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Also in Election 2008
Daring to Dream of a Black President
Voters on the Verge: Watch GRITtv's Special Election Day Coverage
Laura Flanders
Ten Things to Watch (Besides the Presidential Battle) This Election Day
Joshua Holland
Election Day: Palin's Panic and the Right-Wing's Big Freak-out
(Editor's note: This summary, while a little technical, goes over the nuts and bolts of voting that could prompt problems on Election Day or become the fodder for recount fights if the vote is close).
With five days to go before Election Day, preparations and campaigning have reached a fever pitch. Voter interest is soaring. Turnout could reach historic levels. On Election Day, Electionline.org will pay particular attention to a dozen states.
While some (Colorado, Florida, Missouri and Ohio) are clearly battlegrounds in the race for the White House, others (Georgia and the District of Columbia) might have less drama when the results are tallied than they do while polls are open.
All 12 states share some similarities -- regardless of their competitiveness in the national electoral map, they have issues in election administration that bear watching: whether it s new rules governing voter identification; trouble with voting systems , either because of computer glitches, poll worker mistakes or both; long lines at polls; new voter registration databases; or some combination of problems.
This list does not mean there will be trouble on Election Day, but the likelihood for problems looms based on past performance or current events.
Colorado
Past problems with vote centers in Denver a system that replaced neighborhood precincts with super precincts allowing in any one of a reduced number of super precincts convinced city officials to revert to the old way of doing things rather than risk equipment failures, long lines and chaos that plagued the 2006 vote. And while a third of the state s registered voters have already cast ballots by mail or early in person, lines still might be unavoidable in this Western battleground state. Voters will be faced with one of the longest ballots in state history. And polling places as well as voter rolls will be stressed by an expected near-record turnout, a new statewide voter registration database operating for the first time in a presidential election and a likely record number of new registrants. Purges of that voter list have been controversial as well and a lawsuit over the issue was settled this week allowing for extra oversight of provisional ballots cast by voters who have been canceled from the rolls since mid-May. Officials from across the state predict it could take time to report results, meaning the nation could stay up late waiting for word from Colorado.
District of Columbia
There should be little drama when results are announced in the Nation s Capital Sen. Barack Obama (D) scored a landslide in every precinct in the District in February but recent voting machine troubles, accusations of mismanagement, misprinted absentee ballots, turnover at the top echelons of the Board of Elections and strange results from tabulators will keep things interesting. Long lines and paper ballot shortages plagued the February presidential preference primary with some areas running out of Democratic ballots before noon. A low-turnout September primary had problems as well, with one precinct reporting unusually high numbers of write-in ballots, a snafu the city s voting machine vendor blamed on static discharge or mishandling, later saying the machines all worked well and blamed the event on human error. The Board of Elections, which has seen its executive director, registrar, poll-worker recruiter and trainer/press spokesman as well as chairman leave and be replaced in a presidential election year, blamed problems on one defective cartridge after remaining silent on the issue for days.
Florida
Election Day marks the third voting system in use in as many presidential elections for a number of Sunshine State counties, including Miami-Dade and Broward, two of the state s most populous. Optical- scan systems replaced touch-screen units this year in 15 counties after Gov. Charlie Crist led efforts to rid the state of them. The discovery of more than 18,000 non votes in a 2006 Congressional contest in Sarasota County cemented the machine s fate, though recent problems managing an election on optical scanners in Palm Beach County has done little to allay fears that election reform s poster child will have at least some snafus on Election Day. Debates have also raged over the state s no-match, no-vote law, and some advocacy groups have voiced concerns that some new registrants might not get on voter rolls due to errors in databases. More than 2.5 million voters have already cast ballots in person or by mail, with the former group enduring long lines in many parts of the state compelling Gov. Charlie Crist (R) to extend early voting polling place hours.
See more stories tagged with: ohio, florida, missouri, colorado, georgia, wisconsin, nevada, virginia, indiana, new mexico, pennsylvania, voting problems projected, district of columbia
Electionline.org, a project of the Pew Center on the States, is the nation’s only nonpartisan, non-advocacy Web site providing up-to-the-minute news and analysis on election reform.
1 comment:
I am 22 and I'd like to capture my thoughts before America either elects a president who its first 26 presidents could have legally owned, or brazenly subverts the very ideals it was founded upon by manipulating numbers in a final embarrassingly overt goosestep towards corporate totalitarianism.
I am nervous. And not night-before-the-swim-test nervous or even night-you-lose-your-virginity nervous, it's a low rumbling primal panic which I can only liken to Star Wars panic. Disney panic. The edge-of-your-seat-terror that makes you wonder if Skywalker's doomed after he refuses to join Darth Vader and drops down into the abyss, if the wicked octopus or grand vizier or steroid-pumping-village-misogynist is going to wed/kill/skin the dashing prince and then evil people in dark funny costumes are going to take over the world... if it wasn't a movie of course.
And tonight it's not. It's not a movie and yet I feel like Obama might as well be wearing an American flag cape while a decaying McCain, in a high-tech robotic spider wheelchair wearing an eyepatch and stroking an evil cat, gives orders to a sexy scheming Palin who marches back and forth through their sub-terranian campaign lair in four inch thigh-highs and full-body black leather catsuit bossing around the evangelical ants with a loooooong whip... umm... is this just me?
Anyway, the point is that things feel weird folks. I have friends who have peed in waterbottles to keep from interrupting a Halo-playing marathon who got off their asses/couches to volunteer for the Obama campaign not once, but many times. Friends so cheap their body content is at least 1/3 Ramen Noodle who donated a good deal of their hard-earned cash to the campaign. People have registered to vote in record numbers, and yet, something just doesn't feel right. I think we should stop congratulating ourselves for just voting. To vote is a privilege which people have died for, and I think there's a whole lot more to be done for the country than to simply help win an election every 4 years.
Hundreds of millions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of man-hours spent on both sides by good-intentioned people who want to make a difference in an historic election, so many resources and voices and energies devoted to a single day. After tomorrow, half of that is going to have been a waste. And I can't help but wonder what could have happened if all that muscle had been put towards something else, and what will happen to its momentum after the election has come and gone. Shouldn't we be donating our money to good causes whenever we can? Helping people who don't have? Dedicating some of our time to contribute to making the country which provides for us a better place? Of course a power shift is a hugely significant step on the path to great reform, but worrying about this election has been a wakeup call for me:
Even if Obama wins, we have not "won." This isn't a movie and we can't toss every greedy lobbyist oil fatcat bigot down a reactor shaft. I think if we dedicate ourselves to the ongoing welfare of the country as much as we have to the outcome of this election, we'll have a much better shot at coming closer to the overwhelming good the liberals hope Obama will usher in, but which no mere mortal could fully realize alone.
Which brings me to the other side. I've heard a lot of people claim that if McCain wins, they're leaving. I heard the same thing about Bush's reelection, and his unelection before that, and nobody seems to be leaving. And that's fine. Because as much as I complain about certain political happenings, atrocities, etc., I really do like it here and I suspect most other people do too. We have New York and Hollywood, purple mountain's majesty and sea to shining sea, we created jazz and country music and baseball and cars and lightbulbs and computers and that movie with hundreds of animated singing Chihuahuas! I mean who among the shivering Plymouth pilgrims ever imagined ordering hundreds of animated singing chihuahuas onto a magical box from an invisible information superweb?
The point being, if things don't turn out the way I want tomorrow, I feel compelled, as a college-graduated adultish-type-person, to take a stand. And if I'm going to leave I'm going to leave. But if I'm going to stay I'm not going to sit around whining like I have for the past 8 years. It's like when I don't clean my room because it's dirty and then I blame the dirt. So in my very indecisive way, before you and your screen, I'm declaring my intention to make some kind of stand in the event of -(Ican'tevensayit)-, and encouraging you to consider making one too...
Jump the ship or grab a bucket?
-Sigh-
Wasn't everything so much easier back when the worst possible affront to your values was a PB&J sandwich cut diagonally with crust?
Anyways, I guess what I'm saying is that if we're going to stay on board, we should probably be generous with our time and resources when times are tough even more than when the hero saves the day. Because what if he doesn't? And what if he can't? If we're serious about real change, election day should only be the beginning of "Yes we can," not the end.
Best,
Hannah Friedman
www.writinghannah.blogspot.com
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