Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Come on, man.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

This blog will pay for itself.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Not all heroes wear capes.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2018 / Smashing Records in Bethany

Smashing Records in Bethany

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I have no idea if this means good or bad things for my preferred candidates, but I’m just going to assume bad until I see otherwise when the results are announced, but my small town of 350 has smashed right through previous voting records. The previous high was 162, and at 5:20 pm when I went to go check and chatted with Mrs. Hoffman, Town Recorder, they were over 200 and still had two hours to go.

So at the very least, people are voting. I’m wondering how much the anti-abortion amendment is driving people to the polls, or if maybe Kendra and Ihlenfeld have motivated people to vote.

Reader Interactions

62Comments

  2. 2.

    Mnemosyne

    IIRC, as a general rule, high-turnout elections favor Democrats, which is why Republicans spend so much time and energy preventing people from voting. But that’s just in general and any specific election could vary.

  3. 3.

    jharp

    Turnout was extremely high in the northern suburbs of Columbus Ohio.

    Let’s hope that little piece of good news is a sign of things to come.

    Edit: Monroe County Indiana, home to Indiana University, ran out of ballots.

    From the Bloomington Herald-Times:

    And polling places in Monroe County will remain open until 7 p.m.

    A request to extend voting hours in Monroe County was granted by Monroe Circuit Judge MaryEllen Diekhoff.

    Long lines…..

  4. 4.

    Gravenstone

    In my little slice of Redneckistan, voter turn out was running at presidential election year levels. I was voter 767 just after 4 PM, which is typical for ‘major’ elections. There were several younger folks voting, including a couple who were registering as I walked in. About the only decent thing WI does is allow same day registration.

  8. 8.

    MazeDancer

    Tiny Village. I Bought 500 “I Voted” Stickers for them. Because local elections usually have about 130 voters. Primary had 249.

    They ran out of stickers .

    Very exciting.

    Also, Balloon-Juice Candidates Map at PostCardPatriots.com.

    All the candidates shown in their states. So we can follow along as the polls close.

  11. 11.

    Yarrow

    Manu Raju on CNN just said that John Culberson’s (R-TX 07, incumbent) internal polls showed he was behind a bit after Trump came to Houston and railed about immigration. His challenger is Lizzie Fletcher, who was on the Balloon Juice Act Blue list and also the Postcard Patriots list. Go Lizzie! Polls still open in Texas so if you’re there, go vote!

  15. 15.

    schrodingers_cat

    Judy Woodruff is wearing red, is she coming out as an R. Snooze Hour has gone from boring but reliable news to stealth R propaganda in her tenure since Jim Lehrer retired.

  16. 16.

    PsiFighter37

    CNN showing Donnelly behind by 10%…which is less than 200 votes at this point. Fucking morons.

  19. 19.

    justawriter

    Stopped at three precincts on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota. All were close to the total vote from 2016 already and there are still more than two hours before they close.

  20. 20.

    jonas

    The deplorables will turn out in droves as well, but the good news is that they’re a minority. It will be interesting to see if nominally Republican voters and “independents” (normally conservative voters too embarrassed to call themselves Republicans) who aren’t thrilled with Trump 1. actually turn out in high numbers and 2. vote a straight R line, or decide to register a protest vote. If it’s basically just the deplorables showing up, it’s not going to be a good night for the R’s. They’re nowhere close to being an electoral majority.

  21. 21.

    Mary G

    Heard on the radio as I was getting the teens from school that some stations in LA have a 2-hour rate. Don’t think I’ve ever seen that.

  24. 24.

    Crœsos

    Average American demographics are that ~25% of the population is under 18 years old, so a demographically average town of 350 would have about 260 voting-age residents. Of course some towns skew older and some younger, so that’s just Fermi approximation. Still, more than 200 votes cast (with more potentially on the way) in a town of 350 total residents is pretty good.

  25. 25.

    zhena gogolia

    I may have to step away from BJ tonight!

    This is even worse than the presidential election in some ways, because the results are going to be so complicated.

  26. 26.

    Aleta

    (ABC) US Border Patrol cancels ‘crowd control’ training exercise near Texas polling station
    By ANNE FLAHERTY
    Border patrol officials on Tuesday abruptly canceled a “crowd control exercise” it had planned for Election Day near a Hispanic neighborhood along the Texas-Mexico border a half a mile from a polling place.

    The event, which had been scheduled for noon Eastern time, drew sharp criticism from the American Civil Liberties Union and others that said the timing seemed to be aimed at trying to intimidate Hispanic voters. The Trump administration and border officials sharply rejected that allegation, saying the exercise was preparation for the potential influx of migrants who have been traveling north through Mexico.
    In a statement released to reporters, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it had canceled the event “out of an abundance of caution and due to inaccurate reporting that caused unneeded confusion in border communities.” …

    ” The timing of this is suspicious,” the ACLU in Texas tweeted. “The Trump administration, and by extension the (Texas Gov. Greg) Abbott administration, have done quite enough to intimidate voters without staging military rehearsals on Election Day.”

    Border patrol officials in Texas had invited media to witness the training exercise, which was scheduled to take place at a railroad crossing west of the Paso Del Norte Port of Entry. The site of the training exercise would have been a half a mile away from the Armijo Recreation Center, a polling station in El Paso.

  27. 27.

    PsiFighter37

    Apparently Henry Cuellar predicted in a private meeting that Beto would win tonight. From his lips to God’s ears, even though I’m an atheist and Cuellar is a Blue Dog.

  28. 28.

    schrodingers_cat

    Right now Ronna in red is lying her head off and Whory Woodruff is letting her lie through her teeth.
    ETA: Red Judy is now repeating Red Ronna’s talking points to grill Nancy Pelosi.

  30. 30.

    White & Gold Purgatorian

    Turnout in our precinct looks moderately heavy, but not huge. Knowing how my neighbors vote, this is a good thing. All the state offices are up, plus the legislature and most local offices as well, so you might expect a big turnout, but our polling place isn’t on track for nearly the kind of showing that came out to vote against Kerry or Obama, let alone for Trump.

    My inner optimist thinks this looks more like turnout in the special election that put Doug Jones in the Senate, where many GOP voters just stayed home and people like me flocked to the polls. My inner optimist is often wrong, but likes to dream.

  31. 31.

    hellslittlestangel

    In order to predict election results in WVA, I’d need more meaningful data, you know, goat entrails, comet sightings, that sort of thing.

  34. 34.

    debit

    @Luciamia: Deep breaths.

    I was thinking earlier today that it almost feels like when I was a kid at Christmas, if there had been a Christmas where my present might turn out to be a pony, or a bomb that would blow my head off.

    ETA: and there was no way of knowing which until you opened it.

  35. 35.

    Fair Economist

    @PsiFighter37:

    Apparently Henry Cuellar predicted in a private meeting that Beto would win tonight.

    Hope he is right, but I don’t see why Cuellar would be particularly knowledgeable about this. Some knowledge of internal polling but otherwise he doesn’t know anything we don’t.

  36. 36.

    PsiFighter37

    @Fair Economist: I agree. A lot of the ‘Beto will win’ comments seem to be based on enthusiasm and rallies, which means (mostly) jack squat. That said, the dude is absolutely indefatigable…he is working for this. Ted Cruz fucking deserves to get booted.

  37. 37.

    Mary G

    @debit: I’ve tried to remain busy and calm, and did get in a 2-hour nap. But the dreams were awful, so it wasn’t that restful. I have had that Tom Petty song “The Waiting” playing in my head for 24 hours now.

  38. 38.

    Barbara

    Standing in front of a big apartment building doing last minute canvassing. So far everyone has voted.

  40. 40.

    philpm

    When I voted at noon, I was #444 at my precinct in the north part of Kansas City, MO. I usually don’t see those kinds of numbers until 5 PM or later. Nice to see people are engaged this time.

    The news just reported that another place not too far from me has an hour wait to vote.

  41. 41.

    Juju

    @Yarrow: I, knock wood, think Beto will win as well. I just can’t imagine waiting in long lines or early voting for that human slime trail Ted Cruz. I have been wrong before, so fingers crossed also, too.

  42. 42.

    Schlemazel

    @Aleta:
    sawthat & took it as a positive sign. Other hopeful news, I read CNN exit pols showing 47%strongly disapprove of hair furor and 56% say the nation is headed in the wrong direction.

    Bad news – apparently some strong 2nd amendment believer shut down the polling place in a Dem heavy precinct in Palm Bay FL. Palm Bay is East Coast, Brevard County toilet with palm trees

  43. 43.

    tobie

    @justawriter: Yay! you’re one of our two commenters on the blog from North Dakota! So happy to hear Native Americans have turned out in force and in spite of all obstacles.

  45. 45.

    Brachiator

    Well, this is interesting …

    A libertarian think tank just gave up on libertarianism

    Yet the libertarian think tank Niskanen Center in Washington, DC, argues the moderate middle is the future. Niskanen president Jerry Taylor wrote in an Oct. 29 essay that he is dropping the libertarian banner the center has shared with the likes of the more conservative Cato Institute. In a 3,595-word farewell to the libertarian world, he says libertarianism, and ideology itself, is a dead end. “I have abandoned that libertarian project…because I have come to abandon ideology,” writes Taylor, who invites readers to flee the “clean and well-lit prison of one idea.”

    The future of American politics, he argues, is principled compromise, even if the present couldn’t seem further away. ”I think we’re living in a world in which moderation has virtually disappeared,” he says in an interview with Quartz. “And how’s that working out? I’m skating to where the puck is going to be.”

    Trump’s authoritarian takeover of the Republican Party was Taylor’s breaking point (“I would have thought libertarians would have been on the ramparts, and they are not,” he said), but his disillusionment began years ago after working as a paid climate skeptic for the Cato Institute. He eventually came to see opposing action on climate change as both scientifically misguided, and wrong. …

  46. 46.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Mary G:
    If it makes you feel any better, I had a dream last night where I flipped off Trump to his face ?

  47. 47.

    Mnemosyne

    @zhena gogolia:

    I’m going to step away at 5 pm my time and try not to come back until at least 9:30 pm my time. I have some writing to do anyway, and I won’t get it done if I’m just refreshing the page all night.

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I’m going to try and send you my “Newton” email tonight while I avoid election news, but it will probably arrive very late your time.

  49. 49.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Schlemazel:
    …They put palm trees in the toilet?

    Also, I’m assuming those exit polls are nationwide and that 47% is a plurality?

  51. 51.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @zhena gogolia: It might not be a bad idea to stay the hell away from any & all media until tomorrow morning. I doubt that every race will be settled even by then, but it gives the people who get paid to summarize results a chance to spend a sleepless night doing just that, & you’ll be able to pick & choose who you want to hear from.

    At least that’s what I plan to do. The fact that my TV screen went black in the middle of a football game a few weeks back has something to do with that…

  52. 52.

    Schlemazel

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??:
    It is a toilet with seat-side palm trees. God even flushes it every day for 8 months.
    47% STRONGLY disapprove. They didn’t say how many just disapproved so you know it is well over half. By making himself the face of the nation Dump has made the 56% who believe we are headed in the wrong direction see him as the problem. These are great numbers

  54. 54.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Schlemazel:
    Wow. You even bolded it. How did I miss that? That’s awesome! And since those are exit polls, those people already voted. Let’s hope this translates to a blue wave election!

  55. 55.

    Sloane Ranger

    This is horrible. I am almost as invested in these elections as I would be in a British election. Only I can influence an election here by campaigning and voting but I am powerless to do anything but watch as far as these ones are concerned. I hate how results are dribbled out county by county and have to remind myself that early results showing Republicans ahead are misleading as they are likely from right leaning rural counties and I need to wait for the cities to declare as they are where the numbers and Democratic voters are.

    The British way of waiting until all the votes in the constituency are counted is much less stressful than this running count.

  57. 57.

    J R in WV

    @Sloane Ranger:
    .
    .
    .
    As a youngster, my dad was editor of a small town newspaper. On election night, for more people were needed as back then the county reported votes by precinct and we needed to report those numbers to the newsroom and accumulate totals for the county races. So I got to use an old fashioned adding machine to compute county-wide totals one precinct at a time. We had big chalk boards with precincts listed in paint, and we would write votes down and then total them with big old adding machines.

    It was really exciting to be part of such a busy and stressful night, and I got to miss school the next day, after participating in the national exercise of voting rights. Of course, that’s all over now that computers and electronic voting has replaced counting ballots by hand one at a time.

    I’m pretty convinced now that going back to paper would be far superior to the poorly secured and mostly catch as catch can electronic voting machines, manufactured by companies owned and operated by Republican millionaires like the company formerly know as Diebold.

    Diebold makes ATM machines for banking networks, machine that provide cash to customers, and keep a printed running total of all transactions executed by a given ATM unit. But their voting machines have no paper record of transactions, no way to reconstruct the actions of the voters. I wonder why?

  58. 58.

    Eljai

    @philpm: Good to hear! My mom and my sister live in the northern part of KC. They’re in the odious Sam Graves congressional district. Kicking Graves to the curb is probably still a long, long shot, but I’m hoping enough Democrats turn out to put Claire over the top for senate.

  59. 59.

    Sloane Ranger

    their voting machines have no paper record of transactions, no way to reconstruct the actions of the voters. I wonder why?

    I think we both know the answer to this question. Totally with you on paper ballots. It’s easy to screw up with touch screens, even without any funny business. Far harder for mistakes to happen with paper

  60. 60.

    Mnemosyne

    @J R in WV:

    California uses a Scantron system that they call Inkavote. You put your ballot into a little plastic holder and use a special marker to mark your choices. If the electronic scanner went down, they could still count the votes (albeit much more slowly) because the dots you fill in are numbered, so you could count X votes for 153, Y votes for 154, etc.

    It seems much more sensible than most states — we get the benefit of electronic counting but have a paper ballot that can be examined if the scanner goes haywire.

  61. 61.

    philpm

    @Eljai: I’m in the same boat. If I was a half mile farther south, I’d have Cleaver as my congressman. If we could ever get someone to make a serious run against Graves, I think we could get him out.

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