A conservative columnist who came to national prominence for initiating the “I talked to these blue collar whites in rural Pennsylvania, and they’re all Trump voters.” She did it in the days leading up to election day, 2016. But…that’s all she does. And like a hammer, every story she sees is that nail. She just keeps re-writing that same narrative and it becomes less and less relevant.
If you’re sick of the “We talked to rural voters at this diner, and they still love Trump” stories, she’s the person to blame for starting them and basically making that her entire career.
Ah found it…she apparently writes for the NY Post, which I try very very hard not to read.
She seems pretty exercised about there being a bunch of Republican governors in NE. Which everyone knew already…but they’re so moderate none of them could ever survive outside of NE, so I’m not sure what her point is.
I’m sure there is a cadre of Trump lifers holed up in a crappy diner in New Bedford somewhere.
Hand recount of Broward ballots is not what Senator Bill Nelson and Marc Elias wanted to see. It definitely looks like ballot design was the culprit. Most tables where the hand recount is taking place show the senate race question unmarked.
KevinC
1856
Fucking Florida. I know that state gets more scrutiny, but after 2000 how can they still be fucking up basic shit like ballot design?
Aaaaaaargh.
None
1857
Ballot designed by Florida Man?
rowe33
1858
Luckily the ballot designer will likely still be gainfully employed in 2020, and 2022, and 2024, etc, so we can look forward to many years of unfair outcomes in the future as well.
Hand recount complete in Broward, nowhere close to the numbers Nelson needed there.
Networks will begin officially calling this for Rick Scott.
And Steve Schale points out, the ballot design process is a public one now in Florida. That ballot was shown, approved at multiple levels, and subject to public comment and debate/revision.
It is what it is.
KevinC
1861
“How many Florida Mans does it take to design a ballot?”
As much as I support individual State’s Rights, I’m thinking the time has come for a Federal standard on ballot design, how votes are cast and tabulated, and how voters are registered and recorded.
If Florida ballots were designed and processed the same as Ohio ballots which were designed and processed the same as New York ballots, etc., and everyone who had the right to vote could easily register and do so, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Cormac
1863
I don’t understand, won’t that make it tougher to manipulate the outcome and control the election?
The problem is that at their very cores and foundations, states set up different ways to handle this stuff, and there’s no real good way around it.
For instance, here in Virginia I had on my ballot: congress, senator, and three tax proposals. 5 things.
That’s because a lot of the tax proposals and legislations in Virginia, by constitution here in the Commonwealth, are handled through the state legislature.
But in other states (like Florida, California, etc.), a lot of those kinds of proposals get set by ballot, and thus can fill up a standard ballot and make it a really unique user interface issue.
Shhh…don’t tell anyone or say it out loud. The GOP has spies everywhere. Hang on, someone’s knocking at my door…
That’s a valid point. However here in Ohio, I’ve been to the polls and been handed a legal paper size ballot filled top to bottom both sides with races and issues, one that took me a good 15 minutes or more to fill in all the little squares to denote my choices, and each race or issue was organized by order of importance and clearly contained within it’s own little outlined box on the ballot. There are ways to handle ballot design that can accommodate even the heaviest load of races and issues and not resort to “hiding” an important race somewhere down ballot.
It would certainly be a challenge, but not impossible, especially if the Federal Government standardized the voting method used (such as pure electronic, or paper ballots that are then fed into the electronic scanner by the voter, like here in Ohio).
If you go to vote and you can’t comprehend that you haven’t voted for SENATOR at some point, and you submit your ballot with some kind of fond hope that maybe in fact you DID vote for senator at some point, then what the hell kind of idiot are you?
MikeJ
1869
We are talking about a fairly small fraction of people making that mistake, about 1 in 30. I think a reasonable person could go through the infinity of other items on the list and forget that senator hadn’t come up. I’d bet that at least a third of the people visually skipped over the senate area at first and more than 90% caught their mistake.
All of us can get a bit confused, especially the elderly. There’s a reason why elderly people are more susceptible to scams.
It does seem odd. You might forget to vote for a judge or local official, but Senator is pretty important.
