Florida | 20 comments (20 topical, 0 hidden)
On an unrelated note (none / 0)
Check out Hardball.  Tweety completely pwns a Republibot tonight...

by schmoab on 09/17/2008 05:09:15 PM EST

Florida is a Longshot for Obama (none / 0)

It doesn't matter what the polls say.

The Florida government, the Florida election commission, the Florida state police, and the people counting the votes all work for the Republicans.

In the 2,000 election, I had to wait in line for 13 hours to vote.  In 2004, I had to wait 9 hours in line.  Most people don't have the time and dedication to wait out in the hot sun that long to vote, especially knowing the chances that the votes will be counted correctly are slim to none.

When I got outside of the polling area after voting in 2,000, there were little old ladies outside who were crying because they either had no clue who they voted for (the ballot was extremely confusing), or they thought, after talking to friends, they accidentally voted for Buchanan.  I might have voted for Buchanan also, since the punch arrow pointed smack-dab in the middle between Buchanan and Gore.  You had to punch one or the other, but it was IMPOSSIBLE to tell which was the one to punch for Gore and which was the one to punch for Buchanan.  At least I didn't vote for Bush.

Just before you go into the polling booth, you get grilled by attorneys in suits.  If you don't answer all the questions correctly, after you get done voting, you can't put your ballot in the box, they take your ballot and put it on a "challenge" stack.  Who knows what happens to ballots in the challenge stack, but they probably just get shredded.  Some of the old folks get so flummoxed by the rapid-fire attorney questioning, they forget their address or city of birth.  Even if they don't forget anything, by the time they get to the booth to vote they are so exhausted from the long wait in the hot sun and shaking so badly from the interrogation, they can't see straight - let alone figure out how to use the voting machine.

In areas with lots of blacks and latinos, they put state police roadblocks at the access roads to polling places.  Since Florida has managed to suspend 40% of all the driver's licenses, these roadblocks filter out a LOT of voters.

If you are a Democrat or Independent in Florida, voting is HARD.  It is probably no picnic in the other battleground states, either.

So don't give me polling numbers that show how many percent  Obama is ahead in Florida.  The only thing those numbers do is tell Charlie Christ how many Democratic votes he has to block for McCain to win.  Unless Obama has at least a double-digit advantage, they WILL deliver Florida for McCain.

by rbruck on 09/17/2008 06:07:02 PM EST

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i will be voting (none / 0)
on october 20th, the first day of early voting here in florida

by screenshotted on 09/17/2008 08:33:34 PM EST

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Early Voting (none / 0)
I did early voting both in 2000 and 2004.  If you make the mistake of voting on election day, count on still being in line at 2 AM, long after the polls close.  We were remodelling our house so I was able to vote in a predominantly Republican district in 2006, and was in and out of the polling place in 10 minutes.

But now I moved back to our place on the ocean, which is predominantly Democratic, so I am counting on having an ordeal to get to the poll.

by rbruck on 09/17/2008 10:13:11 PM EST

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First hand experience (none / 0)
In previous elections (but after 2000) some of the worst lines were for the early voting. Those are were most of the tales of hours long waits originated.

I was attending a class at an early voting location in 2004 and the line was consistently around the building for early voting.

by jazzchic on 09/17/2008 10:33:00 PM EST

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I can only speak for one white bread polling site (none / 0)
Early voting is relatively new here, and after what happened in 2000 - the 2004 election lines were hours long. I'd see the same people in line went I arrived and when I left a 2 hour class.  I am sure it varied by the time of day (I was there in the evening hours).

by jazzchic on 09/18/2008 12:08:39 AM EST

[ Parent ]
72 hours in line? (none / 0)

The only one in this forum telling such stories is you.  I've been here (S. Florida) for several years and never heard such exaggeration.

Would you like to provide a link to such a story?

The difficulty voting in Palm Beach and Broward counties is real.  I have no doubt it is slow in other predominantly Democratic areas as well.

Yes, I could probably vote in 3-4 hours if I was able to vote between about 10am and 4pm on election day.  I'm not able to because of my business, so I am forced to vote in early voting.  I know people who get to the polls at 5pm on election day, and it takes until after 2am for them to vote.  The lines start to form between 2am and 3am for early morning voters, and is probably the best bet if you must vote on election day, and have to work during the day.

Every single voter is grilled by a team of attorneys, and this process takes a LOOONG time.  My polling place has at least a dozen polling booths, and I've never seen more than 2 or 3 occupied at a time.

We could fix ALL of the problems with voting, and be able to count 100% of the vote with 100% accuracy, if we allowed voters to vote online.  The ONLY reason we still have to go to the polls is to give the Republican party the ability to rig the election.  Our voting system is a scam.

by rbruck on 09/18/2008 12:10:46 AM EST

[ Parent ]
Remember, if you catch Ken in an exaggeration... (none / 0)
YOU're a liar.

by richardshort2001 on 09/18/2008 10:18:19 AM EST

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Me, Barak and Florida (none / 0)

I have consistently said Florida is not in play in a close election.

It had every indication of going red unless the entire country shifted seriously blue.

by ProfRich on 09/17/2008 10:50:09 PM EST

[ Parent ]
I agree (none / 0)

At least, this will be true as long as Charlie Christ is governor.  Jeb Bush taught him well.

by rbruck on 09/18/2008 12:38:23 AM EST

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I always find it hilarious... (none / 0)
When the people in Florida bitch and complain about the 2000 butterfly ballot - then they turn around and bitch about how stupid people (ie Conservatives) shouldn't be allowed to vote!!! Yes Fred, I'm talking about you... If the fucking old people can't figure out a paper ballot, perhaps they shouldn't be allowed to vote! Maybe you are right, Fred?! :)

by bobo1 on 09/17/2008 11:20:40 PM EST

[ Parent ]
You think figuring out the ballot would help? (none / 0)

OK, let me ask you this.  You have an arrow with a button next to it pointing directly at a line centered between names for Candidate A and Candidate B.  Which candidate are you selecting if you press the button, A or B?

The only way to tell was to pull the card out from the machine, look at where the punch-out mark was next to Gore's name, carefully put the card back in while looking at that mark and looking UNDER the voting machine to see which punch lined up with that mark and feeling around to the top for the button that activates that punch.

In other words, to vote correctly you had to a) have an IQ somewhat above 135, b) have good eyesight, c) understand machinery well enough to mechanically reverse engineer from the punch space on the paper card up through the machine, d) be flexible enough to crawl up under the machine while reinserting the card and feeling around for the button that activates the desired punch, and e) do all this without attracting the attention of the booth monitor who would probably kick you out if he saw you crawling under the voting machine.

Some people tried to do this by lightly pressing one of the buttons to make a dimple in the chad, and then taking the card out to see if the Gore chad was dimpled.  If they gessed correctly, they could then finish punching out the chad.  If not, they had to punch the other chad out, but then the vote would get rejected because there was another dimpled chad on the card, or the dimpled chad would fall out in the counting machine creating an overvote.

by rbruck on 09/18/2008 12:35:28 AM EST

[ Parent ]
Right (none / 0)
It's just the voter suppression and stopping the count that the Republicans can take credit for.

by Spencer on 09/18/2008 02:07:40 AM EST

[ Parent ]
Right, but it wasn't a tie. (none / 0)

The tie breakers don't matter when all of the votes haven't been counted. 

And it wasn't showing ID that was the problem.  It was more that whole thing about removing people from the voting rolls for false reasons (having a name close to a felons, being black/hispanic, etc.).  When they're not on the rolls anymore, it doesn't really matter if they have ID.  Thanks Katherine and Jeb.

by Spencer on 09/18/2008 03:11:50 AM EST

[ Parent ]
Point clearly missed. (none / 0)

The people wrongly taken off the voting rolls didn't get to vote, therefore their votes were not counted.  That's 57,000 voters in heavily Democratic areas.

Furthermore, "Take Gadsden County. Of Florida's sixty-seven counties, Gadsden has the highest proportion of black residents: 58 percent. It also has the highest "spoilage" rate, that is, ballots tossed out on technicalities: one in eight votes cast but not counted. Next door to Gadsden is white-majority Leon County, where virtually every vote is counted (a spoilage rate of one in 500).

"How do votes spoil? Apparently, any old odd mark on a ballot will do it. In Gadsden, some voters wrote in Al Gore instead of checking his name. Their votes did not count.

"Harvard law professor Christopher Edley Jr., a member of the Commission on Civil Rights, didn't like the smell of all those spoiled ballots. He dug into the pile of tossed ballots and, deep in the commission's official findings, reported this: 14.4 percent of black votes--one in seven--were "invalidated," i.e., never counted. By contrast, only 1.6 percent of nonblack voters' ballots were spoiled.

"Florida's electorate is 11 percent African-American. Florida refused to count 179,855 spoiled ballots. A little junior high school algebra applied to commission numbers indicates that 54 percent, or 97,000, of the votes "spoiled" were cast by black folk, of whom more than 90 percent chose Gore. The nonblack vote divided about evenly between Gore and Bush. Therefore, had Harris allowed the counting of these ballots, Al Gore would have racked up a plurality of about 87,000 votes in Florida--162 times Bush's official margin of victory"

Doesn't sound like much of a tie.

by Spencer on 09/18/2008 03:36:09 AM EST

[ Parent ]
Turn around their car and go home? (none / 0)

Not likely.

The voters in the Redneck Riviera were more likely to turn around their car and vote again, or go pick up as many of their neighbors as they could find and take them to the polls.

Florida.  Vote early.  Vote often.

by rbruck on 09/18/2008 09:52:53 AM EST

[ Parent ]
Yes, that is the ballot (none / 0)
The punch arrow on the machine pointed directly at the line in-between #4 and #5.  It was impossible to tell whether a punch would have punched out #4 or would have punched out #5.

They knew this about these machines.  They have to have at least TWO BLANK PUNCHES between selections to reliably tell who the voter intended to vote for.  The rest of the ballot was made this way.  But for the Presidential selection, they used punch slots right next to each other.  The way it worked was that

* If you point to the line between Buchanan and Gore and punch, you vote for Buchanan

* If you point to the line between Gore and the Socialist candidate, you vote for Gore

The pointer could not land on a hole, it only landed on the lines.

So, the question people outside the polling area after voting were asking was, which line voted for Gore?  The line between Gore and Buchanan or the line between Gore and the Socialist?

Do you have another explanation why so many Jewish voters voted for Buchanan?

by rbruck on 09/18/2008 09:50:14 AM EST

[ Parent ]

Florida | 20 comments (20 topical, 0 hidden)