Election Day 2006: We voted - and what happened?

I hate campaign time. It reminds me of a bad divorce, mine in particular. Some candidates and their campaign managers will say anything to win, no matter how big the lie, no matter what the damage, as long as it deals a fatal blow to the opponent. All that misinformation and mudslinging is orchestrated to confuse decision makers. In divorce that's the judge, in an election, the voters. (In my divorce, I intentionally used an attorney who practiced with integrity and would not perpetuate falsehoods. My ex did otherwise. I think the judge swallowed some of the muck because she was overwhelmed by razzle dazzle and slight of hand.) Still, I, like voters, had to make it through this painful process for the sake of a better future. For the sake of justice and freedom we must forge on.

"Love is liquid. Be drunkards!" ~~Nordette ( http://poems.writingjunkie.net/city-interview.html )

Here in California, where the polls are still open, blogger crystal balls are cloudy on election returns but clear as a bell that plenty of Americans had trouble casting their ballots.

What I'm reading is disturbingly spotty -- for every good-news story ("yay, I voted and I have the sticker to prove it!") there's another disheartening enough to make me want to revoke Jimmy Carter's passport ( http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story... ) and tell him about the lust in my heart ( http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/history/faculty... ) for a voting process that works for all Americans.

Case en pointe: Check out these two entries from the Electionline.org blog ( http://www.electionline.org/ResourceLibrary/Electi... ), where "the nation’s only non-partisan, non-advocacy website" sent monitors to different states:

The Good News

4:30p.m. - Sean Greene, Cleveland, Ohio
The presiding judge at Holy Trinity Baptist Church, another 4 precinct polling place, said that the election is going wonderfully so far. They have not had problems enforcing voter ID. Most of the voters have showed driver's licences, one person brought a gas bill, and two brought passports. As passports are not an acceptable form of identification, they were requirted to show another form of ID, which they did.As of 2 p.m., 520 voters had cast ballots at the polling place.

The Bad News

2:00 p.m. Dan Seligson, East Hartford, Connecticut
There has been a lot more concern about the new machines here, including a man who said he accidentally voted twice because he couldn't figure out the grid-style ballot, a woman who groused about the hackability of the electronic vote tabulator used with the precinct-count optical scan, concerns about the location of ballot questions on the right side of the page (they were at the top of the lever machine interface) and a number of voters wondering why the swtich had to happen at all. Some elderly voters said they liked the system "a lot" saying it was "easy and straight-forward."

Sigh. Voters of all political, demographic and geographic stripes are reporting trouble at the polls, whether they are voting in cities, in rural areas or via absentee ballot.

Writing on her blog, Anderson@Large, Faye Anderson offers a similar take ( http://andersonatlarge.typepad.com/andersonlarge/2... ) on reports rolling in from the African-American community:

"Peteey Talley, convener of the Ohio Coalition on Black Civic Participation, reported on the difference that voter education has made in Ohio. Talley said her coalition got the word out that people could vote early, which has cut down on long lines. Poll workers were less stressful because there were fewer voters.

OK, the bad news. Dr. Joe Leonard of the Black Leadership Forum and Kirk Clay of Common Cause reported on calls to the National Voter Hotline 1-866-MYVOTE1. Kirk gave a breakdown of the problems:

21% Voter Registration. In many cases, the registration forms completed at the Department of Motor Vehicles were not forwarded to local boards of elections.
13% Absentee Ballots. People don’t trust voting machines so they requested absentee ballots and are angry that they never received them.
6% Voter ID
4% Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail
4% Coercion or Intimidation

Dr. Leonard said:

My greatest fear is that voter confidence will begin to wear because of distrust of our electoral system. Callers are saying, ‘I don’t know whether my vote will be counted.' "

I didn't even get a chance to read about it this morning before I heard about it in person, when I walked into the Web 2.0 conference ( http://www.blogher.com/www.web2con.com ) today and sat down next to Jessica Hardwick. She relayed a story that Elisa Camahort ( http://www.blogher.com/member/elisa-camahort ) posted for her:

"I take my right to vote very seriously, so I was quite dismayed when I received my sample ballot in spanish," Jessica told Elisa ( http://sccdp.org/blogentry.php?linkID=http://sccdc... ). "I called the Registrar of Voters and after navigating the somewhat confusing voicemail prompts, I reached a human. She explained that sometime in the last year a postcard was mailed requesting language preferences for sample ballots, if no response was received the default was Spanish. I was taken aback to learn that the default was a language other than the offical language, but requested a new ballot in english, stating the urgency as I would be away from my polling place and I needed to cast an absentee vote. A week later, I had still not received a ballot so I requested another, and 5 days after that I logged yet another request. Now, on election day, I am 60 miles from my polling place, and won't be home until well after the polls close, I never received a new ballot in english, and I will not be able to participate in today's election. In short, because of bureaucracy, I was denied my legal right to vote."

Ooof. Liz Henry helpfully recommends above that Jessica obtain a translator, but given the size of California's absentee ballots this year, it would be challenge. In case any of you non-Californians doubt me, check out the Proposition Song ( http://www.calvoter.org/voter/elections/2006/gener... ) recommended by Chris Nolan ( http://spot-on.com/nolan ), on her network homepage ( http://spot-on.com ) in honor of California's "really long, almost incomprehensible election ballots":

Nolan then gets straight to forcing her political bloggers to predict the outcome of Election '06 and gets -- a dead heat. She herself predicts that Republicans keep the House and lose the Senate: "House stays Republican by 8 seats (226 Republicans, 209 Democrats). Senate goes Democratic by 2. 50 Dems, 48 Republicans and 1 Independent. Sen. Joe Lieberman gets sweet revenge."

Until elections are verified and challenges swept away, I'm still hard-pressed, post Election 2000, to even link any results. I'm still focused on process -- so here's a huge curtsey in the direction of Mediagirl, who above has offered up my favorite quote of Election 2006 thus far:

"I don't mean to be a tinfoil hat Cassandra. But it's our vote, and as imperfect as politics are, the least we can do is make sure that the jokers who are elected are the real winners of the vote." - Mediagirl ( http://mediagirl.org ), commenting ( http://www.blogher.com/node/12330#comment-11621 ) on BlogHer about why she chose to vote today via paper ballot

I say give this woman a tinfoil tiara.

If you're braver than I am and willing to watch the election results, here are some links:

From the left:
The Huffington Post ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com )
DailyKos ( http://dailykos.com )

From the right:
Pajamas Media ( http://www.pajamasmedia.com )
Memeorandum ( http://memeorandum.com )

From the media:
Washington Post ( http://washingtonpost.com )
USA Today ( http://www.usatoday.com/news/graphics/election_06_... )

Lisa Stone
BlogHer Co-founder ( http://www.blogher.com/member/lisa-stone )
Surfette ( http://surfette.typepad.com )

MoveOn.org is offering a reward of $250,000 ( http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=7... ) for proof leading to a conviction of voting suppression or electronic voting fraud.

My own personal question is whether voting machines can be trusted. I avoided the machine today and voted with a paper ballot. They're just too easy to hack ( http://mediagirl.org/node/1351 ), and the code running them is secret. Not even the election officials know what's in the computer. No thanks! (And there's no reason that paper receipts would correspond with the final vote tally.)

I don't mean to be a tinfoil hat Cassandra. But it's our vote, and as imperfect as politics are, the least we can do is make sure that the jokers who are elected are the real winners of the vote.

--
media girl ( http://mediagirl.org )

Well maybe she could find a bilingual person too and get them to help her fill out her Spanish ballot!

-----------------
Liz Henry
lizzard@bookmaniac.net
Badgermama ( http://badgermama.blogspot.com ) - personal & mommyblog
http://liz-henry.blogspot.com

Sent my absentee ballot in a couple weeks ago. So my voting place? Well, the floor needs mopping, but it was fairly clean and quiet. And guarded by 2 dogs.

My big factors were the California propositions; more than the candidates, more than the bond issues. The props with both sides exaggerating their truths, calling the other side liars, and making nothing clear about the truth of the issues. (what?? explain exactly what a proposition involved and let the voters decide? NOT going happen in my experience.)

Some of these propositions were hard to choose on. I'm socially liberal but fiscally conservative, so conflicted on the "tax/charge one party for the good of another party". Still, I actually read the propositions and made informed choices based upon how I interpreted the proposition.

Debra
A Stitch In Time ( http://astitchintime.blogspot.com )
Deb's Daily Distractions ( http://debsdistractions.blogspot.com )

... but only once! :) We have a close Senate race here, as well as governor's election, so this mid-term was important here in Maryland. I haven't missed a vote since my "First Time," too many years ago to admit here! My six-year-old was disappointed because she wanted to vote, too, and I explained you have to be 18 to vote. This from the girl who still wants to know when it's going to be John Kerry's turn!

I voted on the way to work.

- It's my duty and I've been doing it from when I raised my right hand and swore to "protect and defend" all those years ago.
- This time there were the national issues as well as a number of hot-button state issues since I live in Missouri. It was amusing that the pro-lifers were handing out brochures on the way in. A woman in line behind me had one in her hand and the poll worker had to tell her to put away the "propaganda" within the polling place. :)
- My polling place is quick, efficient and pleasant. Although I sometimes wonder what voting will be like in 10 or 15 years since so many of the poll workers are elderly. Are we going to replace them? Will electronic voting finally work securely (I work in IT and know too well how badly things can be hacked).

I did all my research before hand (including numerous emails to my senator) and had formed my opinions on the issues and candidates long before now but I wonder what other online resources people have found to present unbiased facts for those not yet decided.

In the end if there's no one you want to vote for, surely there is someone you want to vote against!

Jim Heivilin

How's it going Elisa? I wanted to go, but all full :-(
Just got done watching the 2005 highlights:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/x180/sets/1076331/

-Bob
p.s. I voted too! :-)
(no line here in Sebastopol, CA - population: 7500)
bobafifi.com ( http://www.bobafifi.com )

usedviolins.com ( http://www.usedviolins.com )

fluteplayer.net ( http://www.fluteplayer.net )

I love this post ( http://waitingfordorothy.blogspot.com/2006/11/voti... ). Know your voting laws and stand up for yourself if you're pushed at the polls!

~Denise
Fast Times @ Homeschool High ( http://fasttimes.clubmom.com )

I'm here at Web 2.0 and within 2 minutes I ran into BlogHer Jessica Hardwick who wanted to find a political blogger to tell her story about bureaucracy denying her the right to vote today.

I was happy to oblige myself here ( http://sccdp.org/blogentry.php?linkID=http://sccdc... ).

Elisa Camahort
BlogHer and Worker Bees
elisa@blogher.org/elisa@workerbees.biz

I voted and have the sticker to prove it!

We use an electronic system here in my Florida county. Works well and efficiently.

There weren't many people voting at 8:45 this morning, but there was a steady trickle. I can't wait until tomorrow morning when I can face a day without calls from politicians and no more truth-twisting, negative, dumb, idiotic campaign ads! Wooohooooo!

Terri
Wheat Among Tares ( http://wheatamongtares.blogspot.com )

The new voting machines in Utah were quite amazing. There was one race where I didn't want to vote (only one person running and I didn't want to vote for that person.) The machine reminded me twice that I hadn't voted in that race. At the end it prints your results page by page in a strip saved in the machine, so you have two chances to fix it when you make a mistake.

On a more personal note, I have all my fingers and toes crossed for the national outcome regarding congress.

Kalyn Denny
Kalyn's Kitchen ( http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com )

We had the electronic machines this year, which worried me a little, but they do print out a paper record of your ballot, so that eased my mind a bit.

My son and I went to the polling place together at about 11 a.m. and there was no line whatsoever. We were in and out of there in less than 10 minutes.

I do wonder how the turnout here will be overall... it's raining today and I know that has an effect. While we were there, several others were arriving, so hopefully that's a good sign.

I Think About ( http://www.infovirtuoso.com/blog )

As a former South Floridian, it will never cease to amaze me when I walk up to a polling place at 7:30am and there aren't 100 people in line. Angelinos aren't even up early the day after Thanksgiving, much less voting day!

We have ink-a-vote, so I did that, and it was all super quick and professional at my polling place.

For me the big one was parental notification, of course, but also we had SO MANY propositions and positions to vote on. I worry that the election was a little intimadating to people. Personally, I've tried to encourage people to get out a vote, even if they don't feel comfortable voting on every single thing.

Liz Rizzo ( http://www.blogher.com/blog/liz-rizzo )

Everyday Goddess ( http://everydaygoddess.typepad.com/ )

SexySmart Blog ( http://sexysmart.typepad.com/ )

I blogged about my voting experience ( http://averagejane.blogs.com/average_jane/2006/11/... ) this morning.

I'll be so glad when this election is over. I've had enough mudslinging to last me at least another two years. That's the type of campaining that makes me throw away my vote to the gonzo third party candiate who lives out in the sticks and doesn't believe in the telephone. (I swear I voted for a guy like that in '04, out of sheer frustration.)

Five Dollar Camera ( http://www.fivedollarcamera.com/blog/ )

No school today, election day is sacred in this rural town. I had to wait in line 45 minutes to cast my vote. My two young boys waited with me. Such a party atmosphere! Poll workers handed out tres leches cake and donuts, hot cups of coffee, cans of pop.

We voted for state officials (gov, sec of state, US senate, land commissioner, etc), and several state-wide referrendums dealing with issues hot in New Mexico. (water rights, affordable housing)

Beauty Dish: True Underground Adventures of an Avon Lady ( http://beautydish.typepad.com )