posted
I really want Bush to win the this election, if not because Kerry would make an awful president, then because it'll be so much fun to listen to liberals whine for four more years.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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I didn't find a link for Thor's Florida claim above, but I didn't try too hard. (Unless it was Michigan he meant?) I don't attribute it to a conspiracy, but any disenfranchisement, even unintentional, troubles me. I think all of us as citizens should be troubled by that.
I voted absentee at the county clerk's office yesterday, since Dave and I might be out of town on November 2 for business reasons. There was a lineup out into the hallway until closing time. The clerk said there had never been a line before in her memory, much less one like this. I think turnout is going to be significantly increased this year.
[ October 19, 2004, 08:29 AM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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quote:There were long lines and thousands of eager voters Monday as Floridians flooded the polls on the first day of early voting amid memories of the state's 2000 presidential debacle.
Voters waited -- some as long as 90 minutes -- in libraries, city halls and election offices to cast their ballots as surprised poll workers struggled to cope with the unexpected rush.
Officials and observers reported problems ranging from computer crashes to a lack of Spanish-speaking poll workers. Though most glitches appeared minor, each misstep was magnified when viewed through the lens of the last presidential election.
Or when magnified throught the eyes of Thor. The turnout was greater than anticipated. Somebody did screwup, but it's not a conspiracy. I would much rather have these screwups happen now than on the actual election day.
quote:Three other states -- Texas, Colorado and Arkansas -- began early voting Monday, but the focus was on Florida and its 27 electoral votes. And in a rare moment of agreement, even representatives from both presidential campaigns said, on balance, they were satisfied with how the polling was going.
As I get older, my freak-out-o-meter seems to be getting worn out. I'm trying to conserve the passion for the real cases. Too many times I've become incensed, only to find out that the information I was working with was inaccurate or misleading, and asking a few simple questions would have saved me the effects of inflamed emotions.
Unfortunately, I think getting righteously outraged can be kind of addictive, at least in my case. Big trouble happens when the fight itself becomes more important than the thing fought for.
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quote:But you can't say you don't care about the Republicans illegally preventing people from voting unless you wouldn't care if the Democrats were doing the same thing.
Actually, I'd hesitate to use these three as examples of Republicans "illegally preventing people from voting."
The first one, the leaving of Kerrey off the absentee ballot, is obviously not an intentional occurance. There is zero chance this would go undetected, and it's known there is a zero chance.
quote:In Jacksonville Florida, a city that can afford ONE National Football Team can only afford ONE early voting place.
This is not a good complaint. Normal people should not be voting early, without good reason. Any city should only need one vearly voting site - or else early voting may get out of hand.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
I was in the midst of correcting as you were writing, Dag, as it seemed too incomprehensible. But I'd expect some large cities would need more than one site for early voting, although Madison (200,000) seems to be getting by with just one. Lineups out the door, though. And people are downloading the absentee ballot request online for mailed requests.
[ October 19, 2004, 01:09 PM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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quote: Oops — Bush, Cheney left off absentee ballots
Associated Press
Van Buren — Carter County officials are reprinting absentee ballots for the Nov. 2 general election after discovering that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were left off.
The ballots were mailed beginning Sept. 21, and Carter County Clerk Becky Gibbs said several voters noticed the oversight.
"We are rectifying it," Gibbs said.
"There was no intent to leave them off."
Fewer than 500 of the erroneous ballots were sent out, and some have already been returned.
Replacement ballots will be sent to everyone who requested an absentee ballot along with a letter explaining the error.
Terri Durdaller, a spokeswoman for the secretary of state, said that if absentee voters who previously returned a ballot send a new one, it will replace the previous one.
If they don't return a new ballot, their first one will be counted.
"The key is just to make sure everybody does get the changed ballot," Durdaller said.
Ballots that other voters will use Nov. 2 have not been printed yet.
Gibbs said the cost to print replacement absentee ballots should be minimal.
"We don't really have a lot of absentee voters," she said.
quote:quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In Jacksonville Florida, a city that can afford ONE National Football Team can only afford ONE early voting place. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is not a good complaint. Normal people should not be voting early, without good reason. Any city should only need one early voting site - or else early voting may get out of hand.
Actually, this is a legitimate complaint in Jacksonville, as black voters feel the location of the early voting site discriminates against them.
quote:There was a time when the mostly black parishioners at St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church might not have minded that no early-voting sites were set up in their neighborhood.
But after 2000, when Duval County's 27,000 discarded ballots came primarily from four mostly black, mostly Democratic precincts, they mind it very much.
Geographically, Jacksonville is the largest city in the continental United States -- 841 square miles -- but the only early-voting site, to open Monday, is at the downtown office of the Duval County Supervisor of Elections.
By comparison, Miami-Dade County will open 20 locations for early voting on Monday. Broward will open 13.
The single site in Jacksonville is only about seven miles from St. Paul, but the pastor said it might as well be 700.
''The majority of them really don't go downtown; it's rare for most of us,'' said the Rev. John Guns, a civic leader in his struggling neighborhood. ``The message we send is one of continuing a racist tradition of disenfranchisement and exclusion.''
And Tres, what on earth do you mean by saying "early voting may get out of hand"? Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
Xaposert:"Normal people should not be voting early, without good reason. Any city should only need one vearly voting site - or else early voting may get out of hand."
I don't know what you mean. In Nevada, early voting is two weeks long, and there are eight sites just in Clark County that are open the whole time, plus several dozen that are open one or two days during the early voting period. Early voting is highly encouraged. It seems that our officials would like to see all voters take advantage. There's no question of it getting "out of hand."
Posts: 1652 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Ela, I see a legitimate complaint about the fact that there's only one site, but not where the site is. The downtown office of the Duval County Supervisor of Elections seems to me to be the obvious choice if you're only going to have one place open.
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posted
Early voting is good for people who work and would otherwise need to take time off from their paying jobs to vote, and for companies that can encourage a staggered system of voting so that entire offices, worksites, etc do not close down for the entire day as everyone disappears to vote. This is even more important to people who commute distances to work, where they can choose between being late for work while waiting in what will probably be record long lines in the morning, or leave early from work and hope they get to their polling places before they close.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Zan, even the Governor thinks it's a problem.
quote:Tensions over early voting continued to mount Saturday in Duval County, where election officials clung to their plan for a single early-vote polling place even as Gov. Jeb Bush declared there should be others.
''I just think there should be more,'' Bush said Saturday, rolling his eyes in mock disbelief when asked about the growing controversy in this Northeast Florida city.
The governor made similar comments while taping an interview for ABC News' This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
''We passed a law that created a standard for early voting, and it should be spread out across the community,'' he said in the interview, scheduled to air today. ``That's the whole point, is to get people to vote early.''
Secretary of State Glenda Hood, who is planning to be in Jacksonville on Monday on a previously scheduled visit, also expressed concern and said she has asked the state Division of Elections to meet with Duval officials.
''I hope these discussions will lead to a plan that will increase accessibility in the greater Jacksonville area,'' Hood said in a statement.
Geographically, Jacksonville is the largest city in the continental United States -- 841 square miles -- and a coalition of religious, political and civic leaders has condemned the county's plan to restrict early voting to the supervisor of elections' downtown office.
''What is going on in Jacksonville is an atrocity upon our rights,'' the Rev. Elder Lee Harris of Jacksonville's Mount Olive Primitive Baptist Church said.
And I guess you think it is insignificant that black voters feel the location of the one early voting site discrimnates against them...
[ October 19, 2004, 01:24 PM: Message edited by: Ela ]
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posted
Dag, I've heard some of the arguments against early voting. My question was more with regard to tres' phraseology and what he particularly meant by early voting getting out of hand.
I basically agree with UofULawGuy's and DanRaven's remarks on the subject of early voting.
quote:Early voting is highly encouraged. It seems that our officials would like to see all voters take advantage. There's no question of it getting "out of hand."
quote:Early voting is good for people who work and would otherwise need to take time off from their paying jobs to vote, and for companies that can encourage a staggered system of voting so that entire offices, worksites, etc do not close down for the entire day as everyone disappears to vote. This is even more important to people who commute distances to work, where they can choose between being late for work while waiting in what will probably be record long lines in the morning, or leave early from work and hope they get to their polling places before they close.
[ October 19, 2004, 01:33 PM: Message edited by: Ela ]
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posted
As I said Ela, I agree that having only one site is a problem. Having it at the downtown office is not. The article you quoted doesn't say anything about Bush having a problem with the location, just that one polling place is not enough.
Where do you suggest they put it given there is only one site to be placed? That is probably the most accessible location to everyone in Jacksonville. If there were multiple polling places and none were in an easily accessible area to the black voters, that would cause concern.
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posted
People have over two weeks to cast an eary ballot and even longer to cast an absentee ballot. I'm not really sure why a rational person would want to go the first day of early voting anyways. You know there are going to be kinks in the system and there are going to be long lines. I would wait until at least the middle of the week. In my case I'm casting an absentee ballot.
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posted
Early voting is good for people who may have trouble voting on election day. But it is "getting out of hand" if lots of regular people are voting early when they can just as easily vote on the appropriate election day.
There are a number of reasons for this, including things like the chance that some event could alter your views before election day, but the really big problem with it is that it gives the parties a lot more power. It means that whichever party has more money and can afford to motivate or even physically get their people over to the voting locations are going to have a significant advantage. This is already happening: Both the Democrats and the Republicans are acting to "lock in" early voters, through their resources and grass-roots organization. The less-organized and less-financed third parties are at a serious disadvantage because they lack the resources to get out the early vote over an extended period of weeks. In precincts where one party or another already dominates the numbers, that party is going to have a huge advantage over any other, because it is going to be more organized in its get-out-the-vote efforts. This effect is already significant when voting occurs during one day. When it occurs across weeks, there is much more time for these GOTV efforts, and the most organized will have a much greater advantage. You can already see the main parties doing this in Florida.
The election is still held on a day, not during a whole month. Early voting exists not to get everyone to vote earlier, but rather to give an exception to people who would otherwise be disenfranchised or inconvenienced by voting. If everyone is voting early or if it becomes a campaign tool for political parties to give an advantage to their candidate then it has gotten out of hand.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
"Early voting exists not to get everyone to vote earlier, but rather to give an exception to people who would otherwise be disenfranchised or inconvenienced by voting."
Not in Nevada. As I said, everyone is encouraged to vote early.
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