The crying that the election was stolen, of course. We can't even get through Election Day without the whining beginning (via Liberal Avenger). Says that objective--not! reporter Greg Palast:
While progressives panic over the viral spread of suspect computer black boxes, the Karl Rove-bots have been tunneling into the vote vaults through entirely different means.
He then goes on to say that millions of votes will be stolen through laws designed to prevent voter fraud (read: people who aren't supposed to be voting but vote anyway).
I always love this screed because people like Palast never discuss the illegal voters allowed in the U.S. by the motor voter law of the mid-1990s. I actually knew a woman who was a citizen of a South American country who was sent a voter registration card all because she had a driver's license. It's that easy. But it's better to let illegals vote than to verify, right?
More scary stories from Daily KOS, this time that there's voter intimidation in Virginia.
"The FBI is looking into possible voter intimidation in Virginia's hard-fought U.S. Senate contest between Republican incumbent George Allen and Democrat Jim Webb," reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
And from TPM Muckraker.com:
I just spoke with a Latino election monitor in Arizona who said that a trio of men, one with a handgun visible, is harrassing Latino voters as they go to the polls in Tucson, Ariz.
"As voters are coming out of their cars and walking up towards their polls, one person is videotaping the voter as he walks towards the polling place," she said. Then another person, wearing an American flag bandana and a shirt with the image of a badge ironed or embroidered on it, approaches with a clipboard to talk to the voter. "While the clipboard person is. . .talking to [the voter], the cameraperson comes up and starts videotaping their face," Perales said.
As this happens, the third man -- with a gun visible in a sideholster -- stands next to the voter. According to Perales, he is wearing a shirt with an American flag on it, and camouflage shorts.
The men only approach Latino voters, she said, and noted they have been doing so since early this morning.
I always find it interesting what is considered intimidation. I'm not sure what my reaction would be if a cameraman or even a guy with a gun approached me at the polls. I'd probably just say "no thank you" and keep walking. Remember the police officer in Florida in 2000 who asked people if they'd voted yet and that was considered intimidation?
And there are other reports of voting problems. Interestingly, I didn't see any Democrats complaining about this:
Cincinnati's other Republican incumbent, Rep. Steve Chabot (news, bio, voting record), also hit a snag -- this time it was a new Ohio law requiring voters to show identification before casting a ballot.
Chabot's drivers' license listed his business address, not the home address on the voter registry. Though the polling officials recognized the congressman, Chabot went home to fetch a bank statement that confirmed his address.
"I guess this just shows the poll workers are really doing their job," he told the Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper.
I guess Chabot didn't complain of disenfranchisement.
Sadly,
An estimated 10,000 lawyers working for the Republican and Democratic parties are standing by across the country to intervene if problems arise.
My guess is that if the election doesn't go the Democrats way, we will, once again, be faced with more "they stole my vote!" whining.
I voted on the electronic voting machine today just to see how different it was. I've voted with flip level systems, punchcard systems, and connect-the-arrow systems. I'm sure there were times that the ballot I put in wasn't what I had intended to do, but I didn't scream that I'd been disenfranchised because of it. Silly me, I just accept that sometimes there's a mistake, not a conspiracy. Being from Texas and knowing about how LBJ stole his senate seat with a mysterious box of ballots, I'm well aware of voter fraud. I would say that wearing a handgun (if you have a conceal and carry license) doesn't constitute intimidation.
Anyway, back to the electronic voting. I had to wait about 10 minutes to vote while the guy in front of me read his entire voter's guide before voting. Silly me again. I thought you were supposed to make those decisions before you got to the voting booth, but oh, well.
Once I got in the booth, it was relatively straight forward. The instructions were on the right hand side in English in a step-by-step format. The whole process took me about two minutes to complete, including voting on two ballot initiatives. There was no paper verification, so I suppose my vote could have been stolen. At least, I would suppose that if I thought Diebold was out to get me. No doubt there will be those who cast their ballot the wrong way and then cry about it, but I suspect that will always be true.
I've read recently where some liberals are saying we need paper ballots and hand-counting to verify that all votes get counted. But I remember back in November 2000 when these self-same liberals where complaining that electronic voting booths would have prevented all the problems with voting in Florida. And anyone who thinks hand-counting ballots would alleviate miscounts never watched the Amazing Race season where the teams had to count several hundred items correctly. No team got it correct the first time through. The fact is, humans are prone to errors when counting large numbers. And wouldn't hand-counting give an even bigger chance for vote fraud? It seems to me that until we get a telepathic system of voting Democrats will always scream vote fraud...unless they win.
P.S.--I neglected to say that I voted a straight Republican ticket, although to some it was probably obvious. I started voting a straight ticket after the debacle in 2000. My anger at the way the Democrats behaved made me vow to never vote Democrat again. Six years later, I'm not sure I still want to live by that mantra. While clicking the straight ticket vote is fast, it's just not as satisfying as going through the individual names. Who knows? Next election cycle I might find a Democrat worthy of my vote.
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