Election Day Marathon

[Nicole Marie]

Hi Saxy-

You are probably right about the "local" folks pulling some of these stunts. But people in government/higher positions pull this stuff too. Look at the 2000 election. Ex-felons, people who had paid their debt and servered their time, were turned away from polling places in FL. Later it was found that all felon names were purged from the rolls to prevent them from voting. It went to the courts and their names were put back on the rolls. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/mar2001/vote-m10.shtml

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/09/23/1095651425477.html

There are ways to dicourage voting on many levels. It's sad that it happens... no matter what form it takes.

[mmichaelson]

Piq, what she doesn't know is (I think I'm right on this, I'll have to check, Texas History 101 was many years ago) that as punishment for being part of the Confederacy, I think the US government rescinded the right for us to secede.

I'm not sure, and I've heard arguments on both ends for this one, but we may have lost the right to secede.

Her argument is already stupid - and makes the rest of us look stupid - ick.

I support Bush, but I would NEVER sink so low as to infringe upon others' right to vote. That is just sad and stupid. It's the ones pulling these "pranks" that should not vote, since they are so willing to take away others' rights to do so.
Argh. There are people like that everywhere, but it really frustrates me to no end.

[RC]

It's not just ex-felons who were disenfranchised...THIS year the list was distributed and SOMEONE noticed that an awfully big percentage of the list looked like minority type names.
Turns out that the first list for 2004 had a percentage of minorities MUCH higher than the correlating percentage of minority felons. (Which is STILL pretty substantial).

When it was brought to Jebs attention (via threat of lawsuit), he had it thrown out and a new list made. I have not heard if the second list was any better.

[barfle]

To those who don't like the electoral college, here's some interesting reading.

[RC]

Bloomberg today:
Florida Fight

Republicans nonetheless weren't present at a number of locations during morning voting. Sean Greene, an electionline.org monitor in Cleveland, said the heavily Democratic precincts he visited had only independent and Kerry campaign monitors.

Mauk, the Ohio Republican spokesman, said many of the 3,600 poll watchers registered by the party might not have received word about the appeals court ruling.

Ohio Republicans last week filed so-called pre-challenges to 35,000 voters in the state. A judge effectively blocked that effort by delaying hearings on the eligibility of the voters.

Ohio and Florida together have 47 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. In Florida, where early voting began Oct. 18, the Kerry campaign is deploying some 3,000 lawyers, primarily to heavily Democratic precincts. Republicans are countering with brigades of their own lawyers.

Florida was the focus of the 36-day presidential election standoff between Bush and Gore in 2000. The fight culminated with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that stopped ballot recounts in Florida and sealed Bush's victory.

`Some Jams'

Since that time, Florida has replaced the punch-card ballots that were used in much of the state in 2000 and became the center of the post-vote controversy. Florida voters now use either touch- screen machines or optical-scan ballots.

``All of the touch-screen machines have worked beautifully,'' said Alia Faraj, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of State. There have been ``some jams'' in optical scanning machines that have been addressed, she said.

In Florida's Broward County, which voted more than 2-to-1 for Gore four years ago, as many as 58,000 absentee ballots sent by the elections office didn't reach the voters. Election workers re-sent about 13,000 duplicate ballots, some by overnight mail, on Oct. 28 and 29.

The Justice Department sent more than 1,000 observers to polling places around the country, more than three times the number sent four years ago.

In Florida's Broward County, which voted more than 2-to-1 for Gore four years ago, as many as 58,000 absentee ballots sent by the elections office didn't reach the voters. Election workers re-sent about 13,000 duplicate ballots, some by overnight mail, on Oct. 28 and 29.

[OperaTenor]

Just got in from voting. Tokk a couple of really funny photos(I made a small "ABBA" sign for Altoid to mount on her pram), and, thanks to Shutters XP(yes, the flawless new O/S), I can't downlaod the photos from the camera software anymore. When downloading them from the camera, they store in albums in the software, but are hidden from everything else in the computer. Even when I search for them with the camera software, they don't appear in the tree. To frost that, the albums I created when I still had Shutters 98 are hidden from the camera software, but are visible everywhere else on the computer.

RACHAFRACHA!

PS. GC, that's why I haven't posted those cool BOO! photos yet. Sorry.

[OperaTenor]

It's funny. I've heard of all kinds of stunts being pulled by Republican groups to discourage voter turnout. Has anyone heard of the like from any Democrat groups? I've actually seen only the opposite from Dems(voter registration drives, etc.). As a matter of fact, there were women out canvassing our neighborhood making sure people were getting out to vote today, wearing Kerry/Edwards bumper stickers on their tee shirts. I even saw them stop at a house with shrub/crook signs in the front yard.

Jim "my bias is showing" B.

[RC]

Just now read that there were some republican voters suing (I don't know whom) because they were, "pushed, punched, & spatupon" while standing in line to vote.

No elaboration so hard to tell what thats about.

[RC]

I had a call from Bill Clinton (recorded) over the weekend which did NOT request that I vote for Kerry, only that I vote. I know who sponsored the call and that they are Kerry supporters, but they only gave reference to where to get information and assistance in regards to voting (which was accurate by the way ).

As I've said before, there is no one in my household registered as a democrat.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

We've had phone calls from the Governator, a state senator, three congressional and two mayoral candidates, four political parties (I think one involved funny hats), a casino, two churches, and the boy scouts. Two calls wanted to know if I needed transportation to the polls. Any number of groups have sent, or dropped off, or left a message with a list of how they'd like our votes to go. Some few seem to think we're obligated to vote their way on particular issues and seem inclined to argue if views differ.

I stopped answering the phone. Caller ID and call screening rock!

Only one ad severely influenced my voting on any one issue - there was a TV ad with Polly Klaas's grandfather saying that the "three strikes" law needed revision. I paid attention to that.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Oh, I forgot the unions. Two labor unions called. And mailed. They had very specific slates of candidates that we were supposed to vote for.

[RC]

I had several polling calls early on but I have to say that NO ONE tried to get me to vote one way or t'other except by mail.

I have received several friendly notes from Bush encouraging our continued support since my spouse had contributed to the Republican party prior to the 2000 election.

[barfle]

I think everyone here has a pretty good idea of where I stand regarding the candidates in this election.

Almost since I moved to Virginia, before I was a registered to vote, I started getting mailings from the Republican Party, with all kinds of expensive googaahs (Altoid will understand) enclosed in them. Just a few weeks ago, I got a mailing that said my membership in the Republican Party was about to expire.

I have already decided to be a member of a political party, and the Republican Party isn't the one I picked. While I'm generally glad they're wasting their money courting my vote, I sure wonder where the hell their heads are, telling me a membership I most certainly would NOT have is about to expire. Unless maybe my life insurance agent put in for me.
:confused:

[rwcrooks]

OT,

No dirty tricks from the Dems in Wisconsin, except for the fact that it's pretty widely recognized that there is wholesale vote fraud ocurring in Milwaukee and every time there is a bill in the State House to, say, require people to actually show ID when they vote, the Dems vote it down. I have to show ID to cash a check at Wal-Mart, but not vote for president?

As for electioneering, for the past week we've been getting about 4-5 pieces of mail every day for Kerry and 1-2 for Bush. We have also been receiving 4 or 5 recorded phone calls per day from both parties. We just listen long enough to see who is talking before we hang up. We've had Clinton, Bart Starr (I'd rather have had Bart Simpson ... or Ringo Starr), Tommy Thompson and a few others in the past couple of days.

[Serenity]

I've received no political ads by mail or phone (hooray).

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

No political stuff in mailbox this evening. No messages from anybody on phone. Polls closed just a little while ago, and some east coast and midwest states are projected with results. All races still in the air. We may not know who the mayor is for several weeks, because there was a strong write-in candidate and a HUGE mail-in volume. All the signatures on the envelopes have to be verified before the ballots are opened and OCR'd.

I'm down to watching various news channels and hoping that the margins everywhere are big enough to keep the challenge lawyers firmly in their boxes. May no lawyers find clients in this election!

[OperaTenor]

As I sit, it looks like shrub/crook by ~22 electoral votes.



I guess I can look forward to griping rights for the next four years.

[RC]

Hang on OT, this is what we're up against now:

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - For conservative Republican Tom Coburn, running to the left in Oklahoma's Senate race meant lining up with President Bush.

Asked about his opposition to the death penalty, the former three-term congressman said he favored executions for ``abortionists'' and others who take life. At one town hall meeting, he said he had heard lesbianism was so rampant in area schools that girls could only go to the bathroom one at a time.

Coburn also had faced bad publicity from a 14-year-old lawsuit in which a woman accused the Muskogee doctor of sterilizing her without permission. Coburn said the lawsuit, which was dropped, had no merit. He also vehemently denied improperly filing for Medicaid reimbursement.

A longtime abortion foe, Coburn specialized in delivering babies - more than 3,000 of them - during his medical career.

[Serenity]

But, but...the Redskins lost 41-20, it wasn't even a close game.....

Oh well, looks like Kerry may have to take his "thumbs up" and stick it in his mouth.

Looks like the country is evenly divided. Bush is gonna have to "fix" the mess he created around Iraq and he'll be under greater scrutiny knowing that half the country doesn't really support his policies. On the other hand, I don't think he cares, he has that "determined" quality that Shos describes under "evil people".

Time to vote third parties into the picture!

[RC]

WASHINGTON – In nearly a dozen states yesterday, voters sent the loud, clear message that they think marriage should be reserved for unions between a man and a woman.

Reacting to recent court rulings allowing same-sex marriages, voters from Oregon to Georgia passed state constitutional amendments banning such unions – often by sweeping margins.

"The people are responding to the courts, which are increasingly trying to change the definition of marriage," said Carrie Gordon Earll, a spokeswoman for Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian group. "Marriage is not some kind of social play dough that the courts can reconstruct."

A 1996 federal law already defines marriage as between a man and a woman. And all the states with ballot measures, except Oregon, have laws outlawing same-sex marriage, as do 27 other states. But President Bush and others say a federal constitutional amendment is needed to prevent what they call "activist" judges from overturning the 1996 law. After such an amendment failed this year in the House and Senate, the state ballot measures were seen as a backlash against congressional inaction.

<small>[ 11-03-2004, 08:27 AM: Message edited by: RC ]</small>