Calm before the Shit Hits the Fan
Sunday, October 31, 2004, 04:09 PM
My day as a verified voting person starts tomorrow at 8 a.m. because of a last minute scramble for folks at the national call centers. Which means... yes, dear reader, it means that I probably won't sleep at all this week and that I'll be even more backlogged on posting in a couple of days. I'll try to sneak away and post some updates, though. I imagine there'll be plenty of news coverage; I already saw some coverage of our work.

Here's the wrap-up for the past few days.

The new story seems to be election-day challenges of a voter's elegibility at the polls. Lawsuits range from those trying to limit the number of challengers from either party that can appear at the polls, to controlling the way challenges are handled procedurally so that the rest of the people beinhd in line don't have to wait a chunk of time for each challenge to be resolved, to blocking such challenges completely. And just to add to the mix, lawsuits about Ohio challenges are now being filed in New Jersey.

These lawsuits are all expected to be settled Monday. Let's see how long that expectation lasts.

When someone writes a book about this later, no one is going to believe it.


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November 25, 2000
Sunday, October 31, 2004, 03:33 PM
NYT Headline: "U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Florida Recount Case".

Now, why would they want to hear it? To affirm the lower court's opinion in glowing terms? Well, then, they could have just left well enough alone and denied cert.

The court added an additional question for briefing, other than those raised by the Bush campaign:

"What would be the consequences of this court's finding that the decision of the Supreme Court of Florida does not comply with Title 3 United States Code, Section 5?"

Most comentators were surprised by the decision to take the case. But they quickly found a rationale. "Justices May See Task As Calming the Storm", according to the headline.

"What the court is trying to do," said Bruce Ackerman, a professor of law and politics at Yale University, "is to keep the fundamental issues legal, to be resolved by legal tribunals." And, "whichever way they go, this will reassure both sides," he said.

He was the liberal commentator quoted for the article.

The conservative commentator said much the same thing.

In other developments, the Gore campaign planned to contest the Palm Beach County recount because they didn't count dimpled chads, the Florida Legislature planned to intervene on behalf of the Bush campaign in the case that the U.S. Supreme Court just agreed to hear, Bush lawyers argued in state court that over a dozen counties should reinstate absentee ballots that had been disqualified for unpostmarked ballots or ballots from unregistered voters (!), and Dick Cheney got out of the hospital after being treated for a mild heart attack.


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The Joker in the Deck
Sunday, October 31, 2004, 03:32 PM
So if you were one of the people who predicted that the Pentagon would announce this week that they had captured bin Laden, you, like me, were wrong. Surprised again! And now everyone wonders -- at least, I know I do -- is his group really planning something around Nov. 2? Is this going to be the final monkey wrench that throws the whole system into chaos? I try not to think about that scenario because it's too disturbing.

The pundits are having a good time trying to decide who the release of the tape benefits more, Bush or Kerry, Gee, what about the rest of us? Does it benefit us in some way? Is there useful information in there? Should we ignore the tape as the recordings of a hopeless psychopath or see if it tells us anything about their motivations that we can actually work with, even if he *is* a hopeless psychopath? (I understand that basic hostage negotiation teams do that much. Someone can chime in here if they know better.)

At least one thing ought to be clear: the mantra "They hate our freedoms" should go into the dustbin of history along with all the other useless soundbytes that pass for explanation from our various political leaders, from *both* major parties.

Ok, I'm done ranting now.


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November 24, 2000
Sunday, October 31, 2004, 03:23 PM
NYT Headline: "Florida's High Court Deals Gore a Setback, Denying Bid to Force a Miami-Dade Recount".

The lead paragraph:

"A unanimous Florida Supreme Court refused today to compel Miami-Dade County to resume its manual recount of nearly 700,000 paper ballots. The ruling was a serious setback to Vice President Al Gore, whose aides promptly announced that on Monday he would formally contest the certified results of the FLorida election."

In Broward County, folks kept counting, and "...the atmosphere at times turned ugly. The members of the canvassing board, made up of two Democrats and one Republican, had to try to gauge -- sometimes from unclear marks on the ballot -- each voter's intent, as observers from the two campaigns looked on inside a wood-paneled courtroom in the Broward County Courthouse.

The candidates' lawyers were under orders from the board not to challenge its decisions ballot by ballot. But William Scherer, a lawyer for Mr. Bush's campaign, became so agitated by the board's decisions on dimpled ballots that he ignored the directive and was almost removed from the counting room."

And, in the Gore camp, "people were assessing whether or not there is the political will" to continue the fight.

A story about absentee ballots opens with the story of one person who decided to follow Republican Party advice and vote absentee.

"But his vote for George W. Bush ended up in a reject pile when election officials decided his scrawled signature did not match the more precise autograph on file, Dade County election officials indicated.

'What?' Mr. Bergrab sais Wednesday when told the news. 'That's just wrong not to count my vote."

In fact, absentee ballots cast by thousands of Floridians were tossed out because election officials rejected the signatures or found other flaws in their submissions..."

The article talking about the Gore camp's internal divisions described the Bush camp as being "encouraged by a remarkable unity on the Republican side. Many Republicans have encouraged Mr. Bush to take the fight to the Florida Legislature or the United States Congress, if need be. Even many Republicans who opposed President Clinton's impeachment, like Gov. George E. Pataki of New York, have been steadfast in defending Mr. Bush, and have begun to speak out passionately about their concern that Mr. Gore was trying to steal the election."

We also learned that one of the reasons that Miami-Dade County decided top stop their recount the day after getting the go-ahead form the Florida Supreme Court was due to a well-organized public pressure campaign on the part of the Republicans, using phone banks to mobilize Republican voters in Miami to protest downton.

"The subsequent demonstrations turned violent on Wednesday after the canvassers had decided to close the recount to the public. Joe Geller, chairman of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, was escorted to safety by the police after a crowd chased him down and accused him of stealing a ballot. Upstairs in the Clark center, several people were trampled, punched or kicked when protesters tried to rush the doors outside the office of the Miami-Dade supervisor of elections. Sheriff's deputies restored order.

When the ruckus was over, the protesters had what they wanted: a unanimous vote by the board to call off the hand counting."



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Running behind
Sunday, October 31, 2004, 03:22 PM
Two days in a row without posts means 6 posts today. Yow! I have an excuse: housewarming party and preparation. We moved in in mid-March, so if we put off the house-warming any longer we'd be ready to move out by then.

Friday I finally got the rest of the information about paper ballots in Alameda County. Here's the scoop:

If you don't want to use the electronic machines in California, you have the right to ask for (and get) a paper ballot as an alternative in one of the 10 counties that use these machines. This includes Alameda County, where I live.

They will, in Alameda County, give you a provisional ballot. It is *not counted* as a provisional ballot! The county official I talked to said that the way they know it is not a provisional ballot and that they do not have to check for the elegibility of the voter when they count them later is that the ballot is placed in an envelope and you are supposed to mark on the envelope a little checkbox that says that the voter requested a paper ballot. I supposed we'll see if they poll worker tells me to check it, or if they check it, but regardless, I'm going to make sure it's checked.

The actual tallying of the votes runs like this: Round one, electronic tabulation. Round two: absentee ballots first, because they have already been sorted and can be readily totalled at this time (so the claim goes). Round three: provisional ballots and paper ballots.

If you want to do your own verification of these things, you can talk to Michael Wagaman in the Secretary of State's office: 916-657-2166. [This is *not* a request for a phone blitz. Seriously, they are very busy in this office, so no prank calls, please!] I asked for some written documentation but the only thing that exists for public consumption is the Secretary of State's April 30th directive which requires all of these counties to provide a paper ballot alternative.

Later in the day I saw an amusing story about how this directive was being implemented -- or not -- by the various counties. Even after a Wednesday conference call, it seems that some counties are trying to keep the paper ballot alternative hush -hush so that voters feel better about electronic voting. Because you know, if you hide information from people they feel much safer about their choices. Right?


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