The 2012 "Election" thread

[justdrew]

update on the situation in PA: ( you heard about it here first )

Many voters in Philadelphia are being asked to cast provisional ballots despite having registration cards, according to City Paper.

Poll workers and voters have reported that many residents of the city who had registered to vote were not appearing on the voter rolls. Those voters have been asked to cast provisional ballots, which can take up to a week to be counted.

“Their names are not in the books,” clerk Gwen Howard told City Paper. “Something different. Some have [registration] cards and are not in the books. And you know they come every four years…They were pretty upset.”

The Committee of Seventy, which monitors elections in Philadelphia, said the problem seemed to be a clerical issue.

“For any voters whose registrations were processed after October 23rd, their registrations were supposed to go into a Supplemental Poll Book, and an issue seems to be whether all these new, late-processed registrations made it to the polling place on time for Election Day,” the group said in a statement.

The Committee of Seventy said it had also received reports that some polling places were not allowing voters to cast provisional ballots and had alerted City Commissioners about the issue.

The group warned city officials in mid-October that a huge backlog of voter registration applications could remain unprocessed by Election Day.

Raw Story (http://s.tt/1skbT)

[lupercal]

CSPAN reporting Obama winning Ohio, based on actual returns, also North Carolina (very slim), and Romney winning in Virginia and Florida. But it's still early. Romney is supposedly winning whites and independents across the board.

http://www.c-span.org/Election/

Not terribly encouraging so far.

[Luther Blissett]

And now, for the masochistically inclined:

Live Election Tracker

I'm stoned and watching all these crazy networks.

Chris Matthews's constant incredulity is both infuriating and endlessly entertaining. Why is he always so surprised?

[DrVolin]

Not surprisingly, both Florida and Ohio are behaving strangely. Obama is actually ahead in FLA right now, but lots of big counties have very small numbers of votes reported, while the whole state says about 50% reported.

[NeonLX]

Pass that over here, Luther.

Please.

[Wombaticus Rex]

No shocker that Bernie Sanders cleared house -- this was a race so one-sided that I literally only registered the name of his GOP competitor today. Our good-for-nothing Governor won, but Vermont has a long proud history of "nothing" so I've got no real beef with Shumlin...plus, holy shit, his challenger was challenged. Ran a truly, generously hilarious campaign. No joke: his "big idea" was that unemployed Vermonters should buy a "Business in a Box." He could not answer questions at press conferences about how unemployed people would afford franchises, especially since he was running as a "no handouts, less government" conservative. He could not answer questions about what kind of "businesses" are exactly in high demand in rural, piss poor Vermont -- although I certainly could: marijuana, heroin and methamphetamine, DUH!

The closest race tonight is the most important, and the one I'm most ambivalent about: Auditor. The Dem candidate, Hoffer, is perfect for the job: hates people and loves numbers. On the other hand, Illuzzi, his challenger, is a slimy piece of shit, but see, he's our slimy piece of shit: he's been carving huge slices of pork for the Northeast Kingdom for decades. It would be good to have him plugged back into the power structure, but he would, of course, ruin the office itself. So I wait, enraptured by the suspense, calmed by the knowledge it amounts to the same pile of nothing.

Looking forward forward to the next election cycle, I promise to be very entertaining.

[ninakat]

Hat tip to Cryptogon -- I hadn't seen the segments where Carlin spoke up on talk shows and got the eye-roll treatment:

[Luther Blissett]

update on the situation in PA: ( you heard about it here first )

Many voters in Philadelphia are being asked to cast provisional ballots despite having registration cards, according to City Paper.

Poll workers and voters have reported that many residents of the city who had registered to vote were not appearing on the voter rolls. Those voters have been asked to cast provisional ballots, which can take up to a week to be counted.

“Their names are not in the books,” clerk Gwen Howard told City Paper. “Something different. Some have [registration] cards and are not in the books. And you know they come every four years…They were pretty upset.”

The Committee of Seventy, which monitors elections in Philadelphia, said the problem seemed to be a clerical issue.

“For any voters whose registrations were processed after October 23rd, their registrations were supposed to go into a Supplemental Poll Book, and an issue seems to be whether all these new, late-processed registrations made it to the polling place on time for Election Day,” the group said in a statement.

The Committee of Seventy said it had also received reports that some polling places were not allowing voters to cast provisional ballots and had alerted City Commissioners about the issue.

The group warned city officials in mid-October that a huge backlog of voter registration applications could remain unprocessed by Election Day.

Raw Story (http://s.tt/1skbT)

My girlfriend did not have to cast a provisional ballot tonight, but many of my friends did.

Looking forward to seeing how Warren's race turns out. And if Stein gets over 1% in any state.

[DrVolin]

Romney seems to be running away with FLA now, and magically closing the huge initial gap in Ohio, even though just looking at the county map, most uncounted votes are now in Cuyahoga county. Magic!

[8bitagent]

So far the election doesn't seem to be yielding any real surprises. I already see a conceding like tone from some right wing pundits, citing the "sandy factor" as well as Romney not reaching out to latino voters.
It'd look way too obvious for them to 'flip' it for Romney at this point. I don't believe in HAARP, as in the popular theory that a team of black ops scientists create weather systems to affect things in America. Least I don't have data to back up that theory. But certainly Sandy was something the Rove-ian factions didn't factor in. I definitely see 2013 as a potentially dangerous year, because if Obama is in for a second term I think we may see the right wing crazies really go unhinged as well as the European markets continue to tumble and possibly creating irreversible problems everywhere. And of course, there's always the X factor out of left field that noone can predict.

[8bitagent]

81% of Florida reporting, 636 votes(!!!!!) divide Obama and Romney. WTF?

People still in line to vote, reports of all sorts of problems there. Digital hanging chads?

[Lottie McLotsaluck]

Pass that over here, Luther.

Please.

Over here too please!

[psynapz]

In case you weren't aware, Left Gatekeeper Amy CIA Goodman is covering via livestream tonight til 1 AM Eastern. Just saw Chris Hedges in-studio, FWIW...

I'm stoned and watching all these crazy networks.

Pass that over here, Luther.

Please.

Over here too please!

Yep, only thing left to do tonight, innit...

*hfffffffffffff* & turn it around & *sssth* up that little bit that's escaping out the lit end (like a boss) & turn it back around &...

passsssssssssssss...

[sunny]

Pass that over here, Luther.

Please.

Over here too please!

I'm willing to share.

Tonight is the only mainstream election coverage I have watched this entire cycle. I'm glad I skipped it.

I might at least watch Comedy Central's coverage. Good for a few laughs, guaranteed.

http://www.comedycentral.com/live-election-night

[2012 Countdown]

Hat tip to Cryptogon -- I hadn't seen the segments where Carlin spoke up on talk shows and got the eye-roll treatment:

Carlin...yes....see signature link for full, live, unedited, TRUTH.