I don’t know how many of you know that Dominion Voting is a Colorado company. So it’s been a very big story here, even before the lawsuit.
We have had our share of election drama:
Tina Peters is still facing trial. She and her cronies broke into an election office and stole election information and tampered with equipment.
The upcoming election tampering trial of former Republican Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters has been delayed on her attorney’s request. The prosecution did not object.
The defense said it needs more time to examine a trove of new information and data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation related to the case. Peters faces ten state criminal charges but a federal investigation is ongoing.
Her accomplice, Sandra Brown pleaded guilty:
Second key Tina Peters deputy pleads guilty, agrees to testify against the indicted Mesa County clerk
Sandra Brown, Mesa County’s former elections manager, pleaded guilty Wednesday to attempting to influence a public servant, a felony, and a misdemeanor count of official misconduct
And the Colorado GOP elected an election denier as their chair:
When he was campaigning to be Colorado GOP chair, (Dave) Williams said he believed Trump was the true winner of the 2020 election. He also dislikes the state’s system of mailing ballots to all voters, though, he said, it’s the system Colorado has and Republicans need to find ways to work with it.
He also ran (and lost bigly) for a state office and tried to make his name on the ballot read: Dave Let’s Go Brandon Williams, but got slapped down on that.
Miss Bianca sent me an article this week – from the Ark Valley Voice, a paper both she and Adam Silverman have written for (this is not an article she wrote, but she wanted to share). Just another example of how the election lies have hurt average folks who do not have the means that Dominion and others to fight these lies:
DOMINION V. FOX DEFAMATION SUIT HAS LOCAL RAMIFICATIONS
Coomer is Funding his Fight Alone without the resources of a corporation. His Family and Friends have set up a GoFundMe to Get Him to His ‘Day in court’
The settlement of the defamation suit announced earlier this week between Dominion Voting Systems and Fox News surprised many, but probably shouldn’t have. While many are saying they are disappointed that Dominion didn’t take a stronger stance “standing up for democracy,” that wasn’t the point.
Dr. Eric Coomer, Vice President of Product Strategy for Dominion Voting Systems had to keep traveling as the COVID-19 pandemic surged to prepare for the 2020 election. Then due to death threats, he had to go into hiding and quit his career. Courtesy photo.
The point was to hold Fox News accountable for the damage from their lies about Dominion, its voting systems, and its employees. In a civil case in this country, money equals accountability. In this case, it was 787.5 million dollars; the largest defamation settlement in the history of the U.S.
As has been covered extensively by national news media, Fox News and friends such as Mike Lindell, Rudy Giuliani, and others face several more defamation cases from corporations. But they, along with former president Donald Trump, also face separate civil suits from individuals who it has been reported incurred harm from the “Big Lie” perpetrated about the 2020 election and as part of that, damage to these individual’s lives and reputations.
One of them is local Salida resident Eric Coomer, Ph.D., former Director of Product Strategy and Security, at Dominion Voting Systems.
He had to leave his job and go into hiding due to the threats (including a $1 million bounty on his head) by right-wing conspiracy believers that the election had been stolen.
On December 22, 2020, Ark Valley Voice reported that as a result, he filed a defamation suit against several media outlets and other purveyors of the lie that the election was stolen.
Coomer issued the following statement this morning regarding the Dominion v. Fox News settlement:
“I am encouraged by the settlement announced Tuesday in Dominion’s defamation case against Fox News. Some may be disappointed the settlement didn’t include an apology by Fox for making and airing false claims about Dominion rigging the election. Still, we should not forget that Judge Eric Davis, in his summary judgment, emphasized it was ‘CRYSTAL clear’ that none of the allegations about Dominion aired by the network were true.”
“As the former director of product strategy and security for Dominion, I was one of the early targets of conspiracy theorists and media outlets who took aim at election equipment providers because they didn’t like the presidential election results. Their efforts to sow doubt and lies about Dominion’s voting machine integrity, along with continued harassment and death threats, forced me to leave a 16-year career in an industry I love.”
“While I can no longer speak on behalf of Dominion, I commend company leaders for acknowledging the personal and professional toll that the ordeal has had on current and former Dominion employees and customers. I look forward to proving my own legal claims in the lawsuits I have personally filed against the originators and peddlers of ‘The Big Lie’ and about me and my role at Dominion.”
Please read the rest of the story here
Also there is a fundraiser to help with his legal fees here.
I’m curious to hear about any local stories in your area of election workers and others affected by these persistent election lies.
Otherwise, this is a open thread
E. Jean Carroll (He Said, She Said x5)
Bard the Grim
Waitaminute, you’re saying Dominion isn’t using some of its damages/winnings to compensate Coomer (and perhaps others in the company who were directly affected)? Or at least pay his attorney fees? (Or perhaps that was part of the settlement, that Dominion couldn’t participate in any way in further court actions? Still, they ought to compensate their own freakin’ employees who were hurt by this.)
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
you mean it’s not being run by Hugo Chavez?
Frank Wilhoit
Please. Physics is, acoustics is, mathematics is, politics is.
trollhattan
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: Hey, there’s a Colorado in Venezuela! (IDK if that’s true, but for the moment I’m Republican and thus, it is.)
Anonymous At Work
Old School
I would think that $1 million bounty would not be legal.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
I just had a giggly moment – imagine being one of DeSanctimonius’ schmucks on his new Reedy Creek board, knowing that there’s not another chance of ever running for so much as dogcatcher without facing a Disney money opponent.
Miss Bianca
Thanks for highlighting this, TaMara!
eclare
@Anonymous At Work: Interesting about Ivanka…
TaMara
@Frank Wilhoit: Yes, that’s what’s important here.
TaMara
@Bard the Grim: I suspect this isn’t the end of this story. Just a chapter along the way.
@Miss Bianca: Anytime!
eclare
Aren’t those two election workers in GA who testified before the Jan 6 committee also suing? I hope everyone who encouraged these threats and harassment is held to account.
TaMara
I have to get back to work but was so happy to pop my head up and see Disney knee DeSantis in the balls.
trollhattan
Republicans know the long game importance of voter suppression. Why just today in our husk of a local paper, an op-ed ran.
Emphases mine.
Wow, sounds like a clusterfuck, eh? All those ballots in LANDFILLS. How unenvironmental. And what about those who DO NOT WANT to mail in their ballot? What are they to do, answer me that, hippies! Oh, they have polling places and ballot drop-offs to choose among, beginning weeks ahead of the election? Isn’t that a waste of “taxpayer dollars”? Not like a recall election of Gavin Newsom.
[Narrator] “The Newsom recall cost $200.2 million to conduct, according to a final tally released Thursday. The unsuccessful special election to remove Gov. Gavin Newsom from office cost state and local governments more than $200 million, according to a final tally released Thursday by state elections officials.”
At this point you’re asking “Who the fuck is J. Christian Adams of the Public Interest Legal Foundation?”
I’ll stop. Funding comes among others, from Scaife and the Bradley family, whoever they are.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
laura
Here’s an article from SFGates Eric Ting- who is the regular we hate Kamala Harris beat writer: https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/mike-lindell-shasta-supervisor-faces-recall-17918010.php?IPID=SFGate-HP-CP-Spotlight. And here’s vote suppressor J. Christian Adam’s with an op ed in the SacBee that makes me want to throw a chair- btw, Cleta Mitchell is the Chairman of the PILF: California’s vote-by-mail system is flawed. Adams opines that only in person on election day voting is secure. Seriously, fuck these guys.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Oooh. Fun stuff.
laura
@trollhattan: jeez, you beat me to it! Just a murderer’s row of skeezy rat fucks.
C Stars
Open thread?
Paging NYTPITCHBOT…
I just saw this headline on the front page of nymag:
Old School
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: She’s not going to be DeSantis’ veep with that attitude.
C Stars
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: “not woke, but not sanctimonious”? 🙄
JFC these fuckers are so desperate.
Anyway
@trollhattan:
Scaife is the guy that bankrolled the Whitewater “investigations” against Clinton. Bradley family is another loooontime funder of reactionary causes. The stream of rich assholes willing to fund RWers never runs dry.
trollhattan
@laura: My jaw is still stuck to the desk. Who let them in the front door?
At least with the “This NFL star’s ocean-view mansion is on the market for $22 million, take a look!” [cough] articles [cough] you know there’s a check paying for them landing in the “Bee” coffers, perhaps some of which pays a reporter or two. This hot mess? Someone got suckered.
Betty Cracker
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: One of the board members, Bridget Ziegler, co-founded the Moms for Liberty astroturf/domestic terrorism group, is on the Sarasota School Board and is married to the FL GOP chair, who also serves as a county commissioner in Sarasota. It would be swell to see Big Mouse knock those kooks out, but I’m not counting on it.
trollhattan
@Anyway: Thanks. Knew of the Scaifes but not the Bradleys.
Getting their money’s worth, I guess.
Miss Bianca
@TaMara: IKR? I mean, what are the odds that I would be *rooting* for Disney to go after someone? To me, they’re summed up by a throwaway line in the Guardian’s business page from many years ago: The company in charge of the commodification of children’s dreams. So, let’s just say I’m not the Mouse’s biggest fan.
And yet…here we are.
RedDirtGirl
Just gave to Coomer. Sucks that he has to go it alone.
eclare
@Miss Bianca: Same here. To me a vacation to Disney World is my idea of hell, but go Mickey!
A good friend of mine and her family went this spring. Her comment: it was not a vacation, but we endured.
C Stars
@Miss Bianca: If I understand correctly, Meatballs quest for vengeance was the result of Disney speaking out against the Don’t Say Gay bill. He’s persecuting the company for not being openly homophobic. I know Disney’s evil, but DeSantis is eviller.
Kay
@C Stars:
Chait is right though. The American Prospect, a supposedly progressive outlet, published this absolute love letter to Tucker Carlson.
In addition to lavishing praise on a vile white supremicist misogynist the piece is just poorly written, poorly thought out junk.
There are Lefties who went completely insane as a result of BLM and covid – an embarrassingly large number of them – but this is out there even for them. It’s an endorsement of racism and misogyny and anti immigrant.
Ruckus
CA has, in my mind, as someone who has voted in CA, SC and OH, a far, far better voting system. CA wants it to be easy for every single voter to be able to vote, rather than making it much more difficult like those assholes still living in the middle 1800s and still pissed off that their side lost the civil war want.
They know that if voting is easier and allows everyone to actually vote, they will lose and lose badly.
Ken
@Betty Cracker: I wonder if Disney has some way to force the board to meet; for example if the board is required to sign off on road maintenance proposals. I could see a lot of seven-day weeks in the board members’ futures….
RaflW
@trollhattan: PILF, unlike the similar sounding MILF, has a very different meaning: People I’d Like to Fillet.
/S, jut in case anyone thinks I’m actually bad. I’m just entirely fed up with the billionaire-funded ecosphere of important-sounding garbage mills.
Miss Bianca
@eclare: There’s a difference between a “vacation” and a “trip”, to my mind.
A week on the beach is a vacation. A week at Disney World is…a trip.
ARoomWithAMoose
@eclare: a common thread around TFG and his enablers seems to be about TFG’s largess about “paying for the attorney” for lackeys that get caught out on one of his scams, and that attorney working in TFG’s best interests, not the lackey’s; latest being the GA fake electors not being told by their own counsel that the DA was offering immunity for testimony.
RaflW
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ohhh, Nikki’s been sanctimonious about Woke. C’mon!
Hed from The Independent:
Nikki Haley declares ‘wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic’ as she bashes Don Lemon
Eric Garcia . Friday 03 March 2023 19:04
Suzanne
@C Stars: …..was there a left-wing case for Tucker Carlson?
eclare
@Ruckus: I prefer to vote in person. We have very limited vote by mail here, but even so I wouldn’t use it because at least once a month I get a neighbor’s mail. I also never got a shower or a wedding invitation for events I was invited to.
But we do have two weeks of early voting here, 10-7 on weekdays and 10-4 on Sat. So I do that.
eclare
@ARoomWithAMoose: Yep. Smartest thing Cassidy Hutchinson did was to dump the Trump attorney and hire her own.
Ruckus
@eclare:
@C Stars:
I grew up with Disney and Disneyland. We went when it first opened and it was fun. It’s not a place I might go by myself at my age but still it is fun. That it makes enough money to maintain and renovate everything is what it is supposed to do. I’ve never understood the dislike of Disney/Disneyland. No one forces anyone to go, other than maybe your children. We used to also go to Knott’s Berry Farm, a family place that added rides and is differently themed but a similar business. I thought that the Strøget walking mall in Copenhagen is a better day for an adult but then that’s just me.
Josie
@eclare: I agree with you. I want to personally put my ballot in that slot. We have two weeks of early voting in Texas (our one good thing) and I always early vote in person.
Previously we could early vote in any polling place in the county. Now the Texas leg is trying to pass a law stopping that. They are always looking for ways to make it more difficult.
delphinium
@RaflW:
That made me laugh. And right there with you on this:
RaflW
@Ruckus: I had a wonderful time at Skansen on the Stockholm island of Djurgården several years ago (the island is also home to the excellent ABBA museum, and the very impressive Vasa warship exhibit). Though Skansen – with no rides and a lot of ‘old world’ culture – woulda bored me outta my gourd as a kid.
smith
@Suzanne: And did the fish stick heir actually ever denounce capitalists and markets? Socialist Tuckems is not one I’ve heard about.
eclare
@Josie: Ugh. Shelby County/Memphis has about twenty early voting locations, and I can go to any of them.
Betty Cracker
@Ruckus: I don’t hate the parks, but the way the Disney corporation has thrown its weight around in Florida for decades sucks. Until DeSantis and the GOP creeps in the FL legislature turned on Big Mouse, they were happy to shovel money to the very worst wingnuts in the state if they thought it was good for their bottom line.
And of course, they only took the right side in the fight against the authoritarian DeSantis and his statehouse lickspittles because NOT doing so threatened their bottom line, i.e., their talent demanded that they take a stand.
All that said, I hope Disney squashes that fucker DeSantis like a roach.
Ruckus
@eclare:
For me, in CA, like everyone else I now get a ballet mailed to me. I can mark it and walk down to the post office and drop it off in the ballot drop off box or I can walk down to the adult recreation building about 1 1/2 miles away and vote in person. CA wants me to vote, makes it far easier than any of the other states I’ve voted in. I have choices and time. And while it’s easier than ever now it’s still voting and it’s still secure. I like the choice, as I’m getting older and am not as physically able/active as I was even a couple of years ago and CA makes voting as it should be, and not a pain in the ass. Once in OH I stood in line for over 4 hrs, in the rain, to vote because the then governor combined 4 liberal precincts into one and removed all but one voting machine. Some stood in line for an hour or two and then left because they had to go to work. Needless to say I didn’t vote for that asshole to be governor.
Ken
Perhaps on ecological grounds? Like the case for mosquitos or tapeworms?
trollhattan
@RaflW: Excellent! Judges would also accept “you can’t pilfer without PILF.”
Kay
@smith:
Here’s an example of why the two idiot Lefties who wrote the love letter to Tucker Carlson admire him:
According to these two chumps, Tucker Carlson attacking Jill Biden week after week was not about GOP politics, and not about Carlson’s nasty, petty , misogyny it was about “subtly exposing an elite obsession with credentials and meritocracy”
This is the same Tucker Carlson who privately begged Hunter Biden to intervene and get his son into Georgetown. He’s all about exposing the elites. Sure he is.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
I believe that if Walt was still alive and running the place it wouldn’t be like that at all. But it is now total corporate thinking, the bottom line and all that crap that runs the place. My dad had a buddy whose daughter was one of the first employees and she seemed to love working there but that was 70 yrs ago. I’ve known others who worked there but they worked in ride maintenance and she wore a costume on Main St. Still it is one of, in my opinion, better big businesses around. It will never be perfect, for 2 reasons, money and humans. But I ask you, as someone who lives around and unfortunately close to both DisneyWorld and your shithole governor, which is better? (Your last sentence says it all!)
Suzanne
@Ken: I mean, I have a case for him…. it’s my old suitcase with the broken handle and smushed wheel. He would fit in it nicely. We could send him to a remote island in the cargo bay.
Eunicecycle
@eclare: in Ohio we have ONE place per county, by Ohio law. It’s not very convenient for us but since we’re retired now we can take the time. It’s usually run very efficiently though, so at least our local election folks try to make it easy as possible.
Suzanne
@Kay: It just makes me absolutely crazy how many men are just utterly oblivious to misogyny.
Fucker wanted to mock her lady degree in a lady realm of knowledge, wink wink nudge nudge, can you believe these women actually expect to have titles of respect?! Like, the same as men?! Shocking. And women, not being warm and accommodating and offering us the intimacy of their first names?! So cold.
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: That’s what I was wondering!
Kay
@Suzanne:
Jill Biden grew up middle class. She got her degree at the University of Delaware. Tucker Carlson attended La Jolla Country Day School and St Georges.
Jeering at Biden for her degree wasn’t just sexist- it was snobbery. I don’t know if the combination of BLM and me too drove professional Lefties insane or what, but they’re embarrassing.
Jeffro
Re billionaire-funded nonsense: it’s an absolute must that Ds push for higher (and higher, and higher) progressive taxation and defund these goons to the greatest extent possible.
(same thing with eliminating stock buybacks)
every administration, every state, all of it
frame it as ‘fiscal responsibility’, ‘deficit reduction’, ‘investing in our future’, doesn’t really matter
The Lodger
@RaflW: They’re just out to PILFer your vote.
Roger Moore
@C Stars:
Disney is evil the same way all big corporations are evil: they seek profit above all else. I think they’re a bit better than most big corporations because their profit depends on establishing a long-term relationship with their customers/fans. They know their profitability is a result of having a positive brand image, and blatantly screwing people over will hurt that. Ron DeSantis can’t think past the next news cycle, which leads him to do stupid stuff that will end predictably badly.
karen marie
@C Stars: Chait totally ruined that site. I’m really happy they put up a paywall.
Roger Moore
@Miss Bianca:
The way I tend to see it, there are two main kinds of vacation: relaxing vacations and doing stuff vacations. Hanging out on the beach is a relaxing vacation. Going to Disney World is a doing stuff vacation.
Kay
@Suzanne:
The reason I know Tucker Carlson attended La Jolla Country Day School is Tucker Carlson trashed his first grade teacher. He said she didn’t teach him how to read and she cried all the time because she was a lazy Lefty. The Washington Post contacted her. All lies. In fact Tucker’s parents hired her after school to provide extra tutoring for Tucker, who was a little slow.
Suzanne
@Kay: There’s a lot of sexist men, including leftists and liberals. Even among men who are pretty aware on race issues or LGBT issues can totally miss sexism and misogyny.
Part of it, I think, is because it manifests so much more in interpersonal and family relations that it doesn’t “look” political. Like, many families never have to deal with racial dynamics amongst the family members. Many families just have that one gay uncle whose partner gets invited to holidays and then that’s it. But the vast majority of families have sex and gender dynamics at play literally all the time, and I think many men just, like, go nose blind to it.
trollhattan
@Kay: “A little slow.” seems very apt, when discussing Tucker.
“Shut up, racist!” Good one, Tuckie.
ETA for those who don’t remember (with good reason) La Jolla is also the home of Willard “Mitt” McMittnittingon Romney IV’s car elevator.
And Scripps.
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: 100% true, and your “nose blind” explanation rings true to me too.
Matt McIrvin
@Ruckus: I never visited a Disney park until adulthood, when I went a couple times to Walt Disney World with a family of my own, and I enjoy the place! It’s fun! Their house aesthetic isn’t my favorite but it’s like being inside of a gigantic stage-magic trick.
But… it’s also incredibly expensive and increasingly so, and they keep finding more ways to nickel-and-dime you… and planning a visit there is also an increasingly elaborate process to the point that it feels like planning a moon landing. (Disneyland, which is not as colossal and caters more to locals, seems like it’s a bit less of an ordeal.)
The overall experience sounds like it has deteriorated to the point that even though there’s a bunch of new stuff to do there since the last time I visited, some of which I would probably like, I don’t feel much urge to go back. I like theme parks but there are ones out there that are less hassle.
JaneE
@trollhattan: CA has a voter notification system that tracks your ballot, and they have a website where you can check your ballot status. It may depend on the county whether or not you get text notifications. It used to text you when your ballot was received and would be counted, and notify you of issues you needed to correct. This year good ballots didn’t get texts (don’t know about problem ballots) but you could go to the state site and check their status there.
The old ballot tracking was well publicized, and all you needed was a cell phone. The new web site is new, but was pointed to on the elections page of the SOS website.
If you don’t have access to the internet you may not know if your ballot has a problem, but the elections people are supposed to notify you. It won’t help with the US Mail, but drop boxes get cleaned out every day. That may not be true everywhere, but it is in my county.
Last I heard you could still vote in person for both primary and general elections, you could turn in your by-mail ballot at a drop box at the polling place or hand it in and receive a standard in-person ballot. Special elections for smaller districts are mail-in only, but those are special elections for specific local issues.
That part about not having accounting for where the ballots are is a flat-out lie. We get notified when they are mailed. We can check to see if they are received and verified for acceptance. After that the ballots are necessarily anonymous, but the procedures should guarantee that all valid ballots are counted and accounted for.
Geminid
Some people on the left have decided that liberals running the Democratic Party stand on the way of needed structural reform. So they are the enemy; being an enemy of their enemy, Tucker Carlson is their friend.
Also, Carlson has an large audience and they do not. As with Joe Rogan’s, lefties figure that this audience of disaffected white men are half-way to being socialists but don’t know it. This is the attraction of the “horseshoe” dynamic: leftists believe they can co-opt this audience. Once its consciousness is raised, they will finally have the numbers to supplant the liberal Democratic establishment.
Kay
@Suzanne:
I’ve always been aware of it in Left/liberal circles- the Left is worse with than liberals are, IMO, there’s a really gross kind of Men of The Left sexism that liberals don’t have, thank God- but I see it a lot more since Clinton ran. I was shocked how many Democrats used really vicious sexist language regarding her. It was disorienting- like I found out I had only provisional membership in this club I had been in for decades.
Ruckus
@RaflW:
In the Navy we did 3 NATO cruises so I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Belgium, Netherlands, Finland, Denmark and Norway. We tied up in Copenhagen somewhat regularly, more than other cities, so I got to see it more. Also Athens, Naples and Majorca. Have also sailed rather far above the Arctic Circle. In winter time. BTW that’s freaking cold.
Kay
@Geminid:
The do this all the time though. They ran the same play from 2009 to 2016. I guess they’re still waiting for their alliance with Grover Norquist to pay off. Ron Paul. Rand Paul.
I just hate political stupidity. No one on the Right is ever going to “join” with them. They will get screwed, again, because they always get screwed. No one has time for this.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: I think the other thing that makes it different is that, with race and homophobia, the impulse is pretty clear….. racists and homophobes generally want to separate themselves from the people they are bigoted toward, be that in terms of physical space, social status, whatever. But most men don’t want to be separated from women, they want to love and be cared for by women — not just wives or girlfriends, but also mothers and sisters, etc etc etc. That desire, I think, can get confused with respect.
That’s why I keep saying that the endgame of abortion restrictions, sexual harassment, etc etc etc…. the goal is to drive women out of public life and back into the home. Most men love women at home.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: There was also this whole subclass of people like Greenwald and Snowden who were lumped in with “The Left” because they were opposed to the US military-industrial complex at some point, when they were not in fact left at all and were more like far-right isolationists or useful idiots for Putin. Trump vs. Hillary Clinton really exposed these people for what they were.
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: Shouldn’t you be standing with Disney out of mouse to mouse solidarity?
smith
This first became apparent to me back in the 60s. Lots of men supposedly passionately devoted to civil rights, student rights, opposing the Vietnam war, but completely dismissive of any complaints from women about how they were treated. I’ve always thought this was a major impetus for second wave feminism.
Roger Moore
@eclare:
California lets you vote by mail, by dropping off your ballot in a designated drop box, or in person. If you want to vote in person, you either have to surrender your mail-in ballot or vote provisionally. Here in LA County, the drop-off boxes are all over the place, including at all polling places, so you can fill in your mail-in ballot at your convenience and then drop it off somewhere you know will collect it. In-person voting is now handled at voting centers rather than traditional precincts. You can vote at any voting center anywhere in the county, and they’ll be able to see if you already voted by mail and what the correct ballot to give you is. It’s incredibly well done.
One thing I really love is that we now have our own custom voting machines. They were built to the county’s specifications, and we have full rights in the design and software, not the company that manufactured them for us. They’re designed to support the voting center concept and a number of other tough requirements, like having ballots available in 19(!) languages and supporting vision-impaired voters. They include other really useful features, like making sure the ballot is clearly marked in both human- and machine- readable formats.
Jeffro
Biden & Co have up online ads right now that say
”The House MAGA agenda: $3.6 Trillion in Giveaways Skewed to the Wealthy “
”skewed to” < “for” but it probably keeps it factually accurate, not that Rs care or that the snooze media notices 🙄
Ruckus
@Kay:
Tucker, who was a little slow
He is garbage truck slow – rarely gets out of one gear and is full of crap that no one wants.
Baud
@Kay:
I think one of the underappreciated aspects of the Reagan Revolution is that it convinced a cadre of privileged liberals and lefties to settle for playing the role of political gadflies.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: Disneyland is indeed a bit more manageable in terms of sheer size. And less humid. I liked California Adventure, too.
But just as expensive and difficult to coordinate. Long lines on the rides. I have once-every-ten-years in me.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
People like Tulsi Gabbard were considered left too.
Kay
@smith:
It’s gross- like a caricature of a “masculine man” but they’re not really comfortable with that role, it isnt authentic to them, so they have to do things like refer to “tits” a lot and hint at who they are having sex with. Just appalling. If I loathed it less I might feel sorry for them- its that lame. You don’t really see it in liberal men- just Lefties.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
“Shut up, racist!”
Was he talking to himself?
At least he understands what a racist is and that he should shut the hell up. Not that he will of course but 3 sackings out of the last 3 jobs is a great record on one’s resume.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
California is awesome.
Suzanne
@Roger Moore: Arizona has a Permanent Early Voter List, aka the PEVL. You can sign up online once, and for every election thereafter, you get a ballot in the mail for every election….federal, local, school board, whatever. You can return it by mail, or you can drop it off at any polling place on Election Day. (You used to be able to give your ballot to canvassers for collection, but that got ixnayed in 2016.) It’s been a success for decades. It was super-popular before Trump made everyone crazy about it.
In a state that is often really hot on Election Day….. it matters. The olds love it.
narya
@Betty Cracker: @Suzanne: My friend is somewhat nose-blind to the everyday misogyny, but he played sports as an adult (hockey) and was outright appalled by the way some (but absolutely not all) of the men talked about women. Because they were all adults–20s-40s, mostly–it had a different weight to it than, say high school, I think, and it really opened his eyes. But his experience is very unusual, I suspect–to hear the vile stuff, but also be able to note that not everyone in the locker room felt that way.
Scout211
Montana House votes to ban Zooey Zephr from the House floor.
WaterGirl
@Kay: What a traitorous little price he is. Glad he is off the air.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … Phys.org:
Something, something, lies, damned lies, and statistics. ;-)
As usual, once one gets into the details of trying to do things well, and correctly, it can get very complicated. And that’s why it can take years, or decades, or a lifetime, to be a real expert in many fields. Polling and surveys can have a huge impact on public policy, elections, and badly done calculations can have a huge impact on the economy and people’s livelihoods. It’s important to get this stuff right, and to be skeptical of folks who just Leroy Jenkins the details.
Cheers,
Scott.
C Stars
@Suzanne: good lord, no. The chuckleheads who wrote the article Kay linked to seem to think so, though. But it seems that’s because they’re edgelord Bernie bros, who generally (as was discussed here extensively while I was off picking my kids up) are terrible, sexist people.
Baud
@Another Scott:
And don’t forget to carry the 1!
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Which two chumps? Who are we talking about?
WaterGirl
@Scout211: Republican autocrats everywhere.
Roger Moore
@Suzanne:
There are whole schools of leftism that are focused around trying to explain all the wrongs of the world in terms of a single issue, whether it be class, gender, race, or whatever. Naturally enough, they tend to be most popular among people who don’t have to worry as much about the other issues. The people who see the world that way can be the worst of fanatics in the “can’t shut up or change the subject” kind of way.
Baud
@Kay:
Question: Do we not support meritocracy?
I thought our chief complaint was that we are far from a meritocracy.
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
I doubt you are very wrong but there is a physical difference between the parks. Disneyland is in the middle of a city and has no where to grow. The parking is somewhat limited, there are other places to go and things to do. Even when it first opened, anyone with any foresight whatsoever could see it was a big as it was going to get. I could see it and I was a small child. DisneyWorld OTOH has room to grow and is a popular vacation stop in a state that has vacation stops and draws from a much larger area. And I’d bet that it actually makes a lot more profit than Disneyland. DisneyWorld opened almost 2 decades after Disneyland. Walt had made a lot of money by then and DisneyWorld opened a few years after he passed away. So he actually never saw or ran the place.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Baud: I love meritocracy, in principle. Problem is people disagree on what constitutes merit.
Lots of examples, but I think the relevant one here is that participation in an elite institution, or lack thereof, is not a strong indicator of merit, no matter how badly participants of elite organizations want it to be viewed that way.
It all goes to our unhealthy societal competitiveness.
Suzanne
@Baud: Have you read The Tyranny of Merit by Michael Sandel? I’ve read about half of it. It’s worth reading. He’s very persuasive that all these ways that we have traditionally organized “merit” have some noxious effects, both for those who achieve them and those who do not.
But I do struggle with the question of what to replace it with.
DrDaveChemist
@Kay: St. George’s seems to be making an effort to atone for some of its less inspiring graduates like Tucker Carlson. I’m currently there as a long-term substitute and they are really vocal about DEI work. They also had alumna Chrissy Houlahan speak and receive an award last weekend. She’s an Air Force veteran, graduate of Stanford and MIT and is currently the democratic representative of PA’s 6th CD (western suburbs of Philadelphia) and the first D to hold that seat since the Civil War. At least some of the students seem to be getting the message about how to treat everyone like a human being!
Baud
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
Yeah, I agree with all that. But I’m less sure what other -ocracy we should be pushing for in its stead.
Ruckus
@JaneE:
It won’t help with the US Mail, but drop boxes get cleaned out every day. That may not be true everywhere, but it is in my county.
As I understand it every dropbox gets picked up at least once a day, in the more populated areas I understand it’s twice per day. I’m not guaranteeing that’s true but it is what I remember reading before the last election.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Baud: Dem-ocracy, duh.
raven
@Miss Bianca: A trip without a suitcase!!!
Cameron
@RaflW: Anti-wokeness? So she’s officially running as the Comatose Candidate?
Roger Moore
@Suzanne:
I think Disneyland is manageable for repeat visitors but crazy for people who are only going for one or a few days. My girlfriend’s family is a Disneyland family- her BIL and niece used to work there and her nephew does now- so I’ve wound up going a bunch recently.
The key is there’s more to do there than you can reasonably hope to accomplish in a few days. Like any place to visit where this is true, it’s way more enjoyable if you know you can quit when you’re tired and come back some other time. If you have just a one day pass, it will turn into a 8AM-midnight slog to see and do everything you can. If you have a multi-day pass, you can maybe hope to do all the fun stuff, but it will still be a slog. If you have an annual pass, you can pace yourself and go home when you stop having fun.
Dan B
@Scout211: In addition to Zephyr being banned from debates its the 70th anniversary of the Lavender Scare that booted thousands of LGB and suspected LGB out of government jobs. Biden gave a great speech commemorating and condemning the acts of hatred.
rikyrah
@Ruckus:
Voting can be made easier. I am in awe when I watched the processing centers for CA’s returned mail ballots. They know what they are doing. I have also read stories about the multitude of polling places that CA has. How they are in odd places, like laundromat. The thought that everyone receives a ballot? Yes. And, their ballot guides👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Don Lemon, of course, not being a great representative of “woke” values.
rikyrah
@Roger Moore:
All of the things you describe are fantastic.
I love dropboxes
I love voting centers.
Anything to make voting easier
Baud
@Suzanne:
I have not read it. I have problems with people who involve merit the way some people invoke wealth — to signify some sort of worth beyond what the achievement should justify. But merit is better than a familial or clan based approach to social status IMHO.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
Merit is subjective and can change. Fucker C had merit as a far right newscaster. rupert paid him well for that. Until his merit cost rupert too much. Now I’d bet that rupert will just find a replacement for FC. Because he’s not going to change and he makes too much money broadcasting his shitty political views.
Suzanne
@Baud: The thing I really struggle with is the perception that some people have that someone with a college degree shouldn’t earn more money than a blue-collar worker. Like, what?
Sure Lurkalot
@Kay: The right’s obsession with “the elites” is as ludicrous as their woke nonsense and Soros slurs. Party chock full of wealthy grifters and/or Ivy Leaguers funded by billionaires.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Suzanne: The college graduate, assuming they themselves are not a blue collar worker, and the blue collar worker both deserve enough for a livelihood. The rest is details.
Splitting Image
@Cameron:
I think Ben Carson has that lane sewn up.
Baud
@Suzanne:
There are hundreds of different college degrees and hundreds of types of blue collar jobs, and I’m sure the salaries for each are all over the place.
I actually don’t think that’s a sincere criticism, but naked resentment politics.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Splitting Image: Ben Carson is running? Someone better let him know.
Suzanne
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: I agree with you, but many others do not. I remember an exchange on Cole’s FB page, in which one of his friends expressed shock when I said that I believed it was reasonable that I make more money as an architect than the laborers who work on the buildings I draw.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Suzanne: I suppose you then challenged them to assemble a building without you?
This all ignores the ones actually getting too much from the endeavor, the people who own the building.
Suzanne
@Baud:
Well, yeah. Of course it is.
Naked resentment politics has been a force in the last few years.
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
California obviously takes voting really seriously and has since we pioneered California-style direct democracy. A good example of this is all the stuff that’s done to help make sure as many people as possible can get their mail-in ballots counted. For example, California goes by the postmark date on the ballot envelope, not the receipt date, and gives mail-in ballots a week to arrive. If there are any problems with the ballot, the election officials try to contact the voter so they have a chance to fix them. The official count isn’t due for a month after election day, so the vote counters have plenty of time to do a careful, thorough job.
One of the things I find really interesting is all the stuff that’s buried in the details. For example, people who have looked have found there’s a real top of the ballot effect, where candidates who are listed higher on the ballot, especially at the top, have a measurable advantage over candidates further down the ballot. Florida weaponizes this by putting the candidate from the governor’s party at the top of the ballot. In contrast, California carefully randomizes the order of candidates on the ballot. There’s an elaborate procedure where the Secretary of State produces an official jumbled alphabet, and candidates are alphabetized by the jumbled alphabet rather than the normal alphabet. Then each precinct starts the jumbled alphabet on a different letter, so the order of the candidates is different in different precincts and no candidate gets an advantage because of their name. It’s the kind of thing you only do if you really care about getting this stuff right.
Suzanne
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: I think I invited him (of course it was a him) to eat my whole ass. The entire thing. Get out the K.C. Masterpiece and go to town.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Of course, and that was definitely the right approach.
Sure Lurkalot
@Eunicecycle:
This makes me sad and angry. There are no fewer than 10 dropbox locations within a 5 mile radius of my home and some are in person voting stations as well. We even have mobile voting trailers that park at the various locations from time to time, all info printed on the ballot instructions.
Though for all that, the last municipal election only garnered 33% turnout. We have a warped idea of citizenship in this country. Rights AND responsibilities, people!
Matt McIrvin
@Ruckus: Walt’s vision for Disney World was, famously, very different from how it shook out: he had the Magic Kingdom at the north end where it actually is, but the centerpiece was supposed to be EPCOT, his utopian experimental city (not the World’s-Fair-like theme park that was eventually built under that name).
I doubt it would have been a success if it had been built, but we’ll never know–he died, and a few years later Roy Disney died, and the people in charge after that weren’t terribly interested in building a city of the future to solve the problems of modern urbanity.
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
As I stated I’ve voted in 3 states and CA was always the easiest. But it has gotten far, far better and easier than even before, and this was before the last national election. I think it’s one of the things that makes it a better place to live. CA WANTS you to vote. Doesn’t care who you vote for, just damn well VOTE. It’s refreshing for this CA born old fart that has, as I stated, stood 4 hrs in the rain to vote in OH. (Which also made me about as mad as I’ve ever been at any politician. Or other human.) We earn our right to vote by being born here or becoming a citizen. Everyone who is a citizen deserves the right to vote and they shouldn’t have to jump through fucking hoops to do this. If the state with the largest population can do this, so can any other state. It shouldn’t even/ever be a question. It is a right that has no restrictions other than citizenship and age. And no one has a right to put them in the way.
Splitting Image
@Baud:
The way it works is that if a liberal college graduate makes more than a blue collar conservative, then the college graduate is an arrogant elitist out of touch with Real Americans.
If a conservative college graduate makes more than a blue collar liberal, then the blue collar worker is a lazy, entitled bum who doesn’t respect all of the work that the college graduate put into getting that degree. (Probably even had to sell some of the stock his parents gifted him before he went off to college.)
Baud
@Splitting Image:
And America calls itself exceptional.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
We have rules, expectations, and consequences for everyone except the ones in charge.
Dan B
@Ruckus: Washington state has mail in voting sent to every voter pre-paid postage and drop boxes. It’s one of the most accurate voting of the states. It was fully implemented by a republican SOS.
Baud
@Dan B:
Republicans used to love mail voting because old people were early adopters.
smith
Wasn’t that the Hard Times story the Mittster used when he was trying to convince us he was a real person?
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Baud: Yeah, well, it’s too bad a burr doesn’t unstick from Republican bottoms for decades.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@smith: That and they had to cook their own grilled cheese. ¡Que horror!
Splitting Image
@smith:
Yup. A genuine reg’lar feller, that Mitt.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
I owned a blue collar business and paid blue collar workers. Some of them did make more than me on occasion. But it was a job that required years to learn and become good at and required not a lot of tools but did require that a worker buy some reasonably expensive measuring tools, and know how to use them properly. Some blue collar jobs require a lot of training and experience to be able to be done (like what we did) so I can see why someone might say that. OTOH, some jobs require a college education, not just as a qualification but for abilities, and that usually can not be earned while on the job, which a lot of blue collar work can be. I think part of this is that the kinds of work are often a lot different and while most people have to pay something for a college education, many can earn money while learning a blue collar job. There is a often a difference like that. And that is a good reason they aren’t the same.
Miss Bianca
@Matt McIrvin: In fairness, I went to Disneyland a couple times as a kid and loved it. Only been to Disney World – or should I say, the Epcot Center – once, as an adult, for a conference. Again, very enjoyable vibe, but I think the whole whiz-bang Disney World experience would have worn me out.
@Omnes Omnibus: LOL! But did you *see* what Disney did to my story, darlink?
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca:
Actually, I never did. I’ve seen surprisingly few Disney movies.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: The Rescuers is a cute movie. But it in no way resembles the deep, fabulous, witty Margery Sharp stories.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Miss Bianca: Rescuers Down Under is better than the original.
WaterGirl
@Splitting Image: Pretty much!
Matt McIrvin
@Miss Bianca: One large problem is really that the stuff at Disney World is spread out over an enormous area (both to maintain kayfabe by keeping you from seeing thing A from imaginary land B, and because a large part of the property is protected wetlands), and the transit systems that connect it all are extensive but not always super-frequent, so you end up having to do a surprising amount of commute planning.
The overall experience at Universal was less of a hassle in part because it was just smaller, about on the scale of the Disneyland resort–but now that they’re building a whole new huge theme park separated from the rest of it, they might run into some of the same problems.
Matt McIrvin
@Ruckus: It used to be that Massachusetts was behind the curve in making voting easy, but they’ve gotten a lot better over the past decade or so, introducing mail voting and early voting. Not that it’s ever hard to just vote in person on Election Day where I live–it takes a couple of minutes, no waiting to speak of.
There are still a few oddball obstacles. There’s a snail-mail town census you have to answer every year, and if you miss a couple of years you get put on an inactive voter roll and have to offer proof of address to vote with a normal ballot. That could be done better.
karen marie
@Suzanne: EVERYONE in Arizona loves PEVL. Over 80% of Arizona voters use mail-in ballots.
I tend to drop my ballot off at a polling place on election day, because I’m a procrastinator, but I appreciate being able to fill it out at home so I can take the time to look up all the judges and the candidates for more obscure offices.
Roger Moore
@karen marie:
One of the nice things about LA County’s new voting machines is they make it easier to plan your votes at home. There’s a companion app that lets you pick all your candidates at leisure and then makes a QR code that includes them all on your phone screen. When you get to your polling place, you just scan the code, and it copies all your choices. You can, of course, still check and edit the ballot, but it means you don’t have to spend 10 minutes in the voting booth filling out your endless California-style ballot.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
Wow. That’s cool.
Jeffro
We did a couple of trips to Busch Gardens Tampa with Froette when she was little (the super-cheap Southwest Airlines flights helped make this decision easy!) and we’ve been to Disney World once but I gotta tell y’all…most of our family vacations since then have involved other travel and we’ve never regretted it for a second.
Whether it’s a major American city, a road trip, or even a budget jaunt to Europe, you’re all going to see more and have more fun for the same (or less!) money than an average Disney vacay.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
I’m super positive about our whole voting system here. I feel as if it’s doing a whole bunch of things right. The core is it’s designed by the county to serve the county’s needs, rather than being a generic, off-the-shelf solution designed by a company to serve some anticipated need. Related to that, the county owns the design, so we can continue to develop it if our needs change. It’s something I think more governments should be trying to do. Admittedly, LA County has more capability in that regard just because it’s so huge, but I think it’s something we should be aiming for.
And, of course, it goes beyond voting machines. I’ve said before that I think most states shouldn’t rely on the textbook industry to write books for them. They have state universities with teaching schools, and the professors at those schools could and should write textbooks that exactly match the state’s curriculum guidelines. Then the state would own the copyright and could print as many copies as it wants, or distribute electronic copies to students on their laptops, without having to pay royalties.
I guess I’m just fed up with private companies making big profits from necessary government functions. We need to get back to the idea of our governments being able to do those things themselves. That’s not to say we shouldn’t contract out stuff that is only done once in a blue moon, but anything the state does regularly enough to justify having its own department to do it should be handled in-house.
Suzanne
@karen marie: The PEVL is great. I signed so many people up for it in my canvassing days. I wish PA had the same thing.
James E Powell
@Ruckus:
A lot of people I know back in Ohio said that what you describe was how Bush beat Kerry in 2004.
Gvg
@eclare: we have drop boxes at the early voting locations and the election supervisor office. We are a small county compared to where I grew up and it is darned easy to swing by one of those locations and KNOW my vote is received. Then I can go online and check that my vote is accepted, usually takes 24 hours. I have never used the regular post office.
I mainly used early voting which is 3 weeks before, until Covid. Still I want the mail in because I know other people have issues, especially night shift workers and multiple job people. Not to mention the car less.
Matt McIrvin
@Jeffro: I like theme parks but what I especially like is roller coasters, and they’re not Disney’s strongest suit–though the ones they do have are interesting because instead of high thrills they go for elaborately themed experiences.
We went to Barcelona last week and on Wednesday, while my wife and daughter took a side trip by plane to Palma de Mallorca, I instead took a side trip by train to PortAventura, a big theme park in Salou. My main goal was to ride Shambhala, their gigantic hypercoaster, and it was superb. Lots of other good rides too. But I did get worn out before I could experience a lot of what they had to offer.
Kosh III
“tried to make his name on the ballot read: Dave Let’s Go Brandon Williams, but got slapped down on that.”
Reminds me of what happened here in Tennessee in 1998. Byron Anthony Looper got his name legally changed to Byron “Low tax” Looper and was on the ballot with that name in a state Senate seat.
When it became clear to Looper that he would lose and lose badly, he went to the Senator’s farm and shot him dead. He was sentenced to life in prison and the widow of the Senator was appointed to his seat which she retained for several terms.