Jezebel 
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New York, 7:08 AM
Thu Dec 10
65 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/01/08
Also, I apparently need to call the Ohio Board of Elections and tell them to DROP MY NAME FROM THEIR GODDAMN VOTER ROLLS, b/c they keep calling me (in Pennsylvania) about my vote. Ohio, yr doin' it wrong. (Then again, I was a white person registered in a wealthy Republican town...their favorite flavor of voter.)
11/01/08
Also, our election problems, while ridiculous, are nothing compared to some parts of the world ...
I know the diebold machines are outdated and horrible and inefficient, but this is the first time i'm not voting by absentee and i'm really really looking forward to using an actual voting machine :)
11/01/08
The next day, I found a website of a TUC (90 miles away form PHX) TV station that mentioned it. So I called the Sheriff's PR Sergeant and she confirmed it... Started to make me wonder what would happen if such a tactic might have been employed nationally, or even just statewide, targeting very specific polling places, but never got any coverage. Scary.
10/31/08
Also: Democracy, it ain't that difficult and the U.S. is not a banana republic. Other countries manage to hold elections without all this shit. The Republicans should be ashamed of themselves. Amoral soulless dickwads.
11/01/08
11/03/08
Political memories are horribly short, thankfully Dems tend to be better at the 'Lest we forget' rule and actually LEARN LESSONS.
Sorry for getting all Caps-y. I'm so stressed by needing Obama to landslide this, and I'm from the friggin UK!
10/31/08
Anyhow, if these states succeed ... there IS always Canada, eh?
10/31/08
10/31/08
10/31/08
10/31/08
Still, this is all giving me a stomach ache. Well, this and the 4 servings of candy corn.
10/31/08
10/31/08
Just to give an example, the number of GA voters thrown off the rolls is less than 1% of the total voters in GA. I'm still very concerned about it, but I do not think it justifies posts from people saying the the US needs to call in the UN or "Why don't you vote like us Canadians?"
10/31/08
As it turns out? Not so much. Well, actually, the voting rights of "Real Amurricans" are probably safe, seeing whereas they all vote McCain.
10/31/08
10/31/08
10/31/08
I think its great that Jez pointed out that voters in WV should double check their ballots and that people are posting voter hotlines, but the US election system is not a disaster area on par with Bosnia in 1996.
@pssshwhatever: The most vile and ignorant conservative pundits are not representative of the country as a whole.
10/31/08
10/31/08
11/03/08
11/03/08
10/31/08
10/31/08
I am SO EXCITED to vote this time!! *Paid for the Committee of UnReal Americans for Change.
10/31/08
10/31/08
10/31/08
Then there are touch-screen machines, that sort of work like making selections at your ATM. They tend to be semi-private, with no curtain, which I HATE.
Personally, those are the only two types that I've used.
10/31/08
10/31/08
@pssshwhatever: Elections were just as easy to fix back in the days of hand-counting paper ballots in the US. There were times when entire boxes of ballots were dumped into the river!
Mind you, Diebold is a horrible, incompetent company that isn't fit to make a slide rule, never mind voting machines. But machines don't steal elections, people do. It is perfectly possible to create a system of voting machines that's secure, reliable and allows us to conduct elections efficiently.
Look, we use machines to handle trillions of dollars, sustain life and even deliver delicious pornography. They're not inherently unworthy of handling elections. It's the people in charge that we have to watch.
10/31/08
It's Diebold that I mind.
10/31/08
10/31/08
Federal elections should all take place under the same rules! Unify and simplify.
Election day should be a national holiday.
Require all states to have 2 weeks (including weekends) of early voting before election day. Using the same polling locations as they do on election day.
Ban the process of poll challengers entirely. Challengers are people who are allowed to raise questions about someone's right to vote, forcing that person to prove his/her eligibility or risk losing his/her vote. It should be up to the board of election to vet everybody in a uniform and non-partisan way, not allow partisan challengers to do it.
Nationalize the database to see who's voted, who hasn't, etc.
Which allows us to... eliminate voter registration entirely. Do like North Dakota, people can just show up, sign an affidavit, show proof if they're asked, and vote. There is no voter registration in North Dakota, at all. The same deal should apply everywhere.
There are, of course, tons of ways to improve voting machines. But that's pretty well-covered by other people, so I won't go into it.
10/31/08
10/31/08
10/31/08
10/31/08
10/31/08
10/31/08
10/31/08
10/31/08
I was thinking about this just today, in the context of "EARLY voting has five-hour waits in many states this year," but it's not really feasible. I don't know about where you're from but in the town I grew up in -- a highly educated suburb very nearly mooshed into Boston -- all elementary schools and all churches were polling places. The gym, library, and cafeteria were off-limits to us kids on election days; my parents voted in the basement of a Methodist church and I remember what a zoo that was. I just don't think it's feasible, sadly, to convert the polling places for that long a period of time.
That said, it would be nice to mandate evening and weekend hours for early voting, or more early mail-in ballots. Who has the personal / vacation time to take an extra day off at the end of October?
10/31/08
10/31/08
11/02/08
10/31/08
11/02/08
I'm a Georgia girl living up north now and I'd give anything to see Athens and Atlanta make Georgia blue. Although getting rid of Saxby Chambliss would be acceptable as a consolation prize.
11/03/08