Short Stories, Long Odds

I think I have to come to some important realizations about our general election, and seeing as how I have deprived you of politics in the last few days in favor of joyous baseball news relays from the front (”front” meaning “bars”), I should get back to work.

Important Realization #1: The hopes for a fair and decisive election are negligable.
This is old news to you if you pay any attention at all, but if you don’t, look here: already, voter fraud cases look primed to end up in an enormous multi-state Bush v. Kerry debacle. In Ohio, a big cache of electoral votes hangs in the balance.

In a move without a clear benefactor, a man was paid in crack rock for registering new voters; he proceeded to fill out 130 of the voter registration cards himself, using names like Dick Tracy and Micheal Jordan. The registration cards have been seized and discounted, thus disenfranchising enormously popular representatives of the “Cartoon Detective” and “Retired Basketball Legend” electorate demographics.

In that same story, you will find information about provisional ballots. The Miami Herald, among countless other news organizations, has been following the potential problems. One major aspect of the problem, as always, is jurisdiction. Hip to this:

In 2002, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act into law. One of the important provisions of the law is in Section 302:

SEC. 302. <<NOTE: 42 USC 15482.>> PROVISIONAL VOTING AND VOTING
INFORMATION REQUIREMENTS.

(a) Provisional Voting Requirements.–If an individual declares that
such individual is a registered voter in the jurisdiction in which the
individual desires to vote and that the individual is eligible to vote
in an election for Federal office, but the name of the individual does
not appear on the official list of eligible voters for the polling place
or an election official asserts that the individual is not eligible to
vote, such individual shall be permitted to cast a provisional ballot as
follows:
(1) <<NOTE: Notification.>> An election official at the
polling place shall notify the individual that the individual
may cast a provisional ballot in that election.
(2) The individual shall be permitted to cast a provisional
ballot at that polling place upon the execution of a written
affirmation by the individual before an election official at the
polling place stating that the individual is–

[[Page 116 STAT. 1707]]

(A) a registered voter in the jurisdiction in which
the individual desires to vote; and
(B) eligible to vote in that election.
(3) An election official at the polling place shall transmit
the ballot cast by the individual or the voter information
contained in the written affirmation executed by the individual
under paragraph (2) to an appropriate State or local election
official for prompt verification under paragraph (4).
(4) If the appropriate State or local election official to
whom the ballot or voter information is transmitted under
paragraph (3) determines that the individual is eligible under
State law to vote, the individual’s provisional ballot shall be
counted as a vote in that election in accordance with State law.

Seems logical enough, right? If I go to vote in the county (here written: jurisdiction) where I live and my name isn’t on the roll at that specific polling place, I can cast a provisional ballot which will then be transported to the proper polling place. Why is this important?

The US Commission On Civil Rights, in a report about voter disenfranchisement in the 2000 presidential election, lists “polling places closed, or closed early, or moved without notice” as one of the major agents of voting difficulties. Had there been a provision (ha ha) for this kind of difficulty the problem would have been solved.

Herr Blackwell (Secretary of State, R - Ohio) is eyeing the governorship of Ohio and is also trying to override a US District Court’s ruling which falls in line with the Help America Vote Act. This ruling was in response to Blackwell’s assertion that Ohio (and states in general) control how elections are run and to get the Federal Government’s grubby hands off his state’s electoral proceedings. In response to the US District Court’s ruling, he has more or less called them silly bastards and said that people can vote with provisional ballots, but they have to sign an affadavit stating that they understand that their vote “may not be counted”.

The GOP pull this shit all the time: they want you to believe that they are the party for state’s rights and that they hate big government, but more or less only when it comes to ill-advised tax cuts or battleground states worth a lot of electoral votes. Keep in mind, this is the party that brought you Star Wars (the failed, hideously expensive missile defense system, not the movie), are now championing a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage (which would supercede all state rulings and laws), and also would really like if it you would make the Patriot Act permanent, and don’t even get me started about state’s rights under that silly shit.

So, Ohio is a mess, Jimmy Carter thinks a replay in Florida is inevitable , and the electronic voting problems have been well documented.

Important Realization #2:Polls are most likely full of lies
‘Lies’ might be a harsh word for it - I just think they’re totally unreliable. I’ve become just as big a junkie for the electoral vote tracker as anyone but its gotten to the point where I can’t handle it anymore, even though things are swinging a little blue. I buy into the idea that the race is close but that’s all the judgement I’m making. The internet is great and all but the ability to aggregate and disburse 60 polls a day is too much for me to take. Besides, I’d rather analyze things like…

Important Realization #3:No one is helping
So Teresa Heinz-Kerry pops off that Laura’s never had a real job. I imagine there’s a bit of difference between needing a real job and having one, but that’s beside the point. Politically, a statement like that is damaging and useless because people won’t be able to get beyond the fact that Teresa is the kind of rich that bends time. So, totally useless, and even if it were useful, no one would care. Kind of a dumbshit move that doesn’t help Kerry.

Something that people should care about, however, is also going to be ignored: Pat Robertson is really shitting the bed for the GOP. Andrew Sullivan managed to dig up an earlier telling of Robertson’s tale, which would seem to reinforce its veracity. Keep in mind, I’m with Josh Marshall in the idea that you can’t believe anything Robertson says, but it is rather interesting.

Creating more problems for the GOP is Tom DeLay, who was today subpoenaed for sketchy dealings during the 2003 Redistricting Slapfight in my home state of Texas. My wife and I talk about moving back to Texas and turning it back into a blue state once all the racist geezers still pissed about the Civil Rights Act die off, and as soon as DeLay gets shod in legirons the sooner we can get started. You have to have lived in Texas for a long time to understand how truly slimy guys like DeLay are.

Important Realization #2: Kos runs a tight ship
I like to stay on top of Senate and Congressional races during election years, for a hodge-podge of reasons chief among them being a sharply defined sense of self-loathing. It would be an extraordinarily tedious process without the Daily Kos. Tonight he waxes analytic on a couple of Democratic Senate seat pick ups as well as a somewhat belated attempt to remove everything embarassing from the White House website.

One last thing before I immediately drink beer and watch baseball before filing another story - check out this bile from the National Debate, seen here in the natural state of silliness trogs engage in before shaving and mating. In an entry entitled “LIFE ON THE LOONEY LEFT” the author writes:

…where terrorism is fake but Democratic Senators shutter their offices due to terror threats.

He links the phrase “Senators shutter their offices” to this well-publicized story about Sen. Mark Dayton (D - Minnesota) closing his office due to terror threats. A lot of people have been criticial of his decision, and there’s no problem pointing it out.

The problem comes when he links the phrase “terrorism is fake” to a Guardian UK report about a movie airing on the BBC in England. The film outlines a theory that the Blair administration overstates the threat of al-Qaeda in Britain. Certainly he could claim that this comes from a progressive, liberal publication (the Guardian) but the phrasing is troublesome.

He knows as well as I do that most people are not curious, and partisan readers will likely read the update, not click anything, and assume that those Commie Leftist bastards are up to their old tricks. It is even possible that, with the current news coverage of the UK’s letter writing campaigns, readers will click, see the story is from the Guardian, and assume that the Democrats are up to it. I am studiously reminded of Bill Gertz.