Delaware offered in-person early voting on Saturday, when Biden was in Wilmington. Instead, he employed 2 motorcades, local police & Boeing 757 version of AF1 to vote in an election with no high-profile races Reports @Jordanfabian @jendeben https://t.co/GG0e9C0Y0w
— annmarie hordern (@annmarie) September 14, 2022
I understand exactly why President Biden chose to cast his vote this way — he’s setting a model to encourage every voter to participate, even if in a particular year it doesn’t seem ‘important’, even if it’s not very convenient.
But I (and the Spousal Unit) will be voting by mail — which is open to all, in Massachusetts, by request on a mail-in postcard. We’re both ADD, and the last-minute scramble to show up at the proper polling place, with my rollator, make the experience less than uplifting for us.
So, a philosophical question: How important is showing up in person to vote?
Voting is good for you. And if you can manage to do it in person (if you can, and especially if you're in a place where Republicans aren't making it harder), renew the joy of a small but important civic ritual. My latest @TheAtlantic Daily.https://t.co/1rUFQ9ogoG
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) September 13, 2022
Choices are good, and important! Time and mobility restrictions should never keep someone from voting… but, yes, I’m grateful to those of you who choose to show up on Election Day, especially those of you volunteering to make it all possible!
That is the best reason to vote in person. Never be intimidated to vote in your own country. https://t.co/vTRzZGFmwO
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) September 14, 2022
what if i work two jobs. what if i have mobility issues. what if i don’t want to stand in line for two hours. the right to vote is not an endurance test.
— bearded guy that yells at school board meetings (@CalmSporting) September 14, 2022
Different people have different perspectives. For many, the camaraderie (bake sales and poll workers) are a joy! And there’s a certain sweet nostalgia, for those of us who grew up in communities where voting was treated like a communal celebration…
I really like early voting. It’s easy. Avoid the lines, etc. But I also started volunteering to work the polls, and it’s awesome. You really do walk away feeling great about democracy – and it exposes you to normal people from the other side who also care about democracy.
— Keith (@PretenderKeith) September 14, 2022
Correct. And for those of us whose ancestors were denied the right to vote, the very act of going to the poll is quite literally a ritual of freedom and liberation- perhaps the only one you can do in the seasons of your life.
— Evariste (@Eve_N_CT) September 14, 2022
I remember my parents saying "yeah, I ran into [neighbor, friend, etc] while I was voting"
When my mom ran for a local office, I was her counting observer in a church basement with the other guy's team and election official. I had to tell her she lost her re-election bid :( https://t.co/nm5Nbv2zTc
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) September 14, 2022
If I may add on, today is also a good day to check that your voter registration is active so there are no unpleasant surprises when it’s time for the general election. https://t.co/J2XNC4eAn9
— Bubba Pancake (@BubbaPancake) September 13, 2022
![On The Road - way2blue - TSAVO NAT’L PARKS, KENYA IN JULY [2 of 8] 6](https://balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2-23-July-07-1600-80x80.jpeg)
On The Road – way2blue – TSAVO NAT’L PARKS, KENYA IN JULY [2 of 8]
Reboot
Love the early voting in Virginia!
Baud
Mail.
ETA: Alternatively, drop box.
zhena gogolia
I used to love to go to the polls, but Covid has changed all that. But I assume we won’t have a mail-in option this year. That was a special Covid dispensation, and Covid is over, doncha know.
matt
Mail in voting is better, and should be the national standard. That tom nichols guy is wrong about everything.
Shalimar
My signature is terrible and inconsistent, so I don’t trust mail-in voting to count my ballot. I always vote early, in person at the county courthouse annex, to get it over with.
Jeffery
My feet died. Standing or even walking to a poll would be a problem. Being able to fill out a ballot at home is great. Being able to look up online who the candidates are when voting is even better. Now when there are judges to be voted for I can look up just who the republicans are and not vote for them. It is interesting how the GQP tries to hide the fact that they are members of the GQP. It takes some digging to find out their party affiliation. The Democrats are very open as to who they are.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
rikyrah
The President went to vote in person. Love it🤗🤗
thruppence
We have secure drop boxes here in Colorado, but this year I think I’ll vote in person.
prostratedragon
Illinois now allows subscribing to ballots by mail. For this election they’ll go out in a couple of weeks. I’ve enjoyed the camaraderie of voting at the polls, but early and mail are great choices. Easy for the less mobile, and the ballot gets in. Otherwise I’m like Evariste: when voting has been a matter of your people’s blood you get itdone.
Jesse
for Democrats.
DrDaveChemist
Yesterday was primary day in Rhode Island and we voted in person. Way too many races with more than two candidates that made me wish for ranked choice. Especially governor, where the good ol’ boy semi-incumbent (moved up from lt. gov. when Gina Raimondo got tapped for Commerce secretary) was my third or fourth choice but won with a plurality not much above 30%.
When I voted in person in November 2020, I was greeted in line by our congressional representative (Cicilline) who lives in our precinct. One of the many things I love about where I live is the chance to meet public officials on a regular basis, from city council all the way up to U.S. senate.
Baud
@Jesse:
The best way to vote, early and often.
Baud
@DrDaveChemist:
I detest that too. Also why I’m leaning towards ranked choice.
JMG
I early voted in the Mass. primary last month. I was the only person in the town hall when I did, which was a weekday at 1 p.m. on a brutally hot day. When I early voted in 2020, there was a long line despite many voting stations, but that was a Saturday morning. I know mail-in is easier, but I still enjoy the in-person experience, if only to see the nice poll workers.
Cliosfanboy
and if you can, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE sign up to be a poll worker for your city or county. I’ve been doing it for 20 years and it’s exhausting, but also very gratifying. We need Democratic poll workers to keep an eye on the republicans, some of whom will try to deny the vote to eligible voters.
Dorothy A. Winsor
If the line wasn’t too long, I enjoyed voting in person. But we’ve signed up for permanent vote by mail. That way, I can research candidates for things like school board.
Longest lines I ever encountered were in Detroit. Then we moved to a suburb and lines were suddenly short. Food for thought.
Geminid
I’ll keep voting in person as long as I can. It’s easy for me: a ten minute drive through pretty country to a local volunteer fire department. No lines midmorning.
Last year there was a lady outside “manning” a Republican table. She gave me a pamphlet with a plastic card signifying my membership in the “Youngkin Election Integrity Task Force.” It would be a good souvenir, she suggested, for when Mr. Youngkin becomes President.
But doggone it, I’ve already lost the card!
Matt McIrvin
It’s (slightly) morally superior to NOT vote in person on Election Day, and the reason is BECAUSE people like Nichols say the opposite and it’s important to reject their argument. The reason is that it’s used as a bad-faith motivation to shut down alternative voting methods, to suppress the vote. Using these methods establishes demand, which keeps them going.
I vote in person sometimes, especially in lower-profile elections–it’s actually very easy for me; my polling place is never crowded. But I’ve also done early voting just because I was curious about how it worked and wanted to promote the idea.
Baud
When you vote early, Democratic campaigns (should) cross you off their GOTV lists. It helps them target their resources.
Suzanne
I used to love voting in person. Would take my kids, so they knew how to do it when they were older. In AZ, they have the PEVL….permanent early voter list, so you sign up for it once, and thereafter you get every ballot in the mail. Then we had our disastrous 2016 primary. Stood out in the heat for three hours. So I signed up for the PEVL after that. Here in PA, there’s no PEVL. You have to request a mail ballot separately for each election….DUMB. But my polling place is a block down the street, and so I don’t really mind going. It’s a nice little walk.
I think everywhere should have a PEVL. More options, less bullshit.
eclare
I get my neighbor’s mail about once a month (got some yesterday), and I got a invitation to a wedding about two months after it was postmarked, I never got an invitation to a shower, so I will be voting in person for the foreseeable future.
Plus where I vote on election day usually has a yummy bake sale.
lowtechcyclist
I’m all for voting by mail, but these days, I do think it’s important that enough of us actually show up on Election Day to make sure the nutcases on the other side aren’t trying to scare people away.
What damned sure would be nice would be if they took a lot of those local offices off the ballot. School board? Sure, I’ll vote for my school board representatives. Register of Wills? Judge of the Orphans’ Court? How the hell do I tell the difference between a good Register of Wills and a bad Register of Wills? Offices like these should be filled by a county executive that’s either elected, or selected by a board of county commissioners that we elect. But there’s a whole bunch of offices on our county ballot that make no sense to be voted on.
CCL
@zhena gogolia: If I remember correctly, you are in CT??? Check with your town registrar, but Covid is still considered a valid excuse to vote absentee. Towns still have and will use drop boxes as well.
Baud
Where are you people that you have cake at the polling location?
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist: So a few years ago, my local LD started compiling a “Voters’ Guide” on a bunch of the smaller races and judgeships. Like “Commissioner of Mines”. It was really helpful.
When those races come up, the ballots can get really really long. Another point in favor of voting at home in your PJs with some coffee.
Baud
Ugh. On Morning Joe, apparently small donors are flooding money to MTG’s opponent.
MattF
I vote by mail. Everything is online- I print out the ballot and the envelope, mark them, sign them, stamp them, and then mail everything at the condo mailbox. It worked for the primaries and I got an email yesterday saying that the election powers-that-be are going to do the same for the general.
The only annoyance is that here in Maryland, with a Trumpist heading the Republican ticket, the electoral result is pretty much a forgone conclusion.
Matt McIrvin
The other good thing about early or mail voting is that in most places, there’s a way to ascertain after doing it that your ballot was accepted. If someone is trying to mess with the election, or there’s some other reason you might be uncertain about whether your vote was counted, this gives you more chances to get it done. You can vote early knowing that if something goes wrong and it didn’t take, you can always try again or use Election Day voting as a backup.
You’ll notice that my reasons are all kind of paranoid–to me this overrides nice Election Day vibes.
eversor
I vote in person if possible. Even in (as the great Palin once said) Commie Pinko Northern Virginia (bonus points you could see the Pentagon from the hotel she dropped that one at) we get a bit of a shit show. I’ve noticed none of these fools pull these stunts in DC properly but evidently Arlington is fair game. Read as, we aren’t scary and they are scared of black people in DC or MD.
The shit show is these giant banners of gore porn to convince people to vote R because abortion. And then you get the stuff with the crosses and the bibles to vote morality and your religion ie vote R. They can be jerks at times. And I don’t know why they do that here in the land of defense contractors where someone is likely to paste you onto the side walk if you get cross with them but they do. But if you’re tall enough, male enough, and sadly white enough and hurl a water bottle at them or yell at them they shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down. Since we are also heavily Asian and Latino here I think it’s a good thing to show up and just scowl.
This will be the SO’s first time voting (she kept kicking the can on citizenship even though she’s lived here for years but Trump scared her into moving quickly on it) so we will go together. Her niece can also vote now and has been a citizen so it should be interesting. They know what to expect though on the bad side as they are filipnas and get the entire fire and brimstone when they go (went) to church. Though the take down of Roe has caused them to quit going to the Sunday hate cult and also created a hilarious family argument over the issue.
eclare
@Suzanne: LD?
LiminalOwl
Advice needed, before I spend time trying to reach election officials: The Thin Black Duke and I are no longer in Boston, having moved to Western MA. Unfortunate circumstances dictated that we move before completing the purchase of a new place, and we are currently in rented-room limbo.
We do expect to have an apartment (inspection today!) before Election Day, but the closing is after the deadline for changing voter registration. Do we a) travel back to Boston to vote (two hours each way, so I’d rather not), b) register at the new address and hope nothing goes wrong; c) something else?
(I will totally understand if nobody is able to give advice, in case it needs to be said.)
rikyrah
An election with no high-profile races?
What kind of nonsense is this. You VOTE EVERY SINGLE ELECTION BECAUSE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO!
Good on 46 for setting that example👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
Baud
@rikyrah:
Yeah, I caught that too. Obscene.
Suzanne
@eclare: Legislative District.
ETA: Actually, it was the Dem Party associated with my LD. LD18 represent!
Aaron Morrow
@Cliosfanboy: If you can, vote early and volunteer on Election Day. Takes the stress off the latter when you do the former. (I guess it works the other way, too, though I haven’t tried it myself. I need to see if I can volunteer for early voting support this year.)
I think it’s a stupid argument; just vote! I don’t care how!
Scout211
I am a huge fan of mail-in or drop box ballot voting. Unless Election Day becomes a national holiday, I think voting should be so easy that everyone can vote with the fewest possible disruptions or impediments.
Before we were first allowed mail-in ballots here in California (initially by request and now by default) I remember always struggling to find time during the morning or the evening to juggle our jobs, the kids’ school, homework, after school activities and dinner to find a time that we could vote. And that was with fairly short lines. (I don’t even know what we would have done if we had to wait in line for two or more hours). There was never a “great community” feel because everyone was short on time and like us, needed to get back to the day’s activities.
Mail-in/drop box ballots are so much more inclusive and make voting so much easier and convenient. There are always voting centers if you prefer showing up in person and all counties have early voting in person in selected voting centers.
Benw
I’m voting a straight marauding Hippo ticket this year.
Anne Laurie
At polling places in public schools, where the PTA / marching band / school library has organized a fundraising table.
(Although, in my personal experience, it’s usually cookies or brownies or muffins, which are easier to portion individually.)
Geminid
@Baud: There is just no stopping donations to Democrats running in red districts when the Republican is as notorious as Lauren Boebert. Marcus Flowers similarly has raised big money for his Georgia 17th CD campaign even though M.T. Greene’s seat is even safer than Boebert’s.
But while political donations are theoretically a zero-sum game, I think that in practice some of these donations are “extra.” And hopefully some of the donors will learn from experience, and direct their money more efficiently in the future.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@eclare: I can track my ballot online. I see when it arrives at the election office and when it’s accepted.
Once my ballot came to my house so late that I didn’t think it would arrive on time. So on election day, I took it to my polling place. I think I had to revoke it somehow. Then I voted in person. Before I turned the mail ballot in, I took pics so I’d remember which school board candidate I wanted to vote for.
Baud
@Geminid:
Yeah, I know. And I’m a little conflicted, because I appreciate these Dems who run in deep red districts.
I thought Boebert’s district was within reach.
Torrey
The first time I voted early, I had a moment on Election Day when I really, REALLY wished I could stand in line to vote in person on the day itself. It was in 2008, and as I was heading out first thing in the morning to do GOTV for Obama in Virginia, I drove past my polling place and saw all my neighbors lined up to vote and basically having a party. We’re a majority-Black area, and the energy was incredible. Really wished I could have joined them.
Thanks, Obama! :)
SFAW
@Baud:
Why do you care? It’s not as if they let the pantsless in the door.
Sheila in nc
@Dorothy A. Winsor: You can still do research and vote in person. You just need a sample ballot. In NC, there’s a statewide voter lookup tool where you go to check your registration and remind yourself of your polling place. If an election is coming up, it will also have the sample ballot for your precinct. You can do your research on the people and then vote in person if you like, either early (that’s what I do) or on Election Day.
CCL
@LiminalOwl: I don’t know about MA election law, but if the rental is in the same district as your new home, there may be some way through. Sorry to say, checking with the registrar of voters in your new district to find out what options you have is probably your best option.
Baud
@SFAW:
Another reason to vote by mail.
Mimi haha
I appreciate Evariste’s cement about having ancestors who weren’t allowed to vote but all of us have ancestors who weren’t allowed to vote. They’re called women.
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
I’m sure it was, but my point is that if an office requires specialized knowledge or skills, or (barring major disaster) the effects of their job are essentially invisible to all but those few citizens who have to interact with their office, then it makes no sense for them to be elective offices to begin with.
It’s not that I’m griping about having to vote on too many offices, I’m griping about having to vote on offices that shouldn’t be up for a vote in the first place.
I’m sure that voter guide is great, but I don’t want to just have to take their word for it. It’s one thing for that to be a handy substitute for my judgment when I’m being lazy, but it’s another when I’m just not qualified to make a judgment, no matter how much attention I pay to what’s going on in my county.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Torrey: I felt that way when I was lucky enough to attend my first Iowa caucus that year. I knew even then I was taking part in a historic moment.
Honus
@Reboot: over the years I have often voted early. In Virginia, until the last couple years, you had to have a reason to vote early, but democrats removed that requirement during Covid. I always liked voting early (and an excuse was never a problem, I was usually out of town for a hearing or deposition or working voter protection at a remote poll location) and i would joke that if i got hit by a truck before election day my vote was already on the books.
Geminid
@Baud: Boebert’s district might be within reach. I believe it’s rated something like R+8 or 9, but that’s based (I think) on how it would have voted in 2020. That year Boebert carried the old district by 6 points, same as trump.
There could be a different dynamic in an off year contest. A number of Republicans voted against her in the primary and not all of them will put party loyalty over their personal contempt for Boebert. Also, Colorado has a lot of Independents and many of their votes can go either way. And aside from their shared radical politics, Boebert differs from Greene in the number of personal skeletons that keep falling out of her closet
schrodingers_cat
At this point the national media is nothing but a troll army, paid to troll the Democratic party
ETA: I prefer voting by mail. I want to be as far away from a large group of people as I possibly can during these COVID times.
I haven’t been able to shake of the cold and cough that I caught on my travels in August. And the 2 years before that with masking and social distancing not even a sniffle.
sab
@matt: About 15 years back we had a recall election for the mayor of my city. The turnout was small. He wasn’t recalled. But 700+ votes were not counted because the post office in Cleveland couldn’t be bothered to cancel stamp them. Everyone knew they had been mailed on time and received on time but it couldn’t be “proven” without the cancellation stamp.
So yes, I am skeptical of mail in voting, because you don’t know if it will be received and counted.
OzarkHillbilly
IIRC, the redistricting put it on the pick up table for dems.
Nelle
@Baud: i somehow accumulated a second neighborhood for GOTV, so I have another 45 Democratic households, plus my own neighborhood with nearly 60. After we get out the bags, with printed absentee ballot request forms and other voting info, by this Sunday, we’ll go after the Independents and No Party households. I’m tired already. I’m 71.
They cut about two weeks off early voting so I have less time to urge people to the polls.
My husband, age 78, is a poll worker. Long, long day.
Sheila in nc
@LiminalOwl: Here’s what it says on the Massachusetts elections website. Sounds like you may need to go to Boston. But I’ll defer to other Mass folks.
Changing Your Address
You must update your voter registration every time you move. If you have moved, you may update your registration by filling out a new voter registration form. If you move after the deadline to register to vote in a state election or primary, you should wait to update your registration until after the date of the election or primary, and return to vote at your previous polling place in Massachusetts. State law allows you to vote from a previous address in a state election for up to six month after you have moved, as long as you have not registered elsewhere.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Nelle: You’re in Iowa, right. I loved early voting there. I think we had 6 weeks of it.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Yeah, ironically a lot of NE liberal states are behind the times when it comes to ease of voting, even though they don’t try to target Dems and minorities with voting restrictions. It’s an excuse the GOP justices gave for gutting the Voting Rights Act, I believe.
WaterGirl
@Liminal Owl: Fixed your nym and deleted your comment, as requested!
germy shoemangler
Donald Trump had a meltdown on Truth Social late Tuesday after MyPillow exec Mike Lindell said his cellphone had been confiscated by the feds while he was dining out at a Hardee’s restaurant. “Breaking News: Mike Lindell, ‘THE Pillow Guy,’ was just raided by the FBI. We are now officially living in a Weaponized Police State, Rigged Elections, and all,” the twice-impeached former president wrote.
O. Felix Culpa
I signed up for a mail-in ballot. In NM, no excuse is needed. You can track the ballot’s progress online to confirm that it was received and accepted, which, as another commenter said, allows you to remediate any problems should they arise. I’ve also signed up to be a poll worker, but no response yet.
Meanwhile, I’m sending letters to voters in NM CD-2, which hopefully will contribute to a Gabe Vasquez victory and the unseating of the vile Herrell. I couldn’t find any postcard campaigns dedicated to this race, so I went with Vote Forward’s letter-writing program. You only need to commit to five letters at a time, which works for me.
snoey
@sab: Always go to the counter and ask for a hand cancel if the date matters – received wisdom from mail ordering concert tickets.
Baud
@germy shoemangler:
I can’t believe Biden didn’t invite him to the Queen’s funeral.
Liminal Owl
@CCL: Thanks, but we aren’t in the same district. About 90 miles away, I think. (And, before anyone asks, we couldn’t early-vote because we moved just before that opened.)
WaterGirl
@Baud: Yeah, we did a fair amount of that here in 2020. I get why that happens. I was one of the people who did that.
But If anyone is frustrated by Baud’s news, feel free to use your frustration as an impetus to donate to our most recent targeted voting thermometer, which you can find in the sidebar.
eversor
My pillow got hit up by the FBI for his phone at a Hardees of all places and is now upset.
hueyplong
@germy shoemangler: This may be the very first time eating at Hardee’s has been described as “dining out.”
MattF
@eversor: So, FBI is following Lindell closely enough to know he eats regularly at a Hardee’s.
Nelle
@Dorothy A. Winsor: No longer six weeks. I think it is about two weeks.
I’m always apprehensive that I’ll be I’ll or in an accident on Election Day. I want to bank my vote ahead of time.
When we lived in New Zealand, we gave up privacy of vote and voted by email. We had a fantastic election official in Lawrence, KS, who made sure we never missed a vote, primary, school board, or general. We would send New Zealand photos back with thank you messages. When we moved back, the whole office came to the counter to thanks us for the photos and our regular voting.
eversor
@MattF:
He may have just been high on crack and lost it who knows with these people.
Nicole
I think the more options, the better, where voting is concerned. I like to vote in person, but I also prefer to vote in person during early voting, as there is no line. The poll workers are always so friendly and I like my free ballpoint pen/stylus that I get from the Board of Elections since they don’t reuse the pens in a Covid world. And my I VOTED sticker.
My only complaint about voting is my polling place moved to a school three blocks from where I live. Previously it was directly across the street from me. I mean, still extremely walkable but IT WAS RIGHT THERE ACROSS THE STREET WAAAHHHHH.
germy shoemangler
And he considers the white house one of his properties.
Geminid
@O. Felix Culpa: Gabe Vasquesz could make a really good Representative, I think. Vasquez is fairly young. He graduated from Notre Dame in 2011, and worked on Senator Heinrich’s staff. Now he is a member of the Las Cruces City Council.
O. Felix Culpa
@O. Felix Culpa:
A question for the hive mind: my letters to voters through Vote Forward include a handwritten section on “why I vote.” It should be 2-3 sentences max, and NOT overtly partisan.
What response would you give to “I vote because…”
@Geminid: Yes, Vasquez has great potential. A tree stump would be an improvement over Herrell, but it’s always nice to see young political talent rising through the ranks.
Betsy
@Baud: Yes! Voting early is strategic for turnout efforts.
1. As you mentioned, the candidate and Dem party (both the local party and the big one) can stop worrying about you and spend their money and flyers and door-knocking time turning out the remaining names on their lists.
2. Once you’ve voted, most campaigns stop trying to call and knock your door, so you get fewer interruptions.
3. An early vote is safely in the box! We all know someone who is a dedicated voter but didn’t get to vote on Election Day because of an unexpected cold or accident, traffic snarl, family emergency, etc.
4. If anything at all is out of order with your registration, you have time to cure it, or if you’ve moved, you have a chance during early voting to get a ballot from the right new precinct. This means you won’t have to vote a provisional ballot. As I learned from working polls as an observer, provisional ballots are where votes go to die.
5. You can wear your sticker and alert other people in your circle to the election — before it’s the last minute. Some people will say: Oh! Is there an election now? Others will say: Oh! I’ve moved – and you can reply, Great, early voting lets you update your record and get the right ballot and polling place.
6. once you’ve early voted, you have time to help with getting the vote out :)
As a former candidate (who won!) and as a longtime campaign volunteer, how well I have learned that the more people on our side early vote, the better!
It’s ALL about turnout, so make early voting your new tradition!
geg6
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Same. Though it’s the judges I have to get the info on since it’s next to impossible to know, from local media, who is in what party. I and/or my John know all the school board candidates.
Nelle
We get the notice of scanned mail from USPS, but more than once, it isn’t showing up. Most of it is junk, but once it was a check. I’m not trusting the mail anymore. So I’ll vote early in person.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
I’m still casting ballots from Athens, which is a bit of a trick. I’m fortunate that New York sends the means to electronically download a ballot to print out and send back, though I have to get my vote in early and hope that the international mail gets it there on time.
geg6
@Suzanne:
Hmmmm, I’m on a permanent list. I get a letter from our election bureau asking me to confirm that I still want a mail-in ballot and that’s all I have to do.
Mousebumples
@germy shoemangler: someone on Twitter last night said something to the effect of, “Sir, this is an Arby’s” in a report. 🤣
germy shoemangler
@Mousebumples:
Lindell claims to be an expert on “the cyber” but doesn’t own a computer.
Betty Cracker
It’s good that people can choose how to vote, and Nichols’ attempt to make in-person voting the morally superior option is the latest example of how full of crap he is about everything but Trump.
Dems more broadly seem to be encouraging people to vote by mail, and that makes a lot of sense because it’s easy, and therefore more people will actually vote and not be deterred by weather, traffic, blah blah blah. Republicans in Florida used to know that until Tangerine Baal started lying about ballot security. I’d love to see us permanently take that advantage from them.
The mister and I will vote by mail, as we did in the primary. The SoE site lets you check the status of your ballot online, and we always do so we’ll have an opportunity to “cure” it if there’s a problem. I’ve applied to be a poll worker in November. Waiting to see if they take me up on it.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Our town’s Woman’s club holds a bake sale outside the only polling place in town as a fundraiser for scholarships for highschool seniors that we give every year.
Kay
Interview is from December 2021. The plan was always to do a federal ban at 15 weeks.
Now, Dannensenfelser assumed banning abortion and state/federal monitoring of every pregnancy would be popular in December of 2021 – they all assumed they were in the majority (arrogant) but she and Lindsey Graham are just sticking to the plan:
Everyone should read this interview. It lays out the GOP plan on womens health care access – 100% written by religious crusaders and Right wing nuts.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: I guess that from my paranoid perspective there is an argument to be made for trying to vote in a matter that resembles the behavior of the opposing party as much as possible, so that it’s harder to skew or invalidate the results by messing with voting methods, or insisting after the fact that the one your party preferred is cheating and shouldn’t count. But trying to chase that is probably a mug’s game.
OzarkHillbilly
Your local Bar Association should be able to help you with that.
germy shoemangler
Baud
@Kay:
The plan was 15 weeks when they thought they had to sound reasonable with Roe still on the books. It won’t be the plan if the GOP controls the federal government again.
Baud
@germy shoemangler:
Rick Scott and Lindsey Graham should go on tour together.
frosty
@Nelle:
I wish the PA Dems would do things this way instead of giving me a different area to canvass every time I show up. I’ve been all over the County since 2004.
eversor
@Kay:
This is only the GOP plan because it’s the Christian plan. They need the churches to win elections. Most of them don’t care. Christianity forced this on the GOP. Unless you are willing to admit that, and that the rot is the Church nothing can be done. Crushing the GOP does nothing if the Church is not crushed as well.
Kay
@Baud:
This whole thing is being run by the Right wing “groups” – the anti-abortion lobbyists. Susan B Anthony are frantically trying to regain control over the message after 3 months of horrifying stories of women receiving substandard medical care as a result of these laws, but Susan B Anthony are only one group and they’re more sophisicated than a lot of the others- slicker and more polished liars.
The smug arrogance really comes through in the interview – they simply don’t care what Americans want. They plan to force this down out throats for our own good.
Kay
@eversor:
I don’t want to talk about crushing the church – I think it’s silly.
eclare
@O. Felix Culpa: I vote because people have died for my right to vote, I owe it to them.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: This part, oh boy:
The fanatics must be giddy at the prospect of hoovering up taxpayer dollars to mislead and proselytize vulnerable women.
sdhays
@Baud: This is yet another major reform the country needs – drastically reducing the number of positions that are elected positions. People can’t keep track of who’s who or even what a given position does. It’s corrupting because the system is built for the voters to be the check on corruption and they’re not up to it.
First up – sheriffs. Can we please take away their “electoral mandates” and make them actually be what they should be – police managers subject to the civilian elected body?
SFAW
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Your having six weeks to vote cheapened my (one-day-only) vote.
Just riffing on pre-Obergefell BS “reasons.” And if we haven’t already seen that “rationale” from the RWMFs, I’d be surprised/amazed.
Reboot
@Honus: I previously lived in FL, which also has early voting, but not as early as VA’s now is–it’s super convenient and I really like getting to bank my vote ASAP.
Leto
@geg6: Same; it’s pretty much hassle free, quick and easy.
Betty Cracker
@sdhays: Yes — it’s absurd that county sheriff is an elected office! We’ve got a ton of right-wing crank sheriffs in rural Florida who strut around on TV like Boss Hoggs. Scary to contemplate that these political operatives are in charge of law enforcement for all. They don’t even pretend to be neutral. I sure don’t trust them.
SFAW
@eversor:
Ya know, I bet there are entire websites devoted to religious fanaticism, where you can let your freak flag fly without imposing yourself on the rest of us.
And if you think you’re NOT a religious fanatic — or indistinguishable from one — then your blind spot is galaxy-sized.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
I’m kind of appalled at your bad-mouthing of Constitutional Sheriffs, the only law enforcement entities allowed by (their version of) the Constitution.
O. Felix Culpa
@eclare: Powerful and true.
O. Felix Culpa
@eclare: Powerful and true.
Starfish
There was in-person early voting available to Biden. He chose to take many modes of transportation to vote on election day. I am not sure if the rest of you are seeing it, but people are starting to track the rich people airplanes and judging them for the environmental impact of extremely short flights. There was a lot of judging Kim Kardashian for using her new private jet for a bunch of very short flights.
I know that riding the bus with the other heads of state to the Queen’s funeral will likely be a security nightmare, but it would also be like Pete Buttigieg making a show of riding his bicycle places. It shows a commitment to the environment.
O. Felix Culpa
@SFAW: Troll needs to go on a diet. Please do not feed. :)
O. Felix Culpa
@O. Felix Culpa: Inexplicable duplicate. Deleted.
Baud
@Starfish:
Biden’s security is more important than environmental symbolism.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: Agreed.
Matt McIrvin
@SFAW: It’s been done. I think it was Mississippi or Alabama where they tried arguing that making voting easier cheapened the sacrifices of the Jim Crow-era voting-rights activists. (I don’t think voting-rights activists were having any of it.)
narya
I vote in person, mostly because it’s a couple of blocks away. I keep thinking I should vote early–one spot is even closer!–but I never get around to it. I vote because I think it’s an important part of being a citizen.
Matt McIrvin
@Starfish: Yes, but it’s also used as whataboutism to trash environmental advocates. (Al Gore used an airplane, therefore global warming is a fraud. Of course if you do walk the walk and try to go everywhere in low-carbon ways like Greta Thunberg, they call you a nut.)
marklar
Eversor’s expected rant does bring up an interesting tangential issue. Research has found that the physical environment in which people vote has an influence on their actual votes…voting in a Church ‘nudges’ people towards more conservative positions, voting in a school nudges people towards more support for educational initiatives, etc.
For true separation of Church/State, voting should NOT be allowed to occur in religious institutions, yet many precincts conduct their elections in those spaces.
Steeplejack
I am in favor of early and mail-in voting, but I vote in person because my small precinct’s polling place is very close (a few blocks) and never busy, at least at the times I go.
Starfish
@Baud: Biden regularly rides his bicycle!
Also, this is the cutest swearing in ceremony every.
fancycwabs
In Tennessee you need to be actually absent to cast an absentee ballot–either older than 60, hospitalized, or out of the state for the three weeks that comprise early voting and election day.
And Election Day voting locations (at least in the primary in August, where we had less than 20% turnout) had like 90 minute waits.
So, early voting it is! As a bonus, if you’re in a county with more than one location, you can early vote at any of them, instead of going to an election-day location that might have changed since the last time you voted
Edited to add: in Nashville the current plan is to cut the number of early voting locations severely for the first week. We’re working to change that.
Joe Falco
Believing that or not is an ever-increasing distinction between the two parties. If it leads to Republicans removing only themselves from voter rolls as a result, then please proceed, GOP.
Starfish
@fancycwabs: This is how Southern disenfranchisement works.
SFAW
@Matt McIrvin:
Not surprised.
To me, the counter argument is that the American Revolution was fought so that all* people could vote, and placing restrictions cheapens their sacrifice.
* Yes, I realize that “all” is a stretch. But preventing one group from voting makes it easier to prevent another group from voting, and another, and another, until pretty soon it’s just billionaires who can vote, which gets us back to a monarchy. [Which, for some MAGAts, is probably something they’re OK with.]
H.E.Wolf
@LiminalOwl:
Can you call your congressperson? This sounds like a constituent services question. The “should wait to register”, if it’s close to the general election, might not be a “must wait to register… and if so, either your temp. or permanent rental might serve as an address. Also, some states allow registration using a public library address, or other public-services building, so that unhoused people may vote. The two of you may be within the definition of “unhoused” at the moment.
WaterGirl
@SFAW: Cake might be worth putting on pants. Good cake would definitely be worth it.
Baud
@Starfish:
And is surrounded by Secret Service when he does.
eclare
@marklar: Voting in a church certainly does not make my vote more conservative! And my early voting place, not my church precinct place, is a large majority Black congregation church. Pretty sure it does not affect their votes either.
SFAW
@WaterGirl:
Not sure if that’s rotating-tag-worthy, but maybe?
Steeplejack
For anyone who plays the Waffle word game, which is a one-a-day thing, you can now play all of the past puzzles. Click “Archive” in the menu.
Screw-upsresults do not affect your regular stats.O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: Yes. And herding a bunch of heads of state onto a bus is a spectacularly dumb idea, especially for a country that has had its share of terrorist attacks. KCIII is already proving himself to be a dunderhead.
SFAW
@marklar:
I would think part of that is due to the need for a large space for people to congregate.
eclare
@fancycwabs: It is all about location! I am in TN-9th and tried to early vote, and the line was out the door on a very hot day. I went to my precinct the day of, two or three people ahead of me.
Good luck with keeping the early voting locations!
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
I’m not sure I like this new reboot of Speed.
Steeplejack
@Baud:
Bakersfield.
matt
@sab: we have statewide mail in voting in Oregon, so I am commenting based on that, not the creepy ways other states treat mail in votes. if your state has a security concern by all means go and vote in person. I’ll be sitting around at home reading the voters guide and filling out my ballot.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: Hehe. Where are Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves when you need them?
geg6
@OzarkHillbilly:
LOL! That would assume they get any of that information out to the public or that they actually know anything about the candidates that aren’t local.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
blinks into middle distance
Did he suggest this?
satby
@Baud: hard to convince good candidates to contest every race if we don’t support them.
schrodingers_cat
@Steeplejack: Do you do the weekly waffle. Which is like the daily waffle but bigger!
O. Felix Culpa
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Fair question. My assumption is that he is part of the planning, especially where invited heads of state are concerned, and that he agreed to if not initiated the “environmentally conscious” bus decision.
Baud
@satby:
It’s about volume. The MTG opponent is raking it it.
That said, it’s impossible to control what small donors do except with education.
OzarkHillbilly
@geg6: Before every election here in Misery, the BAR association ranks every judicial candidate on the ballot. We have a non-partisan system, so the ranking is done along the lines of if are they qualified with several grades.
eta They are also the only source of info on judicial candidates, that isn’t from the candidates themselves.
Starfish
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes There are many rules around the Queens funeral, and one is “Y’all aren’t clogging up our major airport with your private jets.” There are also rules about helicopters too.
Since the roads in the area will be closed, they don’t want everyone driving their own private cars.
Everyone is pissed because it is going to be a security nightmare.
frosty
@O. Felix Culpa:
With all this pie and cake and sea lion chow, *I’ll* need to go on a diet! If the troll would go away I might be able to get back to my target weight.
The pie filter is great, people. Use it! Toggle if you’re curious, but one toggle is usually all I need in a thread to know the pie safe was the right choice.
geg6
@narya: I also vote, but I mail my vote in. Doesn’t mean it isn’t important to me, as a citizen, also. In fact, I got signed up for it as soon as I could. Mainly because I am often doing GOTV on election day. That’s how important I think it is as a citizen to vote. I want everyone to be able to do it, however they can.
zhena gogolia
@O. Felix Culpa: He’s probably also behind the “Don’t leave Paddington bears in the park!” ukase.
Starfish
When Congress had to do their stock disclosures, a Congresswoman learned that her son was day trading, so she is all in on rules that would ban Congresspeople from trading stock.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: Hereditary in some places, too. I think the current sheriff in Manatee is the son of a previous sheriff.
geg6
@WaterGirl:
Meh. I’m not fond of cake. If there’s no tiramisu, I’m not going.
geg6
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That’s the plan. Apparently, he gave Biden an exception.
Steeplejack
@schrodingers_cat:
I think I’ve done just one. Only noticed it recently.
ETA: Doing #16 now.
Starfish
@geg6: This blog is deeply opposed to pants, isn’t it?
frosty
A much better response than the one I was working on!
eclare
@zhena gogolia: Just googled ukase, what a great word and perfect description!
OzarkHillbilly
@geg6: One other point. The rankings are done by the lawyers who practice in their courts. Most lawyers want to win, but even more what they want is consistent application of the rules of court and consistent interpretation of the law.
The Moar You Know
The only time I haven’t done it in person was during pre-vaxx COVID. I vote in person, otherwise. I think it’s really important to do, if you can.
Reboot
@O. Felix Culpa: Voting’s important to me as one of the ways to get my community, state, and country going in a better direction– even if that’s sometimes only potential, the idea is now out there to be built upon. And voting against egregious policies is very important!
geg6
@OzarkHillbilly:
We also have a non-partisan system for judges. You can look up the Bar Association rating if you are interested in that, but most people don’t or have no idea where to find it. And all that tells you is that the Bar considers them qualified. At some point, the Bar considered Sydney Powell and Rudy Guiliani qualified, so I check it but it doesn’t mean much. They identify the judges by county on the ballot, which gives some hints as to what a judge’s ideological leanings might be, but that’s not a sure thing. And if you do enough digging on the internet, you can find out which party they identify as, but it’s not an easy thing.
geg6
@Starfish:
I always wear pants, unlike Baud. I am, however, deeply opposed to the wearing of a bra. Which is another good reason to vote by mail. I won’t have to put a bra on to do it.
prostratedragon
@Mimi haha: Then all the more reason, especially this year.
FelonyGovt
California now sends ballots to all voters (although you can still vote in person) with convenient drop boxes if you prefer not to use the mail. Los Angeles County tracks your ballot and tells you when it has been received and counted. My family sits around our table and fills out our ballots together – usually I’m the one who’s researched all the candidates and propositions.
Michael Cain
When academic experts rate the states’ voting systems for security, accuracy, and ease of use, the top several places are dominated by western states with contemporary vote by mail systems: Colorado, Oregon, and Washington. Utah’s new vote by mail system is rising quickly.
Side note: I recall seeing a clip with Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) on Fox, with a checklist of things to avoid in voting systems. I wondered at the time if he realized that the Republican legislature in Utah had finished revising their voting system to include five of the six “bad” things.
Geminid
President Biden is on his way to Detroit, ETA 10:30am. He’ll tour the Detroit Auto Show starting at 11:30am and then deliver remarks on electrical vehicle manufacturing. The President will attend a DNC reception at 3:10pm and is scheduled to return to the White House at 5:40pm.
I found this info in Politico Playbook. Their lead article this morning was headlined, “Did Lindsey Graham just score an own goal on abortion?” The consensus was: Yes.
Ben Cisco
Good morning!!
This year is the first that Mama Cisco will not be working the polls in over 40 years. She finally retired. She’s more than earned a rest, but I can tell she misses SOME parts of it. She will be in attendance to cast her ballot though.
Xavier
I miss voting in person at the local elementary school cafeteria on election day. But it is more convenient at the early voting locations around the city. Elections here have always been well run, and if I didn’t have travel scheduled I’d sign up for poll work.
Baud
@geg6:
I support braless. I believe in intersectionality.
OzarkHillbilly
Neither were ever judges so I am unsure where you get that info. Also both were considered sane at one point in time.
frosty
We definitely have a gearhead for President. But I knew that when he was washing the Trans Am* in the White House driveway.
* He’s probably still mortified that The Onion didn’t use a Corvette.
WaterGirl
@geg6:
My favorite place that use to have the BEST tiramisu has totally ruined it. It looks the same but it is most assuredly not!
I gave it 3 tries (all bad, on 3 different occasions) so I am very sad.
Bastards!
Baud
@WaterGirl:
It’s the New Coke debacle all over again!
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Bras are the work of the devil.
Ben Cisco
@Baud:
And what happens when they run out? Is death the only alternative?
\
The Moar You Know
judgevoterguide.com
It’s a conservative website with almost every elected judicial position by state/county.
I just look for the ones with the lowest ratings and go from there.
A genuine civic service provided by the GOP. Albeit not in the way they envisioned.
Michael Cain
@FelonyGovt:
This year, more than 90% of all votes cast in the 13-state West (as defined by the Census Bureau) will be mail ballots. Seven of the 13 (CA, CO, HI, NV, OR, UT, and WA) mail a ballot to all registered voters. Two more (AZ and MT) have voluntary permanent mail ballot lists used by more than 75% of voters there. NM doesn’t have a permanent list, but two-thirds of voters there request a mail ballot every federal election.
geg6
@WaterGirl:
If you had a Giant Eagle near you, you’d run out right now to get some of their store version. It’s freaking delicious. If you ever come to WPA or decide to visit Goku in EOH, make it a point to drop by and get one at the local Big Bird.
rikyrah
@sab:
That’s why I am a fan of dropboxes where I live. I love the development of them. They will be picked up everyday and taken to the facility where they count the ballots and date stamped that day.
Before that, I would tell anyone voting by mail – DO NOT just drop off the ballot in the mailbox. Take it inside of the Post Office and watch them put a date stamp on your ballot.
People don’t realize how many ballots are rejected due to USPS faulty date stamps.
schrodingers_cat
@Steeplejack: Me too. Only noticed them this week.
WaterGirl
@Baud: We can only hope – didn’t they end up going back to the old coke?
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Bras, panty hose and lawns that have to be mowed.
All evil.
MomSense
I’m voting early again this year because I’m serving as a voter protection worker at a polling place (haven’t been assigned yet) for the Maine Dems.
Trainings will start soon and I’m looking forward to in-person meetings this election. It’s also fun because I recruited our first voter protection team back in the early 2000s and it has now become a full program of our state Democratic Party.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Is that intended as an euphemism for something?
WaterGirl
@geg6: Jealous!
Even Olive Garden used to have a good version (I’m sure they got it frozen and sliced it). But I haven’t been there for years (not a big fan of the rest of their food, though I did like their pasta fagioli soup.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Nope! Just that the idea of a nice green space of living stuff that’s not concrete was good – but having it be something that had to be mowed every fucking week is just plain evil.
So I was trying to distinguish between the general idea and the awful implementation.
Matt McIrvin
@sab: In MA you can check a website to see if the ballot was received and accepted. So for mail-in voting the key is to do it early enough that you can try again or vote on Election Day if something went wrong. (If they eventually get the mail ballot, I think the rule is that that’s OK but they’ll ignore it.)
The one time I did use a mail-in ballot during the worst phase of COVID, I actually dropped it in a drop box outside City Hall.
If the election officials themselves are malicious and want to fuck with the election, no choice of election procedure is going to fix that. But if there’s a basic level of good faith, these processes can be reliable.
Omnes Omnibus
The best way to vote is to vote. The rest is commentary.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl:
Have your outdoor staff take care of it. I don’t see the problem. I mean if you are concerned about the effect on the environment, just have them bring some of the sheep around.
H.E.Wolf
@Omnes Omnibus:
I see what you did there. [stands and applauds]
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I think some people still believe they will back some kind of additional social safety net but they never said that- they instead plan to pour public funding into religious/Right wing political groups.
The coercion won’t be just religious-it will be political.
Texas is already spending tens of millions funding these religious/political “shelters” for pregnant women- they’ve already had a corruption scandal where one of the religious/political groups robbed 700k. Six months they’ve been funding these groups- already a scandal.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I think some people still believe they will back some kind of additional social safety net but they never said that- they instead plan to pour public funding into religious/Right wing political groups.
The coercion won’t be just religious-it will be political.
Texas is already spending tens of millions funding these religious/political “shelters” for pregnant women- they’ve already had a corruption scandal where one of the religious/political groups robbed 700k. Six months they’ve been funding these groups- already a scandal.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@SFAW: My grandmother was born into a world in which she couldn’t vote. She’d come back from the grave and slap me if I didn’t.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@eversor: Have you ever actually read the First Amendment to the US Constitution and thought about the implications of the Establishment Clause, my little one-note wonder? Ever, at all?
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Dems need to make more use of fear of zombies in their GOTV efforts.
O. Felix Culpa
@Michael Cain:
Two-thirds? Perhaps in 2020 due to Covid, but otherwise it hasn’t been nearly that high. It will be interesting to see how NM voters choose to cast their ballots going forward.
geg6
@WaterGirl:
I must admit, I like their zuppa toscana. And the endless salad and bread sticks.
geg6
@Matt McIrvin:
PA also has a website to check that your ballot was received and accepted. I always check it.
O. Felix Culpa
@zhena gogolia: What? I hadn’t heard about that anti-Paddington in the park edict. For shame!
RobertB
@WaterGirl: They did bring in frozen tiramisu. I bought a whole pan of it from Olive Garden way back when, and it came wrapped and frozen.
Nelle
@frosty: our program is called Neighbor to Neighbor. It may be based on Stacy Abrams’work. By now, I know which neighbors like to go in person, which ones want absentee ballot requests. I also think of myself as a neighborhood grandma, with a big front porch. Just eyes out, not interested in snooping but wanting kids to be safe.
Frankensteinbeck
@germy shoemangler:
Yes, Trump loves blackmail. However, Trump has undergone visible, VERY visible cognitive decline in the 25 years since that incident. All the word salad, the repetition, the limited vocabulary? Back in 2000 he could talk like a normal person, or at least a creepy asshole of average intelligence. He used to be coherent. Reports of the kind of strategies he used to use are no longer useful. He’s a flailing ball of id now.
Shit, he was visibly more coherent running in 2016 than he is now, and the decline has already hit hard.
Steeplejack
@Geminid:
I’m still mad that I gave money—not a lot, but some—to that woman who ran against Susan Collins last time. It was supposed to be a close, winnable race, and it ended up being a blowout. And, last I read, that woman is still sitting on a pile of cash.
. . . Okay, damn it, made myself go look. It’s Sara Gideon, she ended up with over $10 million after whatever she spent in the election, and as of last February she still had about half of it left. She has been spreading it around, much of it to non-political causes, like Lady Bountiful and presumably maintaining herself as a player in state politics. (She’s a former speaker of the Maine House of Representatives.)
Maine Academy of Modern Music? 👀 Glad I could help buy a few clarinet reeds or whatever.
Okay, I’ve obviously triggered myself here. Serenity now. I have resisted the urge this cycle to donate to no-chance candidates like the guy running against Marjorie Taylor Greene. I think every seat should be contested, but I get skeptical when someone with no political track record or experience pops up as the candidate. (But maybe those are the only people who will run.) Marcus Flowers looks good in a cowboy hat and hits hard on his military background, but other than that? Even the Washington Post calls him “an Army veteran who only recently discovered an interest in politics.” He had raised $8.1 million by early May, and the money is still rolling in.
Oh, jeez, that Post story triggered me even more.
I wonder how much money she’s still sitting on.
On the other hand, someone in the Post story points out that it’s important to have someone in the race in case the reviled incumbent does something especially vile or stupid that galvanizes public opinion.
SFAW
@Baud:
I was about to suggest that Dems actually employ zombies as poll workers, but then realized that MAGAts would have nothing to fear.
[In case it wasn’t blindingly obvious: because zombies only go for braaiiiinnzzz.]
eclare
@Steeplejack: Ouch! That Gideon ended up with so much money has to *burn*.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@MattF:
Why would that be a foregone conclusion? Maryland has elected Democratic governors before, haven’t they?
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I think he’s saying the Dem is a lock. MD currently has a GOP governor, but he has successfully portrayed himself as normal.
SFAW
@Steeplejack:
I am somewhat of an asshole relative to this stuff. Every time I see people shilling for a candidate who realistically has no chance — especially when they cite “polling” which shows Candidate X “tied” with Rethug Incumbent M (where “tied” translates to “they’re almost tied if you use the margin of error to the Dem’s greatest advantage”) — I generally make a comment which gets me in trouble with the “I fucking HATE Eeyores” brigade. The corollary to that is the “there NO EFFING WAY (Dem) Candidate H loses” BS I’ve seen too many places.
That said, it is extremely disappointing to read about Sara Gideon’s shenanigans (for lack of a better term).
Barbara
I will likely vote in person this year because it is so close and easy, but I have definitely voted “early absentee” in years past, and it is the same except that you go to one of three voting sites to get the ballot. You insert the completed ballot into the same machines. The last time I went — the second or third day available in 2020 — there was a lengthy line, though it moved quickly. So it’s not even as if you don’t get that communal voting experience by doing it this way.
The one time I served as a poll watcher was inspiring — mostly because the precinct captain used to work at the DOJ Voting Rights Section and tried so hard to make sure that every person who walked into the polling location was able to vote somehow — whether by finding the right location or through a provisional ballot. I don’t think that’s typical, but it should be.
Steeplejack
@germy shoemangler:
“Dining out” at Hardee’s. Lah-di-dah! 😹 I just hope someone said “Sir, this is a Hardee’s” at some point.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SFAW: The ME Senate race had, in hindsight, the worst polling of 2020. Gideon was at least tied and frequently ahead in most polls. I don’t blame her for the fact that Susan Collins has been such a successful fraud for a generation. There were stories in October that her campaign literally couldn’t figure out how to spend money, and I think I’ve read there are state laws that limit what she can do with that leftover cash (MomSense?).
I gave money to a whole lot of longshot candidates in that cycle, a few of whom didn’t look like longshots till the votes were counted (Bullock, Gideon, Greenfield), in part on the theory that even a stronger-than-usual performance by a Senate candidate could be a state-party building event. I don’t regret any of it. But I never wasted a dime on Amy McGrath, and I won’t send any to Marcus Flowers either. Though if he can boost turn-out for Abrams and Warnock in that race, that might be a good use of that money.
rikyrah
Daniel Dale (@ddale8) tweeted at 7:29 AM on Wed, Sep 14, 2022:
NEW: More than half of the Republican nominees for US Senate — at least 19 of the 35 — have denied, cast doubt upon or actively tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Here is the most detailed breakdown of their words and actions: https://t.co/VkppIuMojU
(https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1570027033203474433?t=jw1dvzak2Q3lvDybg3qpiQ&s=03)
cain
Most of us in the northwest are all vote by mail. I got my citizenship at 25 and promptly left Indiana and then moved to Oregon and gave my first vote to Bill Clinton’s 2nd term. I couldn’t vote the first time. I was kind of pissed I couldn’t vote against Ronny Raygun.
In any case, what I love about the Oregon experience is that you get a voter pamphlet that goes through every bill with arguments for and against and then profiles of all the politicians and background and so on. You really get a sense of being involved, and my wife and I used to put a lot of thought into the bills. The thing is, what is empowering is that – there is an entire apparatus that is out there spending like mad to get you to vote one way or another especially when it comes to the bills which I approach from a ‘good policy’ perspective. The engineer in me loves it so much. :)
Then, you fill out the boxes, sign, and drop it either in the mail or at a ballot drop off box. Simple. Much as I might enjoy being in line talking to fellow citizens, the ability to research and rationally vote from home is compelling.
cain
@rikyrah: Someone should ask McConnell if the 2020 election denial is an official part of the platform of the GOP party. If not why are so many denying that it was a fair election.
Matt McIrvin
@Barbara: Early in-person voting in Massachusetts is actually more like mail voting, but you do it in person. You go to one of the early-voting sites and fill out a ballot, then put it in an envelope that is much like the ones used for mail voting, with information about your name and address on the outside. Then that envelope gets sucked into the ballot box, and on or before Election Day they use the address info to deliver it to your regular precinct location, where it gets scanned and counted along with the in-person ballots. It’s a bit convoluted.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
tuned in to MSNBC to see what was going on in time to hear Katie Tur solemnly ask what it will mean to Britons to see Harry and William walking behind a hearse together
MattF
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): MD is normally very blue. There have been a couple of R governors including the current one (Hogan) but they have been ‘moderates’. In the Republican primary, Hogan promoted the candidacy of a moderate against a Trumpist. The Trumpist won the R primary, and Hogan isn’t going to vote for him. WaPo profile suggests he’s a nice guy, but off his rocker.
Geminid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The 2020 Maine Senate race had an exceptional vote swing between Biden and Collins. Ticket splitting is becoming rare now. There weren’t many Republican Reps who won districts that Biden carried, or Democratic Reps that carried districts trump won.
An example of the former was Don Bacon (NE-3?), and Jared Golden (ME-2) was in the latter group. Because Maine and Nebraska award an electoral vote for Congressional districts carried, these two swing districts added a vote to each of Biden’s and trump’s total. Both are rated tossup this year, I believe.
RaflW
I tend to vote in person. I often know at least one election judge, since we’ve lived in this ‘hood for a dozen years. I don’t want their day to be too lonely or boring! :)
Sometimes I vote early-in-person at one of the Minneapolis locations that handles such things, because I don’t want to mess with the chance of a ballot envelope being filled out wrong by mail. Though I did vote by mail in 2020 because, well, I hardly went anywhere indoors but essential food shopping.
In that case, I voted way early and made sure via an online lookup that my ballot was accepted. Thank you MN S.O.S. Steve Simon for running such a great operation!
JimV
In the long-ago, when I was in college in a different state, I don’t think many college students voted. There were no registration drives, and I had no idea how to get registered, there were classes to go to, I was lazy, et cetera. So the first time I voted was in the city where my first full-time job was. I had to be at work by 8 AM and usually got there by 7 AM, so I got up before 6 AM to vote at about 6:15. I had scouted the location previously, a local parish church, but it took me a few minutes to find the basement entrance where the voting took place. It was crowded with people, perhaps because of the donuts and cider they handed out.
You stepped into the voting booth and pulled a lever down to draw a curtain closed behind you, then set tabs for each of the offices, then pulled the lever up to punch holes in your ballot, reset the tabs to neutral, and open the curtain. (I think; it has been a long time since I used that system. It remains my favorite system, though.)
I felt a bit proud of myself and have voted ever since, always in person. It gives me some sense of civic camaraderie to see all the people in line and poll workers. There haven’t been any refreshments there for a long time, though. Nor are the candidates as good or so it seems. Probably it is all the constant begging for money, every day, which I don’t recall happening then.
We all have our customs and traditions. Congratulations to those who adopt more modern methods. Still there might be a little something to be said for doing things as a group–riding buses and trains instead of the long lines of cars on the roads with just a single occupant, for example. It seems a bit more efficient to me, and the time is coming when 8 billion people will need to use resources efficiently.
Immanentize
I wonder if voting itself is to become a Democratic Party identified endeavor such that some Republicans don’t do it just to own the libs?![]()
RaflW
@cain: Good question, but the GOP has stopped having a platform. Which perfectly announces that they are hollowed out. I just wish the D.C. press wasn’t so terribly bored by policy. Because an entire national party having no policies or platform should be big, ongoing news.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@MattF:
@Baud:
Gotcha
Geminid
@cain: McConnell would find a way to not answer that question. He’s had a lot of practice at this lately.
McConnell is all politics all the time and will not be candid. I’m hoping he’ll get around to writing a memoir after he retires, though. McConnell may say what he really thinks about the clowns he’s had to work with.
JMG
The White House press made a big deal about Biden going to Delaware to vote because they had to go too, and whatever their plans for the day were were ruined. They really are piss poor excuses for reporters.
Kropacetic
@Immanentize:
Immanentize
SEPTEMBER 14, 2022 AT 11:28 AM
One can only dare to hope.
Layer8Problem
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
But more importantly, Tur telling us how this could be bad news for Joe Biden. (No, that part I made up.)
MattF
@Geminid: It would certainly be entertaining to hear what Snake McConnell really thinks about his colleagues, but I don’t expect that to happen.
RaflW
@Geminid: Cook rates Boebert’s district as Solid R, with a pvi of R+7. In a wave election, maybe not solid, but alas even with Dobbs I don’t see a wave cresting over her head.
I’m supporting several CO Dems this cycle, but haven’t decided if sending money to Adam Frisch makes sense. I’d probably rather give to 1 or 2 state legislative races inside CO-03 that look ‘swingy’ to help with turnout & energy.
ian
I havn’t had a chance to read the comments yet, so forgive if this sentiment is covered, but Tom Nichols can go eat a bag of salted horse genitalia. Any kind of voting, be it absentee, mail, in person, is as good and as valid as the rest. Telling us otherwise is just polite Republican justification for not offering the full range of services, which can be significantly more helpful to the elderly, disabled, or people with immunocompromised health disorders that might not want to venture into a building full of strangers
Also- real tough guy persona right there with the guns at polling stations thing. It is perfectly understandable to not want to get involved with that when MAGAts are allowed and promising to walk around polling stations with guns. Who is he to tell other people they have to walk that gauntlet? Also, why in the name of all that is holy did the courts decide that the second amendment covers the right to intimidate voters at polling stations?
Geminid
@Immanentize: It seemed like Georgia Republicans declined to vote in the Senate runoffs in order to own the RINOs. That dynamic alarmed Republicans, and has made them very reluctant to cross trump. They know they cannot afford to lose many voters in purple states and districts.
Jay C
Good discussions here, but I noticed no one seems to have noticed the main emphasis in the lead post: rather than making it “President supports in-person voting“, the text comes across way more as “Biden spends huge amount of taxpayer money to cast vote in minor election“; but then again, what would one expect from the “MSM”?
ETA: I’m sure Joe would probably have preferred just to take the train home to vote, but obviously, that’s out nowadays…
@JimV:
Yeah, I remember the old mechanical voting machines: antiquated clunkers as they were, they did the job just fine: they were used in NYC up until fairly recently: I recall thinking it was a nice link to history to be casting my vote for Hillary Clinton (Senate) on a device that was probably first used to vote for Harry Truman….
marklar
@eclare: Sounds like a Church I’d join, and I’m a Jewish agnatheist!
lowtechcyclist
@Steeplejack:
This I strongly agree with. But you just hate to see people throwing piles of money at a candidate like Amy McGrath who had no chance to win in an R+15 state.
The Dems need some sort of informal agreement that after (hypothetical for-instance numbers ahead, mentally adjust to whatever makes sense to you) the first million that a House candidate raises, or after the first $5M that a Senate candidate raises, a 25% cut goes to the party to spend where it makes the most sense. That way if MTG’s opponent gets deluged with millions in ActBlue contributions, a decent chunk of it would get spent in races we had an actual chance of winning.
Old School
@JimV:
Do any candidates still use the federal election funding that I check the box for on my 1040 every year? As I recall, taking federal funding restricts the outside fundraising that can be done.
marklar
@Omnes Omnibus: “The best way to vote is to vote. The rest is commentary.”
I love the Hillel reference!
Sure Lurkalot
Colorado gives its residents every opportunity to vote…everyone gets a ballot by mail, you can still vote in person, early or on Election Day and there are drop boxes everywhere. Both the state and many cities produce voter guides with explanations, pro/con commentary, text, sample ballot…mailed and available online. And ballot trace if you sign up for it. Over 85% voted in the high turnout 2020 election. Only 32% participated in the 2022 primary, more Republicans but the Democratic candidates were largely unopposed so there’s that.
Unfortunately, the barely and rarely coherent Boebert is leading her opponent by 7 points.
randy khan
First, I’ll just say that the people complaining about Biden going to vote in person on Election Day should be ignored as people who do not understand symbolism or the long tradition of Presidential voting.
As for the various backs-and-forths about voting, I have voted absentee, early in person and on Election Day in person, depending on circumstances. They all are good, and everybody should vote whatever way works best for them, not to mention that, as always with things where you have a choice about how to do them, YMMV. But I personally get a little bit more excited about voting on Election Day.
lowtechcyclist
@sdhays:
This. Law enforcement should be subject to civilian oversight just the way our military is.
Police are people who can shoot you dead and get off scot-free because “I thought he was pulling a gun, but it turned out he was just pulling his phone out of his pocket.” They need continuous oversight, not just one election every four years, after which they can go back to being the neighborhood bullies if that’s how they roll.
Peale
@Baud: He’s in pretty good shape for a guy in his 70s, and the Chesapeake corridor is relatively flat and Delaware especially so. But I don’t think we should expect him to bike all the way there and back.
Layer8Problem
@Jay C: Yup, those were the machines in the northern suburbs too. Solid, dependable, satisfying with every lever yank, and would work right through a nuclear electromagnetic pulse. That was democracy! The new technology’s good and does the job and I’ve convinced myself it’s verifiable, but filling in little ovals just reminds me too much of standardized tests and SATs and Achievements.
prostratedragon
My bold. I love that, because they do indeed know.
Matt McIrvin
@JimV: There’s a lot of nostalgia for those lever machines because the physicality of them made it feel like you were doing something important. I think I ever only used one in a high-school Student Council election, where they brought a couple in to make it feel like real grownup voting. By the time I was actually voting they were gone.
As it turns out, they’re somewhat unreliable and impossible to audit with any confidence, so it’s probably good that they’re gone. They felt like they were reliable, but this was an illusion.
I missed the first election I was actually eligible for–the 1986 midterm–because, although I was registered to vote, it was in my home district and there was no great effort to tell college students how to vote absentee or re-register in town.
I eventually figured it out for the 1988 presidential election. Virginia had a primary that year and it happened while I was home for, I think, spring break, so my first vote was a primary vote for Michael Dukakis. That was on an early electronic voting machine that had a touch pad with red LEDs indicating how you had voted. By the fall I had managed to request an absentee ballot.
Matt McIrvin
@randy khan:
They’re people who do fully understand this but are exploiting it for a cheap gotcha.
I actually think it might have been symbolically interesting for Biden to do early voting. But of course that’s not available everywhere and it works differently, with different dates, everywhere it is available, so it might have been misleading as public education. In-person voting is an action any citizen can imitate (well, I guess for a primary they still have to be sure they get the local date right).
Sure Lurkalot
More idiocy in the thread, if your brain can take it.
Miss Bianca
@Baud: Adam Frisch, the Democrat in CD-7, is a white businessman type from Aspen. He probably has a better chance against Boebert than Diane Mitch Busch did. That said, he managed to piss me off by declaring during his “debate” with Boobert that he “wouldn’t support Nancy Pelosi as Speaker.” Now, maybe that’s all performance art, but I am getting mighty tired of these white dude Democrats out here who feel like it’s obligatory to acquiesce in the right-wing shit-piling on the little old lady who just happens to be the best goddamn Speaker of the House in my lifetime.
Ruckus
I stood in line in the rain in OH, almost 2 1/2 hrs in the rain and 1 1/2 inside the building because the then rethuglican gov had 2 of the 3 voting machines removed and combined 2 poling places just because it was a mostly democratic area. By the time I got back in my car to go to work I’d missed lunch break. And yes I voted as I always do, democratic all the way. I’ve voted by mail, in person and drop off. Mail is the most convenient and as I’ve been voting for decades, I really don’t care that my showing up in person is CITIZENSHIP. My vote counts in person, in the mail or dropped off. To me that’s the most important part of the performance, that I actually voted for a government that I at least think and hope will work for all of us.
C Stars
I vote by mail. It’s easier these days, though we used to vote in person when the kids were littler, because going to vote was a big event for them. But now that they are less excited about it, the Stars Spouse usually asks me to fill in his ballot for him too (is that legal?) and then he takes them both and drops them into the ballot box by city hall, which is on his ride to work.
Baud
@Miss Bianca:
I hate it too. But probably a moot point. I think Nancy will hand the
batonwonton to someone new after this year.ETA: Boebertified.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Somewhere in Alaska, or Arizona, or wherever, Sarah Palin finished off a breakfast PBR and says, “Jeesh, what a maroon. A wanton killing is when you poison their wanton….”
Unspoken, “you know, I’ve never actually opened this book before…”
C Stars
@Sure Lurkalot: I don’t know about you, but I could sure kill some wontons right about now.
Cameron
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: WTF? That’s so screwed up it doesn’t even rise to the level of idiocy.
Ruckus
@Miss Bianca:
“I am getting mighty tired of these white dude Democrats out here who feel like it’s obligatory to acquiesce in the right-wing shit-piling on the little old lady who just happens to be the best goddamn Speaker of the House in my lifetime.”
This easily deserves to be repeated. (and I’m an old white dude…)
Sure Lurkalot
@Miss Bianca: I read that Mr. Frisch is only a recently registered Democrat in the “I’m an independent” mode. He was a council person in Aspen so he has some experience. He seems to be a cipher trying to check many boxes and the anti-Pelosi shit just plays into Boebert’s schtick of screaming about Pelosi’s commie agenda.
Ruckus
@Sure Lurkalot:
LB has ever been coherent? Once, TWICE?
I’m having serious trouble believing once….
Cameron
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You never saw Streetcorner Wonton Massacre? Greatest martial arts movie ever.
prostratedragon
@Sure Lurkalot: Hmmm. Wonton killers … killer wonton … I see opportunity there. Maybe a face-off with the gazpacho.
SFAW
@Ruckus:
Re: Ohio:
This morning, Marc “Don’t Kill Me Tiffani-Amber” Thiessen’s latest idiocy talked about Dark Brandon’s terrorizing Real ‘Murica as MAGGOTS!!! He noted that Rep. Bennie Thompson voted against certifying the OH 2004 Pres results, so BOTH SIDES.
I commented that Ken Blackwell’s fuckery, some of which you described, probably gave the election to W. [Tons of Dem votes suppressed, winning OH gave the election to W, etc.] But I didn’t have the anecdotal fleshing-out that you just provided, so thanks.
Matt McIrvin
@C Stars: When my daughter was a baby/toddler, I would take her with me in a baby sling when I voted, and the poll workers started missing her if I went without her. She’ll be voting herself in a couple of years, probably off at college somewhere.
Another Scott
@fancycwabs: It’s good to see you continuing to post here.
I hope that you’ll do better than expected in your race, and be able to give us a run down on what you think works and what doesn’t when running a red district.
Good luck!
On voting – it should be easy, easy, easy. Meeting neighbors in line and supporting school boosters is great, but that’s not what voting is about. Voting is how we elect people who decide how to address important problems that affect us all. It’s deadly serious and needs input from everyone, and that’s why making it easy matters most.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kelly
@Shalimar: In Oregon if my mail in ballot is rejected I will be notified by phone or email. You can correct the problem by mailing in a new voter registration or in person at the county clerk’s office. I’ve signed up for email notifications. I get an email when my ballot is mailed to me and another when it is accepted.
I’m voting for my governance not attending a community potluck fits my feelings on vote by mail.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
So, did you guys see that new CPI print?
I saw this take on Bogleheads:
Here’s what Dean Baker has to say at CEPR: Price Increases Persist Despite Supply Chain Progress:
SFAW
@SFAW:
JFC, “Don’t CALL Me”
Fuckin’ incipient dementia sucks.
Geminid
@Miss Bianca: This was done by a number of Democrats trying to flip red seats in 2018, including Mikie Sherrill. When Sherrill met with Pelosi during the campaign and started to explain, Pelosi told her, “Don’t worry about it. Just win, baby!”
Miss Bianca
@zhena gogolia: True, but if you happen to be top-heavy, as I am, alas, going braless feels far, far worse than not.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
I plan on voting absentee this year, like I normally do. Any other Ohio peeps: did you get vote-by-mail applications in the mail from the Sec of State?
steve g
Since I live in Oregon I have been voting by mail for ages now. I had no idea that people like this Tom Nichols fellow were actually sentimental about voting in person. I enjoy laying out the voting materials on the dining room table, making tea or coffee depending on the time of day, and studying all the fascinating offices that are up for grabs. There is a county board for this and that, and also a municipal board for that and this, and the difference is I don’t know, something. There are always some judges running unopposed. For the obscure races I vote based on their description in the voter guide. If they didn’t submit one, I don’t vote for them. I can take my pretty sweet time about the whole thing.
I really don’t know what voting in person is like anymore. I imagine that everyone has their nose buried in their phone anyway, texting away with all their friends or reading some important stuff on the web.
Miss Bianca
@RaflW: John Salazar, Ken Salazar’s brother, was a Dem who held that seat in CD-7 before he was knocked out by Scott Tipton. Who was knocked out by Boebert. I still think a Dem can take that seat again someday, but it’s going to be a slog for a while.
Scout211
Shhhhhhh!!!! That is one of the many reasons that red state politicians claim that vote by mail should be illegal. All that election fraud committed by spouses. Someone should be arrested!
Note: I may or may not be the one to fill out my spouse’s ballot (per his request). It could have happened a time or two but who knows. Probably not, but maybe. I would not swear to it, no not me. ;-)
zhena gogolia
OT, a very cute picture
Joe is still a handsome devil.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Dobbs > Inflation. Insane GOP > Inflation. That’s all I will say about it. I am not getting drawn into inflation panic, tyvm.
cain
@RaflW: When you’ve warped news to be infotainment – you don’t get real news, you just get both sides to get people hyped about one thing or another. The entire business is about keeping your eyeballs glued to the screen – and that’s all of em. That’s why I always harp about watching any of these news shows. We are just encouraging them. The only way to get the media and the DC press to change their behavior is to not encourage it by denying them viewership. Hit them in the pocket books.
The entire DC press is paid for by Boomers, Gen Xers, and some Millennials. Peel off the Xers and the Millennials and then lets see what happens.
Miss Bianca
@Geminid: I know, I know, I get it. But just once, I’d like to see one of these tough guys react with, “you know why Republicans hate Nancy Pelosi so much? Because she’s just THAT GOOD at her job. And that’s why I would HELL TO THE YEAH support her if she wanted to be Speaker again. Which she doesn’t, by the way, so why the hell are we even talking about it? Oh, that’s right – because you have SHIT ALL ELSE to talk about.”
Geminid
@Ruckus: Lauren Boebert definitely lacks fluency in the Engish language. Last June when she debated her primary opponent, state Senator Don Coram, Boebert raised the issue of hemp legislation Coram voted on (he is a hemp farmer). But when she accused Coram of having ulterior motives, it came out as “alternative motors.”
Boebert was working off of notes that her staff probabably prepared.
Cameron
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): So I guess it’s time for an excess-profits tax and/or a price freeze? Oh, Christ, who am I kidding – it’s time for another….interest rate hike!
Miss Bianca
@Miss Bianca: oh, wait, that’s CD 3, not 7. I get confused because my county just got re-districted from 3 to 7.
Joe Falco
@Sure Lurkalot: Hey, if God intended red-blooded American Christians to eat Chinese food, He would have rained mantou from heaven on Moses and the Israelites, not manna.
C Stars
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah, I would imagine seeing your kiddo was probably a bright spot for the poll workers. (And she’ll be a bright spot for the Dems when she starts voting!)
We used to live in a very quaint corner of San Francisco where the polling place was a cute little elementary school and the school would always have a bake sale at the same time. So it was exciting to both do our civic duty AND get cookies. The kids (12 and 9) are still interested in voting; when those newsprint voter guides come in the mail from the state/county, the kids usually read them after we do (and then the rabbit eats them).
cain
@lowtechcyclist: Did you read about the Boulder man, who called 9-11 because his car was stuck – instead he got shot with the police escalating to the point there was as shooting. How the fuck do the police feel unsafe with a guy inside a car with the windows up. The picture there was a white man showing a heart with his fingers, looking shit scared.
BTW, Boulder is NOT like Portland, I wish people would stop comparing it to Portland. I don’t generally say this, but that place is racist as fuck. I came off the bus from Denver, and in ten minutes – some random dude sitting on some steps finger banged me, and then I got followed by cops who then yelled at me incoherently and left. Nobody would meet my eyes – and all the liberals were snooty as fuck. Shit, Denver is way better – never felt so unsafe in a place.
C Stars
@Scout211: Your post gave me a vision of MAGA dudes being enraged because they asked their wives to vote for them and the wives voted all Dem/pro choice. Fraud!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
That remains to be seen. I sincerely hope you’re right. I’m more concerned about 2024 in the context of this issue; this increases the odds of a recession in the next year or so.
On the other hand, the front page headlines in USA Today and the NYT, stuff normies read, were all about inflation
Citizen Alan
@MattF: I wouldn’t have needed to follow him to have guessed that.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Cameron:
IIRC, price freezes didn’t work the last time this was a problem
Jager
Off-topic, but we just lost my Master Chef Cousin Janie, at 50. Jane had a long battle with cancer and put up a hell of a fight for 6 years. A few years ago she was in remission, post chemo, bald as only a cancer patient can get. She showed up at Christmas in a low-cut (yes she had the boobs for it) Marilyn Monroe pink gown, spike heels, and a platinum blonde wig. Once again she was the life of the party and cooked a perfect prime rib. Jane and I had a running script about another restaurant she was going to open when she was finally cancer-free, “Auntie Jane’s Make Your Own God Damned Sandwich Cafe”. We are going to miss Janie forever.
Geminid
@Miss Bianca: That could be the the better approach. It would demonstrate moral courage, or “guts,”, as well as fire up Democrats.
I think that slamming Speaker Pelosi is not as good a line of attack for Republicans now as it was during the last decade. They tried to paint her as a radical, but now that she’s wielded power for most of four years it’s more obvious who the real radicals are.
C Stars
@Jager: She sounds amazing. I bet she’s cooking up a storm somewhere in the cosmic café.
different-church-lady
No vote shaming.
eclare
@Jager: So sorry to hear, RIP. And fuck cancer.
Ksmiami
@SFAW: Ryan, Hobbs, Kelly, Warnock, Hassan, Bennett, Fetterman. Luria too. These are my priorities and funding targets. Keeping the senate is vital
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jager:
My condolences. Cancer is awful
Matt McIrvin
@Scout211: Honestly–I do worry that mail voting makes it harder for spouses in abusive/controlling relationships to vote independently. Though I’ve also heard of places where it was normal for husbands to go into the voting booths with their wives and vote for them, so in-person isn’t a panacea here.
It also enables things like employers demanding right of approval of their employees’ ballots, though in this day and age that might be harder to get away with.
Old School
@Jager: Sorry for your loss.
Ruckus
@SFAW:
I saw people leave after standing in the rain for an hour checking their watches every 5-10 minutes. I was fortunate that I was a salaried employee who traveled about 75% of the year and no one was actually expecting me in the office any particular day. (OK, it wasn’t fortunate that I had to travel 75% of the year….)
Geminid
@Ksmiami: I’m definitely sweating Elaine Luria’s race. Sharice Davids’ and Marcy Kaptur’s too.
Republicans have nominated another female Navy veteran to face Luria (a retired Lt. Commander). They are going all out. I think that if Luria can win this time she’ll hold that seat for the next twenty years.
Raoul Paste
@Jager: Thanks for sharing this. It’s a sad story, but it’s inspirational at the same time. Condolences
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
I like CA voting.
Mail it in, Drop boxes, LA County vote at any county voting location, now on machines that select the ballot that goes with your address. There are at least 2 locations within easy walking distance for me and at least one has over 20 machines, so no waiting. So I can vote in person 50 miles from home, if I wanted to. CA wants you to vote, makes it so damned easy it’s amazing. I even voted by mail when I was in the navy, over 50 yrs ago. If every state did what CA does, I think rethugs would loose a lot more elections.
Soprano2
@Starfish: I find myself wondering what they’ll do about toilets, since there are no public ones in Westminster Abbey. I’m picturing a huge row of port-a-potties somewhere close.
Ruckus
@Jager:
Sorry about your cousin.
My older sister fought that fight for 6 yrs as well, and like your cousin, she lost that battle. Her last party was in her hospital room, it seemed like 40 or 50 people, the hospital was great about it. I sat with her, just me and her after the party, till she told me she needed to sleep, less than 20 minutes later she was gone. I miss that old girl.
Sure Lurkalot
@cain: The slain man was from Boulder but the shooting took place in Clear Creek County…along the I70 corridor.
As for Boulder, its lack of diversity was alarming when I lived there in the 70’s. I moved to Denver in 81. I don’t go to Boulder very often, I have one good friend there who I love but her and her husband like Boulder being an enclave for the uber wealthy like themselves. Snooty and overwhelmingly white, little to no affordable housing, crowded recreational spaces.
geg6
@Miss Bianca:
Beg to differ. I am quite the top heavy woman (it’s a family thing) and I’m well over the age when they were “perky.” I wear a much larger size in tops than my bottoms and just forget about getting a fitted button down shirt. I can’t get my bra off fast enough when I’m at home and the only reason I’ll have one on at home is if we are having company.
CaseyL
@Jager:
“Auntie Jane’s Make Your Own God Damned Sandwich Cafe” would be an awesome name for an eatery.
I am so sorry for your loss. Auntie Jane sounds totally kick-ass.
Miss Bianca
@geg6: Whereas I double-bra to go riding because I cannot stand to *bounce*. And since almost any day is a potential riding day, I am double-sports-bra sportin’ most of my days. Ah well.
But for sure, it is a blessed relief to shed the things at the end of the day.
CarolPW
@Soprano2: The Chelsea flower show has a ton of visitors every year, including members of the royal family. And they have the equivalent of port-a-potties except very posh and sparkling clean, with attendants to keep them that way. I suspect they will do something similar.
Michael Cain
@Jay C:
How many weekends did Trump spend similar or larger sums to go play golf?
different-church-lady
@Michael Cain:
All of them, Katie.
Michael Cain
@Jay C:
Almost certainly the old lever machines were the least accurate voting machines ever used in the US. They undercounted at a hideous rate, and got worse and worse as they aged. No paper trail, so no audits. It’s pretty much a sure thing that some poor candidate lost an election simply by being unlucky enough to have his name on too many badly worn counters.
Uncle Cosmo
@Soprano2: Apparently the commonest British-English term for spot-a-pot is Portaloo, from “portable ‘loo'”. “Loo,” of course, from “Waterloo,” replacement slang for “water closet.” In some parts of Yerp “WC” is used to indicate a toilet (e.g., Croatia, Finland, Germany, and Hungary, but pronounced as in German, vay-tsay), though some variation of “toilet” usually works (Albanian tualet, Bulgarian тоалетна [toaletna], Czech or Slovak toaleta, Danish or Dutch toilet, Estonian tualettruum, Greek τουαλέτα [toualéta], Latvian tualete, Lithuanian tualetas, Macedonian and Serbian тоалет [toalet], Norwegian toalett [good I think in both bokmal and nynorsk varieties], Polish toaleta, Romanian toaletă, Swedish toalett, Turkish tuvalet, Russian and Ukrainian туалет [tualet]). But not in Portuguese (banheiro), Spanish (inodoro), or Italian (gabinetto), though I bet they’d understand it. (Feel free to print out this post & stuff it into your moneybelt next time yer out & about in Yerp and The Urge hits…;^D)
O. Felix Culpa
@Reboot: Just getting back from running errands. Thanks for your thoughtful statement!
StringOnAStick
@Kelly: I thought Colorado’s mail in system was excellent, but Oregon’s voters guide booklet is incredibly good. Just let every candidate write their statement and they print it in the booklet; that’s how I learned just how crazy some of the wingnuts are here!
cain
@Sure Lurkalot: One of the reason nobody ever talked to me or looked at me was the way I was dressed in “nice” bar. (it’s not that nice) and I knew what the reason was. I have no idea why you would want to be so snooty.
In Portland, you can dress down anywhere. As a group, we don’t really like dressing up – we ain’t Chicago. :)
Boulder has diversity from its student population, but the rich white liberals are definitely super snooty.
StringOnAStick
@cain: Boulder was always expensive but has become outrageously so, the result is it is a rich white people enclave that tolerates the student population. We lived in Golden just 22 miles to the south for 20 years, and visiting Boulder after 5 years of not being there was like going to Aspen at high season when you were expecting a small, sort of affordable small mountain town. The change from “kind of expensive” to “outrageous, and quite snooty about it” was incredible. We like it much better in Oregon; people are nicer and I have yet to encounter snooty.
JAFD
@Matt McIrvin: We used the mechanical voting machines in Philadelphia up thru the 90’s – an old timer said they dated back to the late ’40’s. Weighed a ton, covered with dust of ages, if you had to manhandle them into place at 6 AM… Had to read the vote count from little ‘odometer dials’ (explain to the youts what I mean here) through little plastic windows (yellow with age, and the door they were in got out of alignment thru the years.) Took some time for all the poll workers to agree ‘that’s a 6 not an 8 there …’
The past is often overrated.
2liberal
in maricopa county (arizona), adrian fontes implemented a mail ballot follow thru system. when i mail my ballot, i get an email and a text informing me it’s been received, the signature is verified, and my ballot has been counted.
J R in WV
@Jager:
Condolences are never off topic. So sorry for your loss. My dear cousin Ann died of ovarian cancer some little while ago, still tearing me up!
She was 11 months younger than I all our lives. A Sweet Person!