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General Election Day Live Thread

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  • #61
    Re: General Election Day Live Thread

    Originally posted by scrivener View Post
    I was told by the Democrat poll-watcher in my precinct that she was checking the pollbooks for certain people, to see if they'd voted yet or not, and then sending her list to someone at the party, who would be giving calls, offering rides to the precincts, and basically getting out the vote. That doesn't sound like the same thing as the robocalls.
    Oh, my call from Kathy wasn't the same as a robocall, that's for sure, but they were both Republican get-out-the-vote efforts... unusual, indeed, given my Democratic leanings. Still, I did briefly manage a Republican's campaign for the state House, so presumably my name is in their database somewhere because of that. It certainly shocked some of my friends to see me marching with the GOP in the Kailua parade back in 2002!

    Speaking of election day observations, Brent Suyama, managing editor of KITV's website, was apparently liveblogging yesterday. All kinds of interesting minutiae that comes with trying to cover several locations live.

    I regret that I wasn't paying much attention at all, beat after a long, long day at work. No surprises in the big races, though I think Iwase and Thielen both did better than some would have guessed, and the Tavares win on Maui was interesting. Turns out I was more interested in how things unfolded on the national level. Definitely remarkable.

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    • #62
      Re: General Election Day Live Thread

      Originally posted by Lei Liko View Post
      I can't seem to recall getting any of those messages here. Is it against the law here to call homes and businesses with messages like that or do we just not do it here?
      Uh, you are here, right? Yes, it's legal for politicians and non-profits to call with recorded messages. They exempted themselves when they passed the law to ban businesses from the practice.

      And yes, Hawaii pollutions do call. I've got the recordings to prove it.

      My guess is that your phone number isn't registered in the right place. My guess is that neither Democrats nor Republicans have figured you as "one of them" so neither one bothers you.

      * Yes, I know "pollutions" is wrong, but my spellchecker suggested it. I decided I liked it's suggestion better.

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      • #63
        Re: General Election Day Live Thread

        Originally posted by Keith H. View Post
        Now it comes down to Montana and Virginia.
        Originally posted by Pua'i Mana'o View Post
        unreal...Dems might take both the House and the Senate...Missouri went Dem, so only two left (MT and VA), and VA might have to do a recount...
        CBS News is calling Montana for the Democrats - the balance of power hangs on Virginia - and we may not know for days...or weeks.

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        • #64
          Re: General Election Day Live Thread

          In our district, no pollwatchers showed up at all. The Last Voter was dragooned into performing that function during shutdown and buttoning up.

          There were so many people rushing in at the end that we feared closing the doors on somebody. We did allow one guy in a minute or two after 6 p.m., but he had been sent to the wrong district by the elections office and he had been THERE before 6. But there was no one locked out -- it worked out, fortunately.

          It was a bigger turnout than usual.

          Although the ballot-counting machine do say NUMBER OF VOTERS, they're actually counting ballots. Each single ballot in yesterday's election, however, consisted of two pieces of paper. We watched it closely, and whether or not it took one piece of paper or two, the number matched the number of ballots that went out, excluding "spoiled" ballots.

          The machine would reject Ballot B if it was blank, because it believed it was in error. The override was to hit the ACCEPT button and the machine would take in the blank ballot.

          We asked voters to feed in Ballot A first, the one with candidates, because that one was more likely to have machine-readability errors. (Yes, voters would do things like cross out errors to change votes, or black out the names of candidates of whom they changed their minds. or just scribble on the ballot. It generally required a whole new pair of ballots to be filled out.)

          It was interesting how many voters shiied away from the electronic ballot machine, primarily because of concerns about fraud. However, on the mainland, the primary fraud problems were with the counting machines and memory cards in those machines.

          Voting accuracy standards are set by every state, which means, of course, there is no consistant set of standards. You'd think this would be a job for oversight by the General Accounting Office, but their hands are tied. Because the control of voting has been turned over to private industry in many states, the potential for fraud is high. That's pretty scary. It may have already swung several key races in the past.

          Solution is pretty simple: An analog trail of votes and full accountability by bipartisan or nonpartisan organizations. It's OK to vote electronically, but leave a "paper tape" of each vote cast so it can be recounted. The machines used in Hawaii allow each voter to examine exactly what their votes were on the paper tape before casting it.

          And how long before Lingle appoints Hogue to some position?
          Burl Burlingame
          "Art is never finished, only abandoned." -- Leonardo Da Vinci
          honoluluagonizer.com

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          • #65
            Re: General Election Day Live Thread

            Originally posted by buzz1941 View Post
            Solution is pretty simple: An analog trail of votes and full accountability by bipartisan or nonpartisan organizations. It's OK to vote electronically, but leave a "paper tape" of each vote cast so it can be recounted. The machines used in Hawaii allow each voter to examine exactly what their votes were on the paper tape before casting it.
            Yup, and that's exactly what I did when I voted early at Honolulu Hale last week.

            Interesting perspective, Burl. If you don't mind me asking, what position did you hold at the polling place and how much did you earn?

            I don't know if I would call the Hawaii elections "exciting" this year. Nationally, yes, but it seemed our local elections were kind of boring.

            Maybe I'm being too lazy, but I haven't seen it anywhere else yet: What was the total voter turnout? Anyone know?

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            • #66
              Re: General Election Day Live Thread

              My position was Poll Official (that's a rank-and-file position) and I think the pay is $85 for about 13-14 hours work. It ain't the money, although SB people could always use a little scratch. (I took a vacation day.) It's just a matter of pitching in as a citizen.

              Because I had actually used the electronic voting machine before, I was tagged as the district "expert." Which means I figured out how to set it up and take it down. The people who used it in the General also used it in the Primary. About 1/10 of our votes cast were electronic.

              My 17-year-old daughter did it too. She said the most eye-opening part for her was the extreme care in maintaining security of the "chain of custody" for the ballots. Lots of witnesses and affadavits of stuff placed under seal. BTW, the Last Voter is a legal witness to the shutting down and sealing of the ballot box, which means if you're the last voter, you're locked in for maybe an hour after the polls close.

              We were assigned a district not our own, but close to home.

              Our impression yesterday was that turnout was better than expected in our little district. May have been different elsewhere. We were in the heart of Cynthia Thielen country.
              Burl Burlingame
              "Art is never finished, only abandoned." -- Leonardo Da Vinci
              honoluluagonizer.com

              Comment


              • #67
                Re: General Election Day Live Thread

                AP has called Virginia for Webb.

                The Democrats pulled it off. They control both Houses of Congress.

                I really didn't think that could/would happen. Wow.
                http://www.linkmeister.com/wordpress/

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                • #68
                  Re: General Election Day Live Thread

                  Whee! Let the investigative hearings begin!

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                  • #69
                    Re: General Election Day Live Thread

                    Asking Dems to stick to Democratic Values.....????.....would love to know what those are??

                    Surrender concepts of right & wrong to more aggressive cultures??
                    Reward sloth with entitlement??
                    Regulate business until the bottom line crumbles??
                    Promote mediocrity to crush individual achievement???
                    Save the Planet instead of the Humans???
                    Ensure that liability is never a function of choice or accident???

                    Dem Values......that is a concept worth exploring.
                    FutureNewsNetwork.com
                    Energy answers are already here.

                    Comment


                    • #70
                      Re: General Election Day Live Thread

                      Well, it didn’t take long for one of our standard thread de-railers to show up and twist this one into his standard anti-liberal rant. Hopefully, the other two don’t show up with the same agenda.

                      We can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans.

                      — U.S. President Bill Clinton
                      USA TODAY, page 2A
                      11 March 1993

                      Comment


                      • #71
                        Re: General Election Day Live Thread

                        Well, General Election Day is over. Thanks for the fun!

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