If you have been reading this blog for a while, you probably already know that I was raised in southern Ohio, and my friends and relatives are spread between northwestern and southeastern Ohio. I don’t know what happened after I moved away, but all the sudden Ohio is a political hotbed (LOL! I saw this article on Yahoo! right after I posted: Why is Ohio such a strong barometer of the country’s pulse?). One of the infamous purple, swing states. Since I have a family full of Ohio swing voters and most of them are those coveted blue collar folks, they are every politician’s “friend” these days. My mom says that she and my Dad get called constantly this time of year, and Bill Clinton even came to my hometown last week. In the meanwhile I’ve been living in New York and Connecticut, which are about as Democratic as you can get, so I don’t get to see the crazy political ads or rallies that they get.
So…can somebody who’s actually on the ground in Ohio or Texas (or Rhode Island or Vermont for that matter) tell me what’s going on? Are the polls busy? Is the weather causing problems? My Mom and Dad went to vote at 7AM this morning, and my Mom said it was surprisingly empty. I’m curious what are other folks seeing? I know y’all Ohio and Texas people are out there; what’s going on?
I voted (in Burlington, VT) at about 8:10 this morning and my polling place wasn’t super busy but I heard from other people at work that their polling places were very busy this morning. It’s windy but it’s fairly warm, 40 F, so I don’t think weather has been a problem. A bunch of local VT bloggers and community media places have a blog set up called Exit Voices you may want to check out.
http://vermontcam.org/exitvoices/
I’m in Texas, and the polling place I went to seemed reasonably busy – I had trouble finding parking. But inside the line was short enough that I didn’t have to wait. The women working there said it was really busy early this morning, but mostly it was just a steady stream of people.
I voted in Ohio where the weather is BAD. Seriously, it took me twenty minutes to scratch off an 2 inch sheet of ice from my car windows. Crazy. Anyway, I voted around 6:00 PM, after work, and it was really busy. Also, and this doesn’t necessarily MEAN anything, but we have paper ballots and you have to tell them if you want the Democrat, Republican, or “Independant” (ie, both on one) ballot. There was a huge stack of Republican ones that just sat there and they kept having to open new stacks of Democratic ones.
unbelievable. Here in Ohio they ran out of ballots. The secretary of state called Obama a liar when he said that polls ran out of ballots. I got one of the last three provisional ballots and it was only 3pm
republicans admitted they switched to the democratic party to help McClain win the general election by helping Hillary win the Ohio democratic primary.
The Ohio secretary of state, a Hillary supporter, said that there was nothing wrong and holding these people accountable for lying was out of the question because what they did is considered freedom of speech.
Wish someone would explain to me how changing parties and helping Hillary win the democratic primary then switching back to republican to vote for McClain in the general election to give McClain a better chance to win the general election is different than stuffing the ballot box and/or voter fraud.
It’s not anything because everyone votes in ways that help their guy get ahead.
What IS funny — and I say this because I’ve tired of Hillary’s attitude of entitlement — is that she seems to believe the ballots she received in Texas (and other states, but I live in Texas) actually mean people like her. Well, I suspect a lot of voters have grown weary of how negative she’s become. The nomination was hers to lose, and while I’m glad it wasn’t lost over some of the carefully orchestrated crying she did on the air a while back, I’m saddened that it was because she thinks insulting her opponent is the right way to win the race.
She didn’t cry. You’re suggesting she orchestrated a nonexistent event.
She choked up a little for two or three seconds — out of hours, and hours, and hours that she’d been speaking in front of cameras that week. I think “she chocked up a little and the press reacted hysterically to a not-at-all notable moment” is a more plausible explanation than the orchestration you’re suggesting.
Wish someone would explain to me how changing parties and helping Hillary win the democratic primary then switching back to republican to vote for McClain in the general election to give McClain a better chance to win the general election is different than stuffing the ballot box and/or voter fraud.
Doing the former is legal. Doing the latter is not.
O.K. – besides the obvious:
Ballot box stuffing and vote fraud involve people who are casting illegal ballots, either by voting more than once or by changing the actual result of an election in one fashion or another (miscounting ballots, etc.). However, in this case every ballot that was cast was cast legally. Yes, they are casting a ballot for someone that they have no intent of casting a vote for later on, but unlike casting an illegal ballot or falsifying the results of an election, it’s perfectly legal and actually does fall under freedom of speech.
It’s not particularly honest from an intellectual level. But it doesn’t rise to the level of vote fraud. And how would you prosecute these people? There’s no law that binds primary voters to the winning candidate of that primary when they vote in the general election. What happens to people like me who split their vote in the general election between the parties? Does that mean that I shouldn’t vote in either primary? Why can’t I vote in both primaries, as long as I don’t vote for a candidate in each party for the same office?
I’ve voted in one primary when the candidate I prefer is in the other myself. Here in Cook County, Ill., winning nomination for an office from the Democratic party is tantamount to election – there are very few Republicans in county-wide or higher offices in Cook County. So while I may very well vote for a Republican for a given higher office in the general election, I’ll vote in the Democratic party primary because that’s where the real choices are; that’s really where I’ll have an influence on who my next State or Federal Senator or Representative is. If I take a Republican ballot it won’t matter who I vote for – they’re not getting elected. By taking a Democratic ballot I have a say in making sure that some extremist (by my lights, anyway) doesn’t end up in power. Why should I abdicate my right to choose who my elected representatives are to one particular party? This way I can register a protest vote and give the other party some indication of their support in the general election, while actually having a real influence in who my representatives are in the primary election.
I don’t view it as fraud. I’d rather see Democrat “A” get elected than Democrat “B”, so I take a ballot and vote that way. This is as opposed to voting for Democrat “A” because I figure that they’re easier for the Republican to beat than Democrat “B”, which is what McCain voters were exhorted to do in some states (I saw the postings myself) after his victory became clear.
What do you mean by “party member”, anyway? Right now I’ll probably vote for the Republican Presidential candidate and the Democratic House Representative candidate (it’s an off year for Senate elections in Illinois this year). I’m not sure about my state offices, but I’ve often split those. Last year I voted for the Democratic Senatorial candidate (that’s right, I’ve already voted for Barak Obama once in my life). What party am I a member of? How many people do you think vote a straight party ticket? What qualification should there be to vote in a given party’s primary?
A solution to this is to get rid of official recognition of the political parties. Let the political parties run their own primaries (and pay for that themselves), or to choose some other means of determining their candidate as they see fit. Then make elections non-partisan, with no party labels on the ballot, and with a runoff between the top two vote getters if no one gets a majority.
I don’t understand why people are all aghast that the Repubs are strategically voting in the way they have been doing. It’s a common tactic that has been going on since the beginning of primary voting, and it’s the exact same thing that Democrats did in 1996, and (to a lesser extent, but still blatantly and not uncommonly) in 2000 (the number of people who are kicking themselves for voting for Bush in the Republican primary in 2000 because they honestly and truly thought Bush would be easier to beat are too numerous to count). It’s not a new tactic, and it’s not a specifically Republican tactic. If you don’t like it, try to get your state legislature to change the rules — for the NEXT election. They could do like NY, which mandates that you must be registered in a particular party 4 weeks (I believe) before the general election before the primary. So, anyone who wanted to vote in the primary in NY in Feb had to be registered with that party in Oct. 2007.
Besides that, most of the exit polls (and phone polls) show that the Republicans voting for Clinton are pretty much cancelled out by the Republicans voting for Obama (they don’t seem to be as unified about who will be easier to beat). Of course, people like to pretend that the Republicans switching to vote for Obama are doing so because they actually like Obama better (despite the fact that they are saying differently in the polls).
They could do like NY, which mandates that you must be registered in a particular party 4 weeks (I believe) before the general election before the primary. So, anyone who wanted to vote in the primary in NY in Feb had to be registered with that party in Oct. 2007.
In point of fact, during the primaries in various states you’d see postings on conservative blogs where people were complaining that either this was in effect and blocked them from taking a Democratic ballot, or else they were not registered in either party and couldn’t vote at all.