Category: elections

QUESTION: THE QUESTION of the season


1. Regardless of your political persuasion, who do you think’s going to win the US Presidential election. Will it be:
a. McCain wins the popular vote, but Obama wins the electoral college.
b. Obama wins the popular vote, but McCain wins the electoral college.
c. McCain wins both.
d. Obama wins both.

I’m leaning towards d, but fear b.

2. How will the swing states go? As of yesterday, Electoral Vote attributes MS, SD, WV, and AZ(!) as weak McCain, GA, IN, and MT as barely McCain, FL, MO, and NC as barely Obama, CO, NV, OH and VA as weak Obama, and ND a dead heat. What’s interesting to me is how much bluer the map has gotten in some places and redder in others. AZ was solid McCain and MO barely McCain just last week, but IN moved from barely Obama. I expect Obama to win FL because of the Great Schlep. Traditionally, at least where I grew up, there were lots of blacks and Jews working together on civil rights issues so I’m hoping that translates to votes this year. The state Obama could win that would least shock me is Georgia. Not only is former Congressman Bob Barr running, but the early black vote has been strong, I’ve been told.
Actually, any state that isn’t solid red may be in play for Obama. Maybe I’m crazy, but in the Evanier poll, I picked 364 electoral votes.

3. What will be the “Florida 2000/Ohio 2004” for 2008?

Of course, I fear shenanigans. This story about NM just one example. Here’s a machine problem in WV. Democrats in Virginia are getting notices in the mail that tell them Democrats are to vote on November 5th instead of the 4th. Nevadans with Hispanic names are getting calls that they can vote by phone. In some places, letters are going out saying that when you show your ID, you’ll be checked for outstanding warrants or parking tickets. I was hoping Ohio would be cleaner than before under new management, though indications suggest that its troubled history will be replicated.

And it may not even be intentional. This from a friend of a friend – NOT an apocryphal tale:
Although [the 89-year-old man] voted in the primary election, the Early Voting officials could not find his name or address on file. [The man and his daughter] went the Craven County (NC) Board of Elections office… The officials “tried to re-register him only to find Dad and his address no longer existed. Well guess what, they finally found him in their records only to inform me that he was listed as DECEASED as of 7/24/08 per the State of North Carolina. They were still unable to find his residence. I happened to have his tax papers in my pocket book but of course that didn’t help. I was told that this problem was a mistake made in Raleigh and that it would be after the election before the problem could be fixed. Dad was given a Provisional Ballot and we were assured me that his vote would be counted.

If this happened to someone who voted in the primary, what about those elderly people who haven’t voted recently? Here’s hoping that everyone, who knows elderly persons who are planning to vote, tell them DO NOT WAIT UNTIL ELECTION DAY BECAUSE IT MAY BE TOO LATE. Make sure that they vote early just in case they have been listed as deceased and taken off the roll.”

Still, I’ll pick Missouri as the most likely trouble spot. There’s no early voting, it’s a significant state and it’s in play. It may or may not matter at the end of the day, but there it is.

Other political notes:
Precautions to take. Albany-based, but may be useful to others.

Some see gold in ‘Osama’ ballot goof. Those Rensselaer County (NY) ballots that had Osama for Obama are going for $50 to $100 on Craigslist.

A Poem for The Young Voter.

And this gem from earlier in the month, which I missed:
7th-Grade teacher to students: Obama is a ‘N’-word. Angry parents in the northwest Florida community of Marianna want a middle school teacher fired after he put the “N”-word on the board to describe Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama. The Marianna Middle School teacher, Greg Howard, is now serving a 10-day suspension after writing an acronym on the dry-erase board on Sept. 26: “C.H.A.N.G.E. – Come Help A N*gg*r Get Elected.” But many parents want the 17-year teacher fired. The seventh-grade social studies teacher’s class has 17 White students, six Black students and one Asian student. Initially he was suspended for the day without pay, but that was elevated to the 10-day punishment. He must also write a letter of apology to students. “We feel like the punishment is sufficient,” Larry Moore, superintendent of the Jackson County School District, told The Detroit Free Press. “We did not feel he had to be fired.” NAACP officials say they will reserve their actions in the case until their investigation is complete.

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QUESTION: Political endorsements

As you probably know, Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama for President. In his conversation with Tom Brokaw on Meet the Press, he noted that if he had just wanted to endorse the black candidate he could have endorsed Obama months ago. Powell’s a Republican and would have endorsed McCain but for his unfocused and nasty campaign and his choice of Sarah Palin. Naturally, commentators such as Rush Limbaugh and Pat Buchanan suggested that Powell endorsed Obama because they’re both black; my favorite resdponse to that.

1. Do political endorsements matter to you? If so, from whom?
It’s much more likely to matter to me in a local race where I don’t have enough of the facts.
2. Do you think political endorsements matter to the population at large?
I was struck by the number of newspapers that endorsed Bush in 2004 who are endorsing Obama in 2008.
3. Can this election be stolen?
Probably.
But I’m much less worried by ACORN than I am by polling stations with long lines (as has already happened in early voting in Florida) and/or with machines that don’t act as they should. This recent New Yorker column speaks to my concern:
“The idea that Democrats try to win elections by arranging for hordes of nonexistent people with improbable names to vote for them has long been a favorite theme of Rove-era Republicans. Now it’s become a desperate obsession.”
More cynical people than I believe that bringing up the Bradley effect is a screen for hiding voting machine manipulation and disenfranchisement strategies. Tell people to call their COUNTY board of election and make sure they’re registered and verify the voting location. (My voting location has changed, but it’s not reflected on the STATE Board of Elections site.)
4. Would you like to know more about the health of the four candidates for President and Vice-President on the major party ticket? This article suggests we don’t know enough about ANY of them, especially McCain and Biden, but also the status of Obama’s cessation of smoking. The mysterious circumstances around the birth of Sarah Palin’s last child is pretty much the ONLY info the press has on her health.

[Stolen from the Frog.
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STILL undecided?
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Oooh, the photo above? That’s a shot of a lovely 8 by 10 color glossy that a relative of mine, a Republican but not a McPalin supporter, received from the RNC and gave to me, knowing just how much I would appreciate it. And I do, I really do. I obliterated the name so you can photoshop in the name of your favorite liberal and make him or her nuts.

Wait, what if someone did that [GULP] to ME?! And it must be a different Roger Green…

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IRV


Arthur, an expat American living in New Zealand, on one of his recent podcasts, maybe #116 or #117 (I’m too lazy to check) was talking about different ways to vote in different counties. One of the methodologies sound a awful lot like what’s being called around here instant runoff voting. Though I’ve never had the opportunity to vote by this method, I’m inclined to support it. You can read about it in the link I provided, but let me try to explain by example.

Let’s say there were five people running for President. Just for fun, we’ll call them Barr, McCain, McKinney, Nader and Obama. IRV allows one to vote for the candidate one most desires without worrying about “throwing away” a vote on a minor party candidate. So one could vote for 1. McKinney 2. Nader 3. Obama 4. Barr. If someone gets a majority of the vote, then the race is settled. But let’s say that the vote is 34% each for McCain and Obama, 14% for Barr, 10% for McKinney and 8% for Nader. In turn, the Nader votes would be distributed to Nader voters’ second choice. Since a majority still would not be reached, McKinney’s and then, if necessary, Barr’s votes would be distributed. It may still come down to “lesser of two evils”, but one could vote for a third party candidate without concern that the candidate would be a spoiler.

This would be most important in those jurisdictions, such as Louisiana, that REQUIRE a majority vote. Those runoffs, unless they are held on the day of the general election, almost invariably involves an even smaller number of voters than the first round. add to that, an extra round of voting is expensive. Instant runoff voting would eliminate the need for those costly redoes.

Of course, the problem with the system is that there is a real possibly that people might actually ELECT a third party candidate if they’re not discouraged by the notion of a wasted vote. The machinery of the Democrats and Republicans alike will see in in their best interest to oppose it. Yet it has made headway in a number of cities and towns across the country.

Anyone who’s actually an expert on IRV and wants to dispute any of this, feel free.

Oh, here’s a new flash animation on a variation of instant runoff voting used in elections for more than one seat – making it a system of proportional representation.
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The Racialicious podcast on Why you shouldn’t listen to polls, an interview with David W. Moore. A main point: Americans weren’t as rah in favor of the Iraq war as the polls suggested, based on the formulation of the question. Last month, a Wall Street Journal review of Moore’s book, the Opinionmakers, criticizes this specific point, noting (correctly) that more people were leaning towards supporting the war. But the leaners, who were forced to come down on one side or another on the issue, might have answered differently had the question been phrased differently, or if “no opinion” was a real option.


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Very short takes

Today is the day folks go to the polls in many locations in New York State, everywhere except in the largest cities and vote for the school budget and the school board members. For some reason, the city of Albany only votes for the budget now, and the school board in November. More on that and Rex Smith speaking at the Friends of the Albany Public Library annual meeting this eveninghere.
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Don’t care about Dancing with the Stars, but I do care about my wife, and SHE cares about DWTS. So I got the phone number from the end of the taped performance and tried to call in a number of times, but kept getting a busy signal. Then I went online to do so, but it required to be registered with ABC.com. Lo and behold, I WAS registered with ABC.com, though I don’t recall why. Five votes for Kristi Yamaguchi & Mark Ballas, who got 60 out of 60 points from the judges (the competition got 51 and 52 votes.)
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I haven’t sent out my mixed CDs yet because I saved them to the drive, then the burner failed to put the data on the disc. I have figured out a workaround, but can’t get to until this weekend; sorry. It is sequenced and I do like it; Gordon will recognize the inspiration immediately. So far got mine from Gordon (like it), Tosy (listened to about half), and Lefty (haven’t played yet). Details to follow.
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Best wishes to Edward Kennedy after his medical episode. I was looking at my Bushisms calendar, where W. referred to him as Theodore, one of the more understandable mistakes in the gaffe-filled daily.
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The Subway series played out this past weekend. For me, the excitement is tempered, maybe because they are, at least so far, two mediocre teams, though the Mets, who swept, less mediocre than the Yankees.
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The only parts of the NBA playoffs I have watched has been when I’ve taped ABC World News and the game has run over. For instance, I saw the last 18 seconds of the Celtics Game-Seven win over Cleveland, which took about 10 minutes, with all the fouls and timeouts.
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Happy birthday, PixieNona!Are you sure it was a cold and not allergies? Your symptoms were very similar to mine last week.
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In answer to a comment to this story DNA cleared them, but they’ll never feel free and some of the comments: “There’s particular disdain for the prosecutors of these crimes because, often, the prosecution withheld evidence that could have exonerated the defendant, esp. in Dallas County, TX. At least some of these people were home and with their families or at work; the assertion that ‘people doing the right thing don’t get mixed up in this stuff’ is simply inaccurate much of the time. There is also mistaken identity by witnesses far more often than most people realize. With all that, there’s no way to blame the juries, who can only weigh the evidence presented.”
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Here Now the News

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 08 Election

Al Jaffee’s fold-ins for Mad magazine, from the 1960s to the present, in interactive form, from the Noo Yawk Times.

China Celebrates Status As Number One Polluter

Pat Paulsen for President. “Resurrect and Elect!” “Think Inside the Box.”

‘Gays Too Precious To Risk In Combat’

We Are The World redux.

More news here.

And, of course, the big news story of last year: All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash

Breaking News: All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash

Don’t know if any of this is ha-ha funny, but it’s certainly peculiar/funny. Rather like the date itself.

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