but then, it's not like there are any Republicans around here. Still. Polling place in the projects... with levers!
44: I can never remember where you're located, but if you're voting with lever machines, are you in NY? and if you're in NY, are you showing up to drink beer tonight?
That's a lot of fucking pot.
Not the way I smoke it, it isn't.
No, and no. I would like a beer, but I have papers to grade.
It's not so efficient to just throw it in the fireplace, apo.
I love the lever machines. I always imagine there's a Republican on a rack in the basement.
Maybe I shouldn't have admitted that.
Just bring your papers along, Cala. I'll savage their grammar.
And I called my mom and she said she didn't know who to vote for and I told her Santorum is a tool and she should vote for Casey ('oh, the governor's son?').
Denver has been having problems with computer crashes resulting in 2 hour waits.
45: You know, if people start calling Joe Jody, he's going to be even more popular than he doubtless is now. "Jody" just drips with boyish insouciance and early-Bowie-ish seductiveness.
I'm about to head over to my polling place, and I wanted to ask the other NY voters what they thought about this campaign to punish the Working Families Party for its 2004 endorsement of Republican John Spano.
I have no real committment to the WFP except the vague desire to show up as lefter than thou, so the simple fact that this campaign exists seems likely to deprive them of my vote this time around.
I don't mean to be a Luddite, but if the levers work and are such a joy to pull, then why the hell are we investing in computers that don't work?
Apo, is your brother boyishly insouciant? B/c if so, rowr.
I think of 'Jody' as more backwoods rural than glam-rock seductive.
They break down a lot, Cala, and there aren't that many parts around anymore. Nobody kicks up too much of a fuss about it because they're used only in the NYC-area, which isn't exactly a swing district.
59: I voted Democrat rather than D candidates on the WFP line as I usually do (for your 'leftier than thou' reasons) based on Gilliard's post. I haven't actually figured out the merits of the complaint against them yet.
63: Besides election stealing fun, of course.
I love lever machines too. I remember going into the voting booth with my Mom, and it was always lever machines behind a curtain.
Apparently, though they are very easy to rig, since there's no individual countable ballot.
So we're substituting machines that don't work for machines that don't work... but have a lever!
65- They have pull levers in Landers Home State, which is not NY, and is borderline swing. I loved 'em.
64: I'm down with sorta working class wiry. Cowboy, backwoods boy, glam rocker: all good.
Apo, is your brother boyishly insouciant?
He's 3-1/2 years younger than me, with more or less the same sense of humor, but without the wives and kids.
I love the lever machines, too! Savor the satisfying "Kerchunk" of democracy!
Although I am in NY, the meet up is a little far for me to travel.
This is making me all nostalgic, since I cast my first votes on lever-pulling machines. Fun!
My polling place was packed with people at 10:30am this morning. There were probably 9 of the little booths in the elementary school gym where we vote, but people were just voting wherever they could find a space. I'm tall enough to use the top of the collapsed bleachers, and bonus, that was the only place at all private.
All of the volunteers in my precinct are middle-aged African-Americans. The oldest person there, I'd guess, was 60 or 65, but many are in their 40's or 50's. Next year I'm volunteering, and I think it's going to be a blast.
I was very amused by the one white lady ahead of me in line to put her ballot in the box; she bitched at the guy handing out the "I Voted" stickers at the ballot box because "there aren't any Republicans on this damn thing." If she was being sarcastic I failed to detect it. Sucks, lady. Just sucks, don't it?
On the privacy thing, in 2004 I did early no-excuse voting. Again, packed. The lady in line behind me struck up a conversation, outside the room where voting happened. She claimed that her kids had played soccer with the Bush twins in Texas many years ago. "Laura's a stone bitch," she said. "I hate those people. They are such snobs." Later, she sat next to me in another of my precinct's fine tradition of haphazard vote-where-there's-an-available-surface elections. When she got to the judicial elections, she all of a sudden piped up to me: "Who're you voting for?" I made some stammering noises, then she leaned over and said, "What the hell, I'll just copy yours." I was mortified, but laugh now.
66.--Ok, that's good enough for me, then. The WFP gets one fewer vote this time around. See you all later.
36- don't we have the Unfogged Campaign Against Diebold loaded up and ready to launch at the first signs of trouble? I thought LB put something together a few months ago. Launch, LB! It's go time! Launch the UCAD!
I have a male friend named Jody, and he is charming, shy, and sweet, with a nice Alabama accent. Also, I believe that he reads both Latin and ancient Greek.
"Laura's a stone bitch," she said. "I hate those people. They are such snobs."
Right on.
72: Smartassed plus single = good. Invite him over when I'm around thataway during the MLA, why don'tcha?
I am
Nothing
You are
Wind and water and sky
Joe D
(I think I made that joke already here, but it's addressee, the one person who will likely appreciate it, didn't see it. So, I repeat myself.)
They break down a lot, Cala, and there aren't that many parts around anymore. Nobody kicks up too much of a fuss about it because they're used only in the NYC-area, which isn't exactly a swing district.
They were used throughout Pennsylvania up until this election (or maybe 2005, I didn't vote in 2005).
I missed them too today. The ATM-style push-screens we have now are very clear and it's easy to understand what to do, but I don't have what you might call a sense of confidence that I actually voted. But I guess with the old ones there was no guarantee that the lever actually punched a hole in the paper either, so I guess my feeling of insecurity is based on the principle of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it. It wasn't broke, but it was fixed. Therefore, it must have actually been broke, if by 'broke' we mean 'fair, accurate and unable to ensure Republican victory'."
Thanks for the WFP heads up, now can I throw my vote away on the Green party candidate for comptroller out of Hevesi distaste?
Thanks for the WFP heads up, now can I throw my vote away on the Green party candidate for comptroller out of Hevesi distaste?
Go ahead, I voted for the Green candidate for House on the basis that there was no Republican candidate and the Democratic incumbent is not known for anything but being one of a group of congressmen who live in a big mysterious Christian group home in Washington.
I'm not going to put forth an impassioned plea for Hevesi, but I voted for him. He's done a good job for a long time (Giuliani was attempting to privatize big parts of NYC's water supply. Hevesi blocked him.) and improperly using a state driver for his sick wife was wrong, and dishonest, but it wasn't the sort of dishonesty that leaves him in debt to someone who can manipulate him with it.
But if you think Callaghan is preferable, or simply can't vote for a peculator (which is reasonable) vote Green.
I was disappointed when RI got rid of the lever machines a few elections back. But it seems to me that the optically scanned paper ballots that we now use are so much better than anything I hear about electronic machines or any other system. Easy to fill out, the machine visibly and audibly counts each accepted ballot, and there's the paper record if needed. The technology seems a lot simpler to deal with, too. They lack the romance of the old machines, but without digging into the weeds of the voting method debates, strike me as a reasonable solution.
Yeah, optical ballots strike me as the best of the lot. So long as the paper ballot is understood to be the legal vote, rather than the computerized record, if you see what I mean.
Everything should be levers and turned out of solid brass. If it has big humming vacuum tubes and lots of fine cogwheels that whirr and sputter, all the better.
And if you scanned it optically by pulling a lever, so much the better!
All of the volunteers in my precinct are middle-aged African-Americans. The oldest person there, I'd guess, was 60 or 65, but many are in their 40's or 50's. Next year I'm volunteering, and I think it's going to be a blast.
RMcMP is in my district! Except that I think they were all in their late fifties.
My girlfriend in Denver says she had an hour and a half wait at 8:30 am and was late to work--and saw other people leaving the line w/out voting.
Hey, w/d, I took care of that thing you asked about-- it's in the archives now.
92: And of course, a Jacob's Ladder.
I wish I could just vote from home on the internet, like I do all my other shopping. Going out in public requires pants, and pants compromise my decision-making abilities. And voting is a very important decision!
I appreciate both the taking care of it and the awesomely mysterious way you have chosen to communicate having done so.
Yeah, I enjoyed the paper ballots. As much fun as voting levers are, the old machines always made me wonder whether the machine had really recorded a vote or not. The ballot I filled out was pretty unambiguous: I filled in my 'republican' box and all was well. Granted, the ballots could be shredded, for all I know, but the whole thing had that feeling of reliability.
An ounce of pot is not that much.
I thought you were voting Green again, Labs.
re: 96
My Dad used to make Jacob's Ladders. Out of wood and stuff. 1970s hippy toys were great.
The big sparking 'Tesla on crack' kind would be cool too.
99: Does that come with a free pair of neuticles?
weird experience out here in Cook County, IL.
I'm in an affluent, generally Democratic suburb (can't tell you which, for witness protection reasons). I went in to vote this a.m. around 8:30a, and the poll-workers were already snorting in frustration and threatening to quit.
They gave the polling place two touch-screens, and four paper-ballets where you mark with a pen and a scanner reads it.
One of the touch-screens ("Sequoia Systems" models) was malfunctioning all the time, they had already called repair, and had to call repair again while I was there. One woman spent about a half-hour trying to vote on one, at the end of which it still wouldn't take her vote, and she stormed out saying she would have to come back after work.
For the paper ones, you need a special pen. They had been given only four special pens, though they had been given six booths for the paper ballots. What they are going to do when the pens dry up I have no idea.
I looked at the situation and thought: this is Cook County. The one thing I can be pretty sure about is that the Republican Party is not behind a conspiracy to suppress the vote here.
But, damn, if I were in some other locale, I would be pretty sure that the Republican Party was behind a conspiracy to suppress the vote.
Dunno what to say. The fact that it seems to be simply gross mismanagement here does not tell you much about the causes elsewhere.
98: yeah, well, I forgot how to work webmail.
An ounce of pot is not this much either.
Pwnéd.
You either want an accent grave, or another e following the one with the accent aigu.
For the paper ones, you need a special pen.
OK, I'm starting to lose my temper. What the hell? This is not a hard problem to solve, and still we screw it up.
A year or so ago, there was an event (little parade type thingie) near my office composed of men wearing things like that. I got talking with one of the participants, who explained that there was a schism in the movement between fashiony guys who wanted to be able to wear skirts as fashion without it being percieved as drag, and who referred to their preferred garments as skirts, and the manly men who favored them for their comfort and practicality, and referred to them as kilts. People apparently got quite hostile about the nomenclature. The name of the event? Something along the lines of "The March for Men in Unbifurcated Garments."
They had been given only four special pens, though they had been given six booths for the paper ballots. What they are going to do when the pens dry up I have no idea.
Or when somebody walks off with one of them. I've almost done that before.
You better stay anonymous, #113. Transparent example of voter fraud right there.
I just voted to allow fusion voting in Massachusetts. I think that was the right thing to do, since the Democrat is almost never in danger of actually losing a seat. There are almost no primary challenges*, so the only way to signal that one cares about specific issues is a separate party line.
Some of teh anti-gaymarriage old-line Democrats were succesfully challenged by Progressives, but that sort of thing is rare. It's also easier to fund that sort of challenge (because there are enough rich gays, many of them DINKs) than it is to fund one to help poor people.
I had no wait at my polling place, and a standard-issue MA optical scan ballot. Definitely staffed with similarly standard-issue old ladies, though in this neighborhood it seems to be old white ladies instead of old black ladies.
However, when I fed my ballot into the machine, I had to interrupt a poll worker feeding a few dozen ballots into it, which bothered me. Whose ballots were those, and why didn't the people who filled them out put them in? But I chickened out of asking nosy questions, especially when a couple of old ladies (with a cop behind them) asked pointedly if I was done voting.
Just wondering - has anyone at all voted in a place with a Libertarian on the ballot? Do they exist anymore outside rural areas of Texas, Georgia and Indiana?
haven't voted for any Libertarians.
I'd vote Libertine in a heart-beat.
There was always a Libertarian line on the ballot in NYC in the 90's if memory serves.
The problem with the LP is that in their quest to get a candidate on the ballot for every race the past few cycles, they managed to run an awful lot of candidates who were obviously insane. And, in the process, they turned their name brand from irrelevant to risible.
The volunteers in my precinct are either ancient or twenty-something. While I was waiting to vote this morning one of the ancient ladies checking names against registrations suddenly shouted out "Irish potato!"
I voted on a touch screen machine. There weren't any problems--there never have been AFAIK--but they don't provide printed receipts and I'm still not filled with confidence. Anyway, my Democratic Rep is a certainty and our Democratic gubernatorial candidate is a long shot. This time, I mostly just wanted to vote for the local organic farmer who's running for Ag Commissioner.
For what it's worth, one individual, at a minute or so past 1 PM, staked about $5,000 on the GOP keeping the house on Tradesports. That represents half of the volume of the day. I begin to wonder.
None this time, though in 2004 the only challengers to any of the Dems in my NC state legislature races were Libertarians, if I remember correctly.
Of note: my first year of NaNoWriMo, my NaNovel was about a Libertarian getting elected governor of NC in a fluke election. The next year at the State Fair, Rah and I walked by the Libertarian booth and ended up spending a couple of minutes talking to the candidate for governor. It freaked me out to learn that she did, by coincidence, look and sound exactly like the governor in my story. The real one was crazier, though.
123 was me. And there were plenty of Libertarians on my ballot, but then again, rural Indiana...
While I was waiting to vote this morning one of the ancient ladies checking names against registrations suddenly shouted out "Irish potato!"
Best election story so far.
123- $5g is half the day's trading volume? Now that's pretty weird. In '04 there was a *lot* of money buzzing around that place. I realize presidential elections are much bigger deals, but I'm stunned at only $10k of activity. Especially since I think that website has become more rather than less popular generally over the last few years.
*Although, I just remembered the whole crackdown on internet gambling thing, and that Americans can no longer participate. So that makes sense.
We used to use the paper ballots with special pens; this time it was just straight-up ballpoints. It even said on the ballot "use a ballpoint or other pen with black ink." Yay for increasing simplicity!
111 - The thing is, until recently, nobody thought it was a big deal. The massive Florida one-two-three screwjob to Gore in 2000 drew a lot of attention to the problems, and when you don't have to be from rural Indiana to think that when a bunch of mid-level state politicians try to do things quickly, they're going to screw things up. Then Diebold, Sequoia, and the other big one (ES&S, I think?) took advantage of the situation to sell unacceptably bad machines to a bunch of rube state election officials, and once that happens, the die is cast, because no secretary of state or county election commissioner is going to admit that he or she wasted millions of dollars of taxpayer money on devices that the most ineptly run bank in the world would laugh at.
No offense to people south of the border, but it's depressing to realize that Mexico has a much better run and more transparent electoral system than we do. Maybe a Democratic House, which has a vested interest in fixing things properly, will figure out a way to do it.
Voting was a breeze this morning. We were in and out in about 10 minutes, voting on optical-scan sheets. I almost feel left out; it was a rather boring experience.
I'd say the average age of the poll workers was 75.
All this talk of machines, levers, touch screens, scanning etc, is quite exciting. We get a piece of paper. Nothing happens to it, you just put it in a box.
Why did all the machines etc start being invented? Something to do with the fact that you can vote for several things in one go?
I think we have more elections than you do, because we have more layers of government (Federal, State, Local). I voted in maybe 15 elections today, I'm not sure exactly how many.
127: Tradesports is a little complicated. The guy I mentioned only put down $5,000, but the odds are at over 5:1, so the person he took the bet from staked $25,000 (much earlier than 1pm). The bet was 2,980 shares at 16 points; total volume for today is (now) 7,793. That represents $77k. Total volume is 107,916.
I am not sure my vote took. We have touch screens with paper confirmations and the machine they made me use had to be restarted after every vote. Maybe it was supposed to do that, but I didn't see any of the other machines doing that.
Also, the little wings that are supposed to hide your votes from your neighbors don't work when you've got them set up in / / with each slash representing a machine pointed inward, the whole setup facing the lines of people waiting to vote. It was a gym. They could have at least turned the machines around so the screens pointed at the other side of the wall.
I volunteer every time to help the board of elections in my county and they never call me. What will happen when the fragile elderly women can't run our election sites I don't know.
I counted the bubbles filled in on my ballot -- 25 of them. And no referenda!
(1) To answer 1- I know it doesn't matter. I also know my one little vote among millions doesn't really matter, either. I take the time to do it anyway. And just knowing that the election will be called before my vote has even been counted makes me feel like the time I took to do it was completely wasted. Not to mention the fact that my ballot wasn't at all secret, but was attached to my name/address/birthdate, which is really bothersome.
(2) Apart from tone, 81 wasn't a joke. I really thought the hive mind did some work on this a while back? With uncharacteristic earnesty? I didn't participate, so I can't recall for sure.
(3) Is it just me or does this article make no sense?
(2) We all suck, me most of all. Yes, I got really really really earnest for about fifteen minutes, as demonstrated by coloring post titles orange. Then I did some research and got confused, and then no one did anything.
138- lazy hippies, the lot of you.
The fact that it seems to be simply gross mismanagement here does not tell you much about the causes elsewhere.
It's mostly mismanagement everywhere, but mismanagement can often be nudged in a desired direction. What this country needs is the elimination of all that self-esteem building crap and the adoption of seppuku for screwing up more than a trivial task. That would alleviate a great many problems.
I like the way you think. Given 138, I'll be evicerating myself with a letter opener now.
115- fusion voting? Who gives a fuck? What about wine in convenience stores? That was the only important question on the ballot. Tell me you got it right, please?
Also, I have a very bad habit I can't seem to break: for every single name/race that I know about on the ballot, I'll almost invariably pick the "D" candidate. Governors, representatives, AG, blah blah. But for some reason on all the lesser races that are just total blind spots to me (Auxilliaryman, Bakery Supervisory Counselmember, Fashion Police Chief), an odd magnetic force pulls my hand toward the "R" candidate, and I feel compelled to mark their name. For the life of me I can't figure out why this would be. I assume it's from growing up in a very "R" household and having some lingering deep-seated sub-conscious affiliation with "R" over "D", although on a conscious level that's completely not at all true. Regardless, it makes me feel like I need to go drink some bleach to purify my insides.
Eh, you're in Massachusetts. There's a limited amount of harm you can do.
143 -- whisky works better.
143, despite growing up in a totally D household I think I know how you feel. For me, I think it's because I don't know much about the down-ticket races and am worried that the D candidate might be atrocious in some way.
Or maybe it's just the same anxiety you get when you're taking the SATs and notice that you've given 'C' as the answer 5 times in a row. That can't be right! Can it?
And now for a dispatch from the provinces. As you may know, Oregon runs all of its elections by mail these days, and we got our ballots ages ago; I dropped mine off at my local public library branch last night. I miss going to a polling place, but if we can cut down on election-day malfeasance and fuckups -- and keep a paper trail in the bargain -- I suppose it's worth it. Oregon really should change its nickname to "The Reliable and Boring State," but I think a lot of people, especially at the Mineshaft, prefer the current one.
A relatively painless voting experience here in RI -- except that the fire station smells like a gym. There were some issues with little old ladies whose names weren't on the right list, or something, and the election official who signed me in seemed to be one step away from comatose, but the precinct warden was on the ball.
Or maybe it's just the same anxiety you get when you're taking the SATs and notice that you've given 'C' as the answer 5 times in a row. That can't be right! Can it?
I think you may have nailed it.
Also, 145 is right. A lot of my choices weren't actually D or R, but D or "Green/Rainbow". Rainbow? (I mean, I get it, no need to explain it to me, but I don't think I've ever heard of it before.)
Other friends who also live in Cleveland Heights tell me that even though they show up as properly registered here, they got the "sorry, you're not in the book" provisional ballot deal that Brock did. Awesome.
Whoa, sorry. Link in 151 was supposed to go here.
My old roommate IMd me about an hour ago: "OMG! Did you know that Virginia's gay marriage ban might affect unmarried straight couples too!"
Thank you for joining our election already in progress.
Hilzoy has a good dirty-tricks roundup here. What pricks.
Love current CNN.com headline: "Iraq Clouds Critical U.S. Vote." Earlier, there was nothing about the election on their front page--instead it was a big ol' picture of Saddam. Do you think maybe the current headline is self-referential?
143. I do the same, but for the Libertarian, or if a non partisan race I will not vote for the incumbent. I usually will vote to keep a Judge, barring the usual live boy/ dead girl thing.
Sorry, 156 was me. No problems voting, and we use these ink blot pens instead of punch cards now.
I admit that some small part of me wants the Republicans to hold onto both houses, mostly for this reason. But then I remember that this is real life and that would be the worst possible outcome.
148: Oregon has the most sensible laws of any state, country or municipality I have ever heard of. I am often tempted to move there just because it is well governed.
And the crazy thing is that a lot of your good laws seem to have come through the ballot initiative process. It is enough to make you believe in popular democracy!
I just spoke with a Latino election monitor in Arizona who said that a trio of men, one with a handgun visible, is harrassing Latino voters as they go to the polls in Tucson, Ariz.
except that the fire station smells like a gym.
It was weird there this morning--freezing cold walking up to the fire station, then humid and, well, gym-like, inside. Fortunately it was quick, even if they didn't have signs up for the different lines yet.
I wish Ted Turner were dead so that he could spin in his grave over what CNN is like. I mean, really, Glen fucking Beck?
I had an awesome voting experience. I was the only voter in there, and the most frail and serious-minded of the volunteers was off to lunch. The other ladies were cracking jokes about the shitty "improved" voting machines other states get ("we ain't going to let them pull that Florida shit here! we keeping our lever machines!"). In and out in five minutes, but I would have loved to stay and hang out a bit.
The 866-OUR-VOTE problem reporting hotline has logged 2,800 calls as of noon ET, nearly 1/3 of which are from Pennsylvania. Is Santorum going to pull it out?
Who are all these Republican dirty tricks shitheads, and why are they not spontaneously bursting into flames?
No wait at all to vote, my actual precinct (having just changed it) is an assisted living facility right next to my apartment which was operating two or three machines and didn't seem to have much demand for them when I was there, around 12:45.
Oregon has the most sensible laws of any state, country or municipality I have ever heard of.
Really? Wasn't Oregon the state a while back that had to make a bunch of really draconian and stupid cuts because people wouldn't pay taxes at an appropriate level, completely shafting their schools and health care? I want to say there was an anecdote about an epileptic or something who could no longer get his cheap maintenance medication through the government and had a stroke and is now on $250,000/year life support.
Here's something I was just wondering about -- would it be within the Constitutional powers of the US Congress to legislate that all election districts which use a machine to tally votes must have a fallback method in place in the event the machine is not working on election day?
Yep, I was right. But they pulled the plug.
His family estimates that his total medical costs could reach $1 million, much of which is likely to be borne by the state. The epilepsy drug that Schmidt stopped taking before his seizure cost $13 a day.
I've never gotten to be the one to say this before, at least not that I remember, so I relish this:
Is Santorum going to pull it out?
ATM.
169 -- But the mountains are very pretty. And there's blackberries!
I think that eliminating Election Day polling was one of those cuts, actually.
78 -- If it's not too late to maybe salvage a vote for the WFP: They made a tough call in endorsing Spano, and maybe it was right and maybe it was wrong (given the vagaries of political strategy). But overall they are working pretty effectively to push NY politics leftward, and they really need their 50,000 votes for Spitzer to keep their ballot line for the next 4 years.
I think I may have no choice but to join the drinkers this evening.
Sorry, DaveB: too late for this vote.
159, 167: I suspect Oregon politics looks better from the outside than it really is. Oregon is a stronghold of anti-tax fanatics and property-rights absolutists, and the initiative system has resulted in some really bad laws, such as the so-called "double majority," which requires voter turnout above 50 percent to pass local tax increases. So a school levy, say, can pass overwhelmingly but not go into effect if a majority of registered voters don't send in their ballots, which is often the case in off-year elections. It seems plainly unconsitutional, but it means that you can exercise your vote -- by not voting! Oregon: Things are Different Here.
172: The budget argument definitely helped to push the vote-by-mail system, but election-day polling wasn't eliminated just because of cuts. Vote-by-mail has been in the works for a while.
171: Most of the blackberries here are a Himalayan variety that came via England. The fruit is nice, but the plant is a monstrous weed that's nearly impossible to get rid of without extreme measures. It's the kudzu of the Northwest.
165: Who are all these Republican dirty tricks shitheads, and why are they not spontaneously bursting into flames?
Non-spontaneously-combusted Republican dirty tricks shitheads are proof that God hates us and wants us to die. Painfully.
179: That's a new take on the problem of evil, the inconsistency of a 3-O God and the inflammable properties of the Republican shills.
They're still campaigning here. A truck just rolled by with a loudspeaker attached telling us to vote.
What's this? It appears the Republicans may have lost control of Frankenstein's monster! Now we're all surely doomed!
I posted my election day story.
I feel good. Today is going to be a succes, I think.
175- Drinking liberally, Middlesex lounge, 8:30?
My area didn't require an ID, just a bill or the voter registration or an ID. The retiree waved away my attempt to show her my driver's license.
the inconsistency of a 3-O God
Damn right - when conference play starts, God is going to be lucky to even become bowl-eligible.
I think you're not supposed to have to show anything. At least in Illinois.
My location is awesome- you just tell them your address, they look it up on a sheet, then ask your name, which you could read off the sheet they're looking at. No ID. Even better, there's a list of all registered names and addresses posted outside each polling place, so just pick one and go in and tell them you're that person. All you have to hope is that person hasn't voted yet, so go early in the morning and pick a backup.
Not that anyone's ever done this.
Our polling place got moved way up into the hills -- not a big deal for us but a potential problem for El Suburb's substantial senior population. There are several old age homes within walking distance of the old polling place on the flats.
I really wish I could have taken today off to volunteer in a precinct and/or haul some carless seniors up the hill. Though getting Granny in and out of my Miata would be a treat for all involved.
181 - What a bunch of fucking bullshit.
Also, I was voter #6 at 9:30 AM, which would be really discouraging if not for the large number of voters I saw listed as absentee in the book. (We use optical-scan paper ballots, but the threat of Diebold is ever-looming.)
185: God's an Independent in football.
While I understand the arguments against needing to show an ID, and I agree with them, it still strikes me as a little weird that not only did I not have to prove that I was who I said I was, but that I didn't get a receipt. I know voting isn't ATM withdrawals, but still.
181 - I hope that's not accurate.
NJ people really don't like Menendez, but they don't want Republican control of anything national. It's a shame that these national races are based on local issues sometimes.
It baffles me that you would rely on volunteers to run elections. Here they hire people to work on Election Day. It's a long day's work but it pays pretty well, so lots of keen young people do it. Elections are held on Saturdays so there's no interference with other jobs.
Jesus Christ. Check out this first-person account of voting in Cleveland, Ohio on a Diebold touch-screen.
Just voted: optical scan paper ballots. They had one new-fangled machine, which no one was using. I chatted with one of the volunteers, who said they wanted to have all electronic (no paper trail) machines for this election, but found that the machines were so easily hacked that they put it off (the one machine they had used more sophisticated encryption).
Also worth noting that I checked the county website to confirm my polling place, only to go there and find that it had been moved. At the second place, they had my name, but while I was there, turned away one quite elderly lady who would be a hero if she managed to get to another location to vote. The simple casual chaos of the process is so disheartening.
I know we're all focused on the short-term future right now, but I wanted to get back to the Smashing one's 19.
While there's no political office holder (or challenger for a political office) whose incentives are directly aligned with associating themself with the cause of D.C. voterhood (because D.C. can't vote), wouldn't it be a very good way to gain a national media spotlight since so much of the national media is in fact in D.C.?
Subsidiary questions: where did the political momentum come from for a) the passage of the 23rd Amendment in 1961 and b) sending to the states the District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment in 1978?
Also interesting to note that Joe Lieberman introduced a (unconstitutional, according to me) statute to grant D.C. voting rights as recently as 2003. Perhaps he saw the possibility of attention-getting.
Since this is the general thread on elections, I'll just hijack it quickly for Chicago-area purposes.
I don't know if any of you already knew this (Google found no mention): a non-partisan website Vote For Judges exists to help voters handle the enormous number of judge retention and new judge elections we face in Illinois. It handily compiles the recommendations of 10 different local lawyer groups and bar associations here. I'm looking forward to making semi-informed choices in local elections for the first time ever today.
Unlike the party-based choices of 143 and 147, my shameful memories of corrupting democracy in 2004 were choosing the Water Commissioner candidates whose names were the most fun to say (I think Majewski actually won).
198: Yeah, trying to do the judge retention votes in an informed way is a huge pain in the ass. I tried to do a bunch of research, but I still didn't feel like I had much information. I wish there were some way for people to actually know about sucky judges.
Voted on the way into work, didn't have to show them anything, optical-scan ballots that you mark with a felt-tip pen, effectively no line, and the voting place was in someone's garage less than two blocks from my house.
On the one hand, I don't know why it can't be this easy everywhere, but on the other hand, I've worked both in and with enterprise software, and know both how hard generalized software is, and exactly where a mixture of screwy incentives and cynicism will take things - i.e. hideously expensive boondoggles.
And I had no idea who the hell to vote for for insurance commissioner, city assessor, or any of the judicial positions, so I just left it blank. And I really question the merits of ranked-choice voting in relation to the amount of thought it requires and confusion it must generate, especially when you have to make three choices, all different, and there's only one candidate running. But ranked-choice voting did let me vote for "Starchild", occupation listed as "exotic dancer / entertainer", so maybe it isn't all bad.
Unknown to me until right this second, Starchild received the unanimous endorsement of the local Libertarian Central Committee! Will wonders never cease....
Write in Randy Stufflebeam for Governor! He is the only candidate that represents the middle-class. He is the only candidate that is pro life and against same sex marriage. He supports our rights granted to us in the constitution and has plans to clean up Illinois. Find out more at www.runrandyrun.com
Voted at 4:30. No lines, although the machines were full. No issues with the touch screen.
Turnout has been high, they said. When I got home, had friendly voicemails from Cardin & O'Malley reminding me to vote. I have to go back at 6:30 to drop off dinner for my son, who's a poll worker, and then again at 8:30 to pick him up.
199 -- I hate judicial elections. Why can't states admit that Madison & Hamilton got this one right?
Little late, aren't you?
It's like the joke about why pot isn't legal: "Oh, maaan, Election Day was yesterday?"
204 -- One of my younger colleagues advocates the legalization of reefer, opiates, and psychodelics for anyone over 50. Get them ('us' soon enough!) out of the economy and out of the way.
the FBI is investigating shenanigans in Virginia.
I'd just like to reiterate that the amount of work I've gotten done today literally makes me ashamed of myself.
