2012 election pregame

[rhinohelix]

I don’t care about Sandy. I was responding to your assertion that MI and PA are tied, which is ridiculous enough that I assumed you must be trolling or are the only adult in North America not working for the Romney campaign who believes that.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/pa/pennsylvania_romney_vs_obama-1891.html#polls

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/mi/michigan_romney_vs_obama-1811.html#polls

Well, in the spirit of mutual respect, let me revise my remarks to read “within the margin of error”.

Dude, you’re a conservative. That means you’re stupid, you are easy prey to ads touting miracle cures for cancer, you hate everyone but rich people, and you want poor people to die.

Duh.

Sorry, Jeff, I couldn’t hear you over the sounds of my knuckles dragging and mouth-breathing. My gold stocks and these “3 simple ways to beat aging” books are really making a clatter, as well.

[Kool_Moe_Dee]

Now you can WIN AN ELECTION using this 1 weird trick. CLICK HERE

[Papageno]

Edit: And for the record, what’s happening in OH and FL should be criminal. What functioning democracy acts this way? It’s shameful.

So what’s happening in OH and FL? Vote suppression shenanigans?

[arctangent]

In Florida the governer refused to extend early voting in spite of the huge turnout. But! a judge in Orange county extended early voting, for Orange county only.

And in Ohio:

A federal appeals court last month reinstated early voting on the last 3 days before Tuesday’s election, handing a victory to the Obama campaign. The ruling overturned a state law saying early voting should end on the Friday before the election, making an exception only for voters living overseas and for military personnel, who tend to favor Republican candidates.

The Romney campaign has advocated for early balloting rights of military voters. Former Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi last month sent letters to officials in four states, including Wisconsin, a presidential battleground, demanding the deadline for receiving ballots from military personnel and overseas voters be extended.

[MrGrumpy]

So what’s happening in OH and FL? Vote suppression shenanigans?

In Florida the governer refused to extend early voting in spite of the huge turnout. But! a judge in Orange county extended early voting, for Orange county only.

And in Ohio:

Ohio
Florida

There are reports that there are 5+ hour waits to vote in FL (in part due to a 10 page ballot.)

[Jazar]

Panoramic picture at South Florida rally with Obama

[MrGrumpy]

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.

Wow.
For reference Concord pop is 41k. Our largest city (Manchester) is 100k.

[Timex]

Ohio
Florida

There are reports that there are 5+ hour waits to vote in FL (in part due to a 10 page ballot.)

Dude, what is on their ballot that makes it that long?

[mystery]

Panoramic picture at South Florida rally with Obama

http://i.imgur.com/LguVb.jpg

There are mustangs between the hedges, apparently.

[arctangent]

The elections office in Miami-Dade County has reopened after shutting its doors to voters who waited in long lines for an absentee ballot.

Deputy Supervisor Christina White says election officials were overwhelmed by the size of the crowd Sunday. With limited staff and one printer, election officials decided to shut down the main office. Voters banged on the front doors and demanded to vote, prompting staff to reopen the office about an hour later.

White says “we heard them loud and clear.”

Getting rowdy down there.

Florida early voting percentage by registered party affiliation:
Votes: 4.3 million
Democrats: 43 percent
Republicans: 40 percent

[Timex]

What’s the deal with the early voting, anyway? I don’t seem to remember that ever being such a big deal before.

[Clay]

What’s the deal with the early voting, anyway? I don’t seem to remember that ever being such a big deal before.

In a nutshell:
It tends to lean heavily Dem., so there are allegations that the GOP people in control of Ohio and Florida purposefully restricted early voting hours to decrease the number of votes for Dems.

[LockerK]

There are reports that there are 5+ hour waits to vote in FL (in part due to a 10 page ballot.)

A friend of mine waited 3+ hours to vote today in Ohio.

[Papageno]

A friend of mine waited 3+ hours to vote today in Ohio.

5 hours here, 3 hours there…that shit is just insane and stupid. In Oregon we have vote by mail for everybody (essentially, everyone gets an absentee ballot mailed to them around 2.5 weeks ahead of election day). You can mail it back anytime, or if you prefer, you can drop it off anytime at all kinds of official county ballot drop-boxes, where the ballots get picked up every couple of days–I always go to a local public library, although one time I waited till election night and dropped it off at the actual county elections drop-box, which was a traffic nightmare.

[MrGrumpy]

5 hours here, 3 hours there…that shit is just insane and stupid. In Oregon we have vote by mail for everybody (essentially, everyone gets an absentee ballot mailed to them around 2.5 weeks ahead of election day). You can mail it back anytime, or if you prefer, you can drop it off anytime at all kinds of official county ballot drop-boxes, where the ballots get picked up every couple of days–I always go to a local public library, although one time I waited till election night and dropped it off at the actual county elections drop-box, which was a traffic nightmare.

Voting shouldn’t become an exercise in stamina. What’s the solution? Taking over voting procedures from the states? I don’t know but that this happens every election cycle is just wrong.

[Timex]

You have more direct influence over voting in your state than you do at the federal level. You can just vote for state officials who can improve it, if you want it improved.

[Clay]

You have more direct influence over voting in your state than you do at the federal level. You can just vote for state officials who can improve it, if you want it improved.

Well, that’s sort of the Catch-22, isn’t it? Getting in to vote at all is the deterrent, it seems.

[MrGrumpy]

I have never had a problem in my state. Most states don’t. Some do. If some states cannot conduct their elections rationally then maybe the U.N. should take over.

That’s a joke.

I don’t know the solution but just saying oh well they need to vote for better people isn’t one, either. Local Secretary of States should not be a political position would be mine. but I’m not sure how that can be implemented.

[Papageno]

BTW, Oregon’s turnout rate in Nov. 2008 was around 80%. I know that that was perhaps unusually high due to then-candidate Obama’s “rock star” status, but still, much higher than the rest of the country.

[rhinohelix]

In Florida the governer refused to extend early voting in spite of the huge turnout. But! a judge in Orange county extended early voting, for Orange county only.

And in Ohio:

I thought you were going to say that Active service members were being removed from voter rolls:

#ProtectYourVote

6500 at a Ryan fly-by in Minnesota.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A64-Ks5CIAEETWe.jpg:large

25-30,000 at a Romney stop in PA:

http://tinypic.com/r/2ajxri0/6

For comparison, Bush got 23,000 at the same venue in 2004 when he lost PA by 2.5 points and independents by 17 points.