The ass that kicked
As I told Jim DeFede this morning, "I'm 80% jubilant..." What can ANYONE say, but "yes, Virginia, sometimes the system does work." We're a two party nation, and all cynicism to the contrary, there is a difference between the two. Vive la differénce! The overwhelming message square in the eye of a failed and sorrowfully bankrupt administration is no more subtle than the heavy-handed mismanagement of our tax dollars, a foolish military adventure, the full-frontal attacks on free speech, fair trade, living wages, and waging life that the Bushites have pursued with grim determination. In the late Jack Kirby's lexicon, The Bush administration personified the "anti-life equation." And America finally just said "no." Or, rather, NO!
Sadly, Tammy Duckworth, who lost both legs in Iraq, didn't succeed in beating the Republican jerk who actually used the "cut and run" line in a debate with her. And alas, Clint Curtis failed to topple Tom Feeney in the 24th Congressional district of Florida, a race in which I had established a small personal stake. Honestly, to expect the Space Coast of Florida to break out of its collective delusions that most of its residents belonged to the privileged 1% that reap the benefits of Dumbya's tax cuts was probably too much to hope for. And I doubt any of Clint's TV spots ran on Fox.
Yet I never expected Ron Klein to pull of his defeat of incumbent E. Clay Shaw, particularly as Shaw's district had been so heavily gerrymandered to favor Republican voters. Bush's strange micture of anti-democracy and theocracy apparently had finally gone too far for a large swathe of non-lobotomized GOP members.
I worked the polls in my precinct as an inspector, also a mole for "Pollworkers for Democracy."
On the whole, things went smoothly my precinct, which I was told is the county's largest. We had a total of 16 ES&E "iVotronics" machines (one for disabled access). One unit had sensitivity issues from the beginning, then started giving wrong choices, which recalibration didn't help. It was taken out of service before noon. Vote tally was recovered.
Biggest incident: a machine froze around 6 PM. Our Voting System tech reported that the flash memory had been removed, presumably by a voter! We all freaked out, but a tech from the elections board was able to access the vote tally on the redundant internal memory and also replace the flash card.
I noticed "machine fatigue" on some units, several of which had to be put out of service in the last hours of the polls being opened.
At end of a very long day, machine tally and signature count was only off by two. Our clerk seemed to think that that was sufficient cause for jubilation. I wish it had been that way everywhere ...
In FL, Electronic Voting Shortfall Raises Eyebrows
by Paul Kiel - November 8, 2006, 11:03 AM
A recount battle is brewing, fittingly, in Katherine Harris' old seat, where a voting shortfall on buggy electronic voting machines is calling the election results into doubt.
Republican Vern Buchanan was clinging to a 368-vote edge over Democrat Christine Jennings for the 13th Congressional District early this morning.
Although Buchanan declared victory just before 1 a.m., the razor-thin margin kept Jennings from conceding defeat and will generate an automatic recount....
The results were loaded with controversy as nearly 13 percent of all ballots cast in Sarasota didn't include a choice for Congress. That difference, and scattered reports of difficulty finding the race on Sarasota?s touchscreen ballots, raised concerns about under votes in the race.
Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent couldn?t explain why 8,000 to 10,000 fewer people voted in the congressional race than in other high-profile races for governor, attorney general or U.S. Senate. But she said nothing mechanical went wrong with the county?s $4.7 million touchscreen voting machine system....
Throughout the day voters complained that touchscreen voting machines were not registering votes for Jennings properly. Jennings campaign held a midday press conference to warn the problem was widespread.
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From machines not working or being available when the polls opened, to votes flipping on touch-screens and more…
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