Time to chat up the election results
You all had lots to say about your voting experiences. Now we’d love to hear what you’re thinking as the results start coming in. Leave your thoughts in the comments.
You all had lots to say about your voting experiences. Now we’d love to hear what you’re thinking as the results start coming in. Leave your thoughts in the comments.
-
Recommend this
on Facebook -
Report an error
-
Subscribe to our
Weekly Digest
Valerie Catrow
Valerie Catrow is editor of RVAFamily, mother to a mop-topped first grader, and always really excited to go to bed.
Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
Guys, I hear VA is red at the moment. WHAT DO THE PUNDITS SAY TO THAT? HMMM?
I would say this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2hbzq25VAE
Don’t worry, it’s not a Rick-roll.
Obama projected the winner in VA with 91% reporting!!!
Depending on the polls you go by, the Bradley/Wilder effect is still in effect, no.
Obama is declared winner by most major media sources! And VA goes blue!
Whoa, I am amazed?!
Sen McCain is giving a very nice concession speech. Classy guy.
Except for all the booing, what the heck?
Yeah, not his fault… and he kept telling them to hush… but ANNOYING
Hurrah!
Republicans lose Virginia (and with decent third party counts to boot). Count one less reason why this state sucks.
Now, let’s get that crappy anti-gay marriage law off the books and we will have another reason less.
That new president of ours is quite the inspirational speaker!
I vowed that if a Democrat ever took Virginia I would run down my street naked. Damn, It’s cold out there.
Brian Williams referred to us (as in Virginia, not me and my better half) at least twice as the “former capital of the confederacy.” Get over it, BW!
I’m so glad that I don’t have to hate McCain anymore. We need his help.
I can’t believe this. I’m in a state of shock. This the proudest moment in my lifetime (so far) to have the honor to call myself an American.
Again, while I am happy with Obama’s win overall, its clear that there are still flaws to be corrected.
http://www.nomorestolenelections.org/
And that is why Tuesday’s election cannot be called a success by anyone who takes serious the promise of the American experiment.
A great democracy that is home to a very busy people ought not ask citizens to wait up to eight hours to cast their ballots, But that is precisely what America has done during the course of this most volatile and critical of election seasons.
As citizens, we do democracy itself a disservice if we finish counting the votes and simply say: All’s well that ends well.
Barack Obama has won the presidency. Democrats have improved their positions in the House and Senate. And many Americans who griped through the last eight years about the Supreme Court intervention in the 2000 Florida recount and the mess that was Ohio in 2004 will be inclined to put aside their concerns about the deeply problematic process by which we choose this nation’s leaders
All is not well with the process by which America registers, casts and counts votes. And the time to repair a broken system is now, when the memories of its dysfunction — so well documented by No More Stolen Elections! are fresh.
What are the signs of dysfunction?
1. Separate-but-equal access to the polls. With voting systems that differ from state to state, and sometimes even within states, the playing field is not equal. It is easier to vote in some places that others: because there are more polling places, more machines, longer voting hours and more citizen-friendly practices and procedures. And make no mistake about the fact that, when a working mom with kids must wait in line for four hours, that is not an inconvenience. That is a barrier to voting. “When people are waiting in line four, five, six hours, that’s just too long for a lot of working people who want to participate in this election,” says former Virginia Governor Douglas Wilder, who now serves as mayor of Richmond.
2. Even people who are appropriately registered and ready to vote can run into problems such as the one Robbins faced. This is a simple technological issue. Election boards can and should have laptops at all polling places so that poll workers can conduct checks instantaneously. Not every voter can spend half a work day correcting official errors. And they should not have to do so. “We have the technology,” says Wilder. “Why not use it to make voting easier and more efficient?”
3. When voters actually get past the initial roadblocks, it appears that they can lose their votes in machines that, for reasons of incompetence or chicanery, do not function properly. There were scattered reports of machine breakdowns on Election Day — as well as reports about that soggy ballots in Virginia would have to be dried before they could be counted — and of course serious concerns about vote flipping. Even Oprah Winfrey had a problem with this. So did the Columbus Dispatch, a newspaper that endorsed McCain.
4. There are still patterns of intimidation at the polls. An Indiana judge ruled Tuesday that Republican poll watchers had violated a court order regarding the correct process for challenging voters at the polls, and the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund was monitoring similar problems across the country. In Wisconsin, after losing a lawsuit fight to make it easier to challenge newly-registered voters, the Republican attorney general of Wisconsin — a McCain campaign co-chair — dispatched assistant attorneys general and special agents to the polls in order to “monitor” supposed voter fraud, even though past Republican attempts to stir up controversies about voter fraud confirmed that there were few if any problems.
5. Counting processes don’t produce accurate results on Election Night, creating false impressions that can become definitional. A bad call of Florida in 2000 created the fantasy that George Bush had a credible lead in the state. In fact, he didn’t. It was too close to call. In 2008, many states – including Pennsylvania – officials planned to delay the counting of “emergency” and “provisional” ballots for days. Even though Pennsylvania went for Obama, such delays warp the picture of the his finish – denying Americans a clear image of the actual election result. And they are not necessary. Again, getting laptops into polling places would make it possible to resolve most registration and voting conflicts immediately.
The fundamental flaw in the system is that it really is no system at all.
The United States has no baseline standard for organizing federal elections. And thus, federal elections are as often gamed as they are won fairly.
Thus, in Ohio, a prospective voter much register his or her intention weeks before election day in order to be able to cast it.
In Minnesota, on the other hand, a resident of the state can show up on election day and vote.
In Texas, voters can cast ballots weeks before election day and they don’t even have to get out of their cars. “If you can drive or if you have a friend or relative who can drive you, you don’t even have to get out of the car, announces the Texas Secretary of State. “Call ahead to notify the early voting clerk that you want to vote from your car. This procedure is called ‘curbside voting’ and is available to any voter who has difficulty walking or standing for long periods.”
In Pennsylvania, on the other hand, there is no “curbside voting.” In fact, there is no early voting. Barry Kauffman, the executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania, says that, “Pennsylvania is very tradition-bound and not inclined to change with the time unless forced to.”
And so it goes through every other aspect of the voting process. Different states, different rules. In some cases: within the same state, the rules differ from county to county, or even within counties.
What that means is that the American electoral system, while it may yesterday have produced a satisfying result, is not functioning as it should. Lots of Democrats said during the Bush years that the party needed to win by enough that the election couldn’t be stolen. But that should not be the standard in a nation that presumes to offer the world a democratic model.
“If we are an advanced society, if we are monitoring elections around the world, why not make voting right?” asks Douglas Wilder.
If this is to be a transformational moment, then let us begin be transforming our electoral system into one that is finally and truly democratic.
– John Nichols is the Washington correspondent for The Nation magazine.
He is also a member of the Liberty Tree Board of Directors.
I like President-Elect Obama. He has a beautiful family and he is smart so he should be good with foreign policy. I am really only concerned about one thing and thats his economic philosophy. He seems to demonize profits, “greedy oil companies” and the like. Profits are consumers(you and me) votes, they signal to producers what to continue to bring to the marketplace, things we want and need. Its an economic democracy. Producers who give the people what they need and want are rewarded with profits, thats all. This demonizing of profits is a slap in the face of consumers(us, the People). There is nothing evil about profit. The Orwellian aspect of it is that non-profits say to the people- we dont care what you choose or want this is what youre getting.
“greedy oil companies” have demonized themselves -they’re selling the bloodiest product on earth. They are the drug dealers and we are the junkies.