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I say go for it. I just would like a final decision though. I don't want this to draw out and linger.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...electoral_vote
You know, it's really not going to mean in the result, but I thinkit's a good move for the party. Also, I want to know what the actually happend in Ohio.
I say go for it. I just would like a final decision though. I don't want this to draw out and linger.
If it's really not going to mean , how can it be a good move? It makes an already weak party look even more whiny.
I don't know, I just see this as backfiring big time.
I and most of America agree with Uncle Donnie on this one... , even John Kerry has said, get over it.
Major senatorial bloviations...
"I believe George W Bush won the election, I believe he won in Ohio...", said Barrack Obama...
Then...?
What's this about again?
maybe read the article? it states like 3 or 4 times what the purpose is
What a waste of time. Complete and utter waste of time. I'm SURE they'd be debating these crucial issues had Kerry won. I'm sure of it!!!
Gimme a friggin break. Barbara Boxer still the only one putting her name on it? What a joke.
Okay, I read it and can only glean the following:
Doesn't go on to say what issues these issues are.
Or this:
What Ohio voting problems? the article assumes everyone believes there was a problem in Ohio.Supporters of the drive said that rather than changing the election outcome, their hope was to shine a national spotlight on the Ohio voting problems.
Again, no specific allegation."The goal is to debate the issue," Tubbs Jones said in an interview. "And why not? We go across the world trying to ensure democracy, but there are some problems with the process in the United States."
What questions, the article doesn't say.[after saying he wouldn't join the challenge] In a statement, Kerry said there are "very troubling questions" about the Ohio voting and he would present a plan later to improve voting procedures.
What flaws?"We cannot keep turning our eyes away from a flawed system particularly as we have people dying in Iraq (news - web sites) every day to bring democracy to those people," she said.
What problems?House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., declined to say whether she supports Boxer's decision, but said the move would call public attention to voting problems. She said she would vote to uphold the Ohio vote.
Finally, a specific! But, did that prevent voters from voting or just lazy or impatient voters from voting? And, are those the "serious" election irregularities to which he was referring? He doesn't say.On Wednesday, Rep. John Conyers (news, bio, voting record) of Michigan, top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee (news - web sites), issued a report claiming "numerous, serious election irregularities in the Ohio presidential election," and cited machine shortages and extremely long lines in minority and Democratic precincts.
Again, the question stands...what's the purpose of the debate?
LOL Yoni...exactly.
This is just democratic sore-loserism on display.
Yes, heaven forbid that we spend some time discussing concerns about a Presidential election and debating ways to improve the election process in this country. It may be that the voting irregularities and other concerns that certainly seem to persist after both the 2000 and 2004 elections are somewhat nuanced or otherwise incapable of reduction to an explanation that is succinct enough to be palatable to a newspaper's audience. There could be all kinds of explanations for not identifying specifics in a piece filled with quick hitting comments.
Isn't a presidential election -- and acknowledged concerns over the manner in which votes were cast and counted -- a signficant enough issue to warrant congressional attention? Probably not, since this administration and its friends in Congress had absolutely no interest in conducting any significant investigation into the single worst terrorist attack in U.S. history until shamed into it by the families of those who died. I guess Congress should only spend its time on IMPORTANT issues.
Many of us believe the "concerns" are specious and politically motivated and, therefore, unworthy of a debate that stalls the process. Let them have the debate at a state level or in their respecitive caucuses...debate is fine, it's the timing, venue, and ambiguity of their argument that has me dubious.
Gotta love the timing!!
This charade isn't fooling anyone. That ISN'T what this is about FWDT. This is about pandering to their base.
Really, you think Boxer, Clinton, Obama, Reid...all these guys would be saying what they're saying today if Kerry won? Spare me.
And another thing...there have been "questions" about every President election since 1789; usually brought up by the losing candidate.
Let them bloviate and blather as long as they like.
Spare me the crying over the timing. Hardly a word has been said by anyone in Congress about this issue until today. One Republican Senator even called the protection of democracy by Democrats today "irrevelant". This despite clear evidence that in Ohio alone there was wide-spread voter disenfranchisement, statistical evidence of optical-scanner e-voting fraud, and the Secretary of State elections and (not coincidently) also the GOP State Chairman, who called Ohio for W, openly boasting about how he helped deliver Ohio to the Republican party and the 'Christian Coalition'.. Shades of Katheleen Harris anyone?
You think they would be bloviating today if Kerry won Dan?
I bet Republicans would be.
Whether it's politically motivated or not (and there can be no doubt that it IS), there are a lot of improvements that need to be made before the 2008 election. It amazes me that we still do not have one uniform ballot system across the nation. Or at least within each state.
You think Hastert, Delay, and even our own Senators, Hutchingson and Bonilla would have sat on their hands like they did today had Kerry won with the same irregularities now do ented to have happened in Ohio?You think they would be bloviating today if Kerry won Dan?
You drinking the sauce?
you only need one senator to get it done, she signed on.Barbara Boxer still the only one putting her name on it?
hmm, since you are predictably unaware that any irregularities took place in ohio, i'll post some for you.What Ohio voting problems? the article assumes everyone believes there was a problem in Ohio.
link
County Specific Matters
Cuyahoga:
o Much has been written about its municipalities having different numbers than townships. This issue seems to have been settled, with the explanation being that absentee ballots were reported as part of precinct totals, resulting in more votes being reported than actually voted at the precinct. The "ward summary" entries were not added into the county vote totals, so whatever their purpose for allocating absentee ballots across multiple municipal jurisdictions, they had no impact on the county returns. This can be proven by adding up the precinct-level votes and the votes recorded from absentee ballots, resulting in an exact match with the 'official' county totals. This diary has a good examination of per-precinct turnout in Cuyahoga.
o More seriously, only 2/3 of Cuyahoga's provisionals are being considered valid so far. Cuyahoga has a Republican in the chair position of their board of elections. How do we fight this?
o A watchdog group has filed a lawsuit challenging the number of invalid provisionals in Cuyahoga County.
o An excellent graph correlating voting problems to Cuyahoga precincts with a high percentage of black voters. Also: scatter plot comparing Kerry support to spoilage for precincts
o This diary refers to this report by Juan Gonzales at the NY Daily News that shows very strange es for third party candidates in some Cuyahoga precincts, the theory being that they were votes intended for Kerry. It is unclear if this happened statewide or in just these particular precincts.
o This diary uncovers the practice of some precincts being given the wrong instructions of how candidates matched up to ballot placement. So a candidate would be following the instructions to vote for Kerry, but would actually be voting for Peroutka or Badnarik.
Franklin:
o Election officials have acknowledged the 3,893-vote Gahanna precinct error and promised to correct it. That error was found by comparing the unofficial abstract of votes casts by precinct to votes for each candidate. It will be applied to the margin later, before certification.
- Official voting abstract corrected this precinct and removed the extra 3,893 Bush votes, along with 87 write-in votes.
- Precinct Columbus 58F was modified and 215 new votes added (1 BADNARIK, 100 BUSH, 110 KERRY, 2 PETROUKA, 2 NO VOTE)
o No official acknowledgment of the double entry -- and double tabulation -- of the absentee ballots (in unofficial abstract). Neither the Franklin Co BOE site nor the OH SoS site have yet been updated to reflect these corrections. See Ohio Franklin County Absentees.
- Official Abstract now has 3 lines for Absentee precincts.
- Presumedly, the original 2 precincts were created to split the absentee pile in half, for some unknown reason.
- The updated absentee results contain 5,753 new absentee votes split amoung "ABSENTEE 1" and "ABSENTEE 2".
- A new precinct was created called "ABSENTEE 3" which contains 12,124 votes (61% of these are for Kerry). This new precinct category is probably the accepted provisional ballots.
o This diary from Renee features an article that shows Democratic precincts here had far more voters per voting machine than Republican precints - leading to slower voting, and more malfunctions. Here are three excellent scatterplots showing this graphically.
o Another graph correlating voting problems to Franklin precincts with a high percentage of black voters.
o This diary refers to a report by Richard Hayes Phillips which details evidence of voting machines being deliberately relocated from black precincts to affluent suburb precincts, and implicates Franklin County Board of Elections Director Matt Damschroder. The estimate is that it cost Kerry 17,000 votes in Franklin County.
o The AP has finally picked up on the missing voting machine story. The article which appeared in the Columbus Dispatch cites 39 voting machines sitting unused out of a total of 2,840 machines. Damschroder's email claimed 88 machines were unused out of a total of 2,866.
o Using the exact same DRE voting machines in 2000 and 2004, the undervotes (no president picked) in 2000, averaged around 0.55% of the votes in a precinct. In 2004, the number of undervotes averaged 1.10% of the total precinct votes. If the undervote percentage was identical (same machines used), this would result in a difference of 2,500 ballots that were not under-counted in 2004.
Knox: a rural county, has had a few reports - according to one report, some of their machines didn't have paper trails. According to another, a democratic precinct had only one voting machine and the last vote was cast at 3 AM.
Lucas:
o Unlike most other counties, over half of their provisionals were judged invalid, which needs to be protested. The remaining ballots went to Kerry by a very large margin, one of the largest margins in the state. There could be one or two thousand lost Kerry votes here.
o It had tabulation errors in 4 precincts regarding a school-levy issue. There was also a 10-vote discrepancy in Badnarik's total; and one precinct -- Toledo 2-C -- had the pres candidates listed in a different order than all other precincts, but looks like an artifact of the report and has no effect on the vote count.
Miami: This article raises a question about how it reported its results (about halfway down the page).
Sandusky: According to the AP, it double-counted 2600 ballots due to worker error. These were re-examined as part of the provisional counting process, and with provisionals added in, Kerry gained about 375 in voting margin.
Warren: The Cincinnati Enquirer broke the story on the vote count, where reporters and some offical observers were locked out of the county building and not permitted to observe. County officials stated that the lockout was due to Homeland Security concerns relayed to them in a face-to-face meeting with an FBI agent. They further stated that the FBI told them Lebanon, Ohio rated a "10" for terrorist threats. On November 10, the Enquirer published a follow-up article in which FBI and state security officals said no such warnings had been issued. (Democracy Now interview with Enquirer reporter Erica Solvig)
there's a few for you...again, the whole purpose of the hearings today isnt to overturn the election, but to address these problems and how to solve them so we can have a better working election system
Ok Hutch, but Bonilla sponsored the Tom Delay Ethics Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Bill, so he's just as guilty.You drinking the sauce?
Some things need to said regardless of what the other party thinks. Silence is for the weak.
Werd dawg! I maintain that I think they should bloviate as long as they like. It's a free country.
Whew! After careful review of my own posts, I was gladdened to find I did not suggest they be silenced...
you crack me up Yoni...
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