Sorry Repubs…Pee-Wee is on our side. Also custard.
For me, this election is like the choice between store-bought ice cream (maybe even diet Ice Milk), and mouth-watering, homemade, unbelievably delicious frozen custard. How did I arrive at this conclusion?
This week President Obama was working hard alongside Governor Bruce Springsteen of New Jersey (boy, he sure has gained some weight) to help the people most in need. It struck me that the choice I’ll be making Tuesday is like going for store-bought ice cream when it’s obvious what you really need is homemade frozen custard. President Obama is like the delicious frozen custard you’d get at Kohr’s. President Obama has the 1.4 percent egg yolk solids needed to run this country.
The Democrats are the ones who complained about a stolen election in 2000 and 2004, and no one complained that Obama stole the election in 2008. It’s a little hard for me to accept that suddenly this year, it will be the Republicans doing the finger-pointing.
Sure if the print out is given to the voter directly for verification and the he/she deposits it in a ballot box where it can be counted later.
But seems to me pencil and paper is cheaper, easier, and simply better.
Qmanol
3084
It’s what we do. Each ballot just has names and boxes next to them. You just number the boxes in order of your preference. Fold it in half and put it in the sealed box, and they get hand counted. Elections are on Saturday and employers are legally required to give employees enough time off to go and vote. Voting and registration is compulsory and if you don’t like your choices you can just turn in a blank ballot. We are also one of the few countries to use proportional voting, as well as the first modern nation to have a secret ballot.
Australia cares about its elections.
Timex
3085
What’s the point of printing out the ballot and putting it in a box, and then counting those pieces of paper? Should we count them all by hand as well?
You collect it on a spool of paper, allowing the voter to see it when it’s printed at the time of their voting. Then , if you want to verify the votes counted by the machine for some reason, you can compare it to the votes recorded on the paper.
Canuck
3086
2000 sure. But I personally never thought any such thing about the 2004 election. I just out that one down to the overall stupidity of the American electorate.
Proportional voting is the most common system, Australia is one of few countries to have a transferable vote, though.
Qmanol
3088
Yeah, I meant to say preferential voting.
JeffL
3089
Yeah, but for weeks afterwards there was a hue and dry that it was stolen due to fraud in Ohio.
It will always be that way, no one wants to admit their candidate lost. Another reason I want to scrap the antiquated EC and just go popular vote.
Chuck
3090
I heard plenty of Obama stole the election talk in 2009. It was Acorn this and New Black Panthers that. The voter fraud myth has been played non-stop since then as a card to be played when Obama wins again.
So that I can verify myself that my vote is correct.
Should we count them all by hand as well?
If necessary yes, I would want a hand count to be possible.
Hugin
3092
Why would you think that?
Red State:
“Dem Playbook in Action. Voting Machines stealing Colorado.”
Free Republic:
“Judge extends voting hours in heavily Democrat FL county”
“Republican Voters Check Your Absentee Ballot Status”
Instapundit: Glenn Reynolds article about Democratic voter fraud.
RenewAmerica:
“Lying and stealing: the Democrat playbook for elections”
Etc etc.
A 2009 PPP poll indicated a majority of Republican respondents didn’t believe Obama won the 2008 election fairly. shrug I see no reason to believe that Republicans are immune to conspiracy theories or denial.
The only way a straight popular vote election of the President would be acceptable would be if there were a standard ballot/voting system nationwide, at least for that particular election. Currently, since elections are generally in the purview of county governments, as they say, “good luck with that.”
The Indiana senate race has flipped pretty hard on recent polls, with Rasmusson and a well-regarded local 3-day poll both indicating a lead for Donnelly the democrat over Mourdock. Silver’s win probability prediction for the Senate race was mid-60s for Mourdock even in the days and weeks following his rape comments, but he’s now giving Donnelly 67% odds. Dunno how much of that is the secret sauce, but RCP is also showing him in the lead and the election’s 2 days away, so I guess that’s a factor.
Obama goes up 3 in the Pew national poll.
The SO and I went to a Clinton/Obama rally in Concord (NH) this morning.
The line was massive - took over two hours for that line to weave its way to to the event - and by the time we got there we were so far back we couldn’t see any of the speakers. :(
Both Clinton and Obama are master speakers though. Very impressive, the both of them (and Clinton is very, very popular here. But then again where is he not.) Biggest applause lines were teachers, veterans, the auto bailout and lilly ledbetter. (Lots of young people and women attending.)
After the event while waiting for the buses to take us back to the staging area (a brutally long wait by the way as the first buses got caught in the presidential motorcade traffic) - a campaign worker said that was the largest rally in state history: 14k people. If that translates to votes, so much for the enthusiasm gap.
(As an aside someone in line near us said she had received a survey call asking about 2016 candidates: Hillary, Patrick Deval, Cuomo, and Warner were the choices.)
I’m jealous Grumpy, sounds fun despite the lines.
Nate Silver @fivethirtyeight
Simple average of national polls released Thursday: Obama +0.9. Friday: Obama +1.2. Saturday: Obama +1.3. Today (so far): Obama +1.4
mystery
3099
Tomorrow’s rally here in Madison is going to be at least 50,000 people. For some reason, they’re holding it on MLK Jr. Blvd., even though (IMHO) that’s a pretty small stretch of real estate. The kicker here is that he’s showing up with Bruce Springsteen.
Last time Bruce made an appearance with a candidate here in town, they held the rally on the length of W. Washington, with the crowd stretching all the way up to the capital building. That was 80,000 attendees for John Kerry. [Edit: Here’s a pic of what that looked like]
The wife and I won’t be attending this one…it’s on a Monday morning. No way can we get away from parent and work obligations. It’s going to be hell on traffic downtown, I figure.
Also worth noting: Ipsos/Reuters have been doing a daily tracker in Ohio over the last week. Today it went from O +1 yesterday to O +4 today. This poll has been the one with the lowest +Dem skew, and also one of the most restrictive “Likely Voter” screens.
