Voicemail

[koganbot]

Finally got around to checking my Voicemail and discovered five messages, one a hangup, one offering me a great new deal on satellite TV, and three from the Obama campaign (which had basically been leaving the phones alone over the month, allowing the McCain campaign all the robocall rope it needed to hang itself): one call just making sure I knew the polling address, the poor woman apologizing for not being sure how to pronounce "Baha'i" (my polling place is the Metro Denver Baha'i Center, which she pronounced "BA-ha," like the peninsula). Then the next day another call from an Obama worker, this woman being a lot more thorough than the last, said the address, got "ba-HIGH" right, spelled out the street name B-A-Y-A-U-D (is only four blocks from where I live, so I know it well), told me the voting hours, gave me a number to call if I needed a ride, reminded me to be sure to bring an I.D.

Then got a robocall from a cheerful Joe Biden, asking me to vote for change.

As FiveThirtyEight has been consistently reporting, the Obama campaign has the people on the ground, an enthusiastic voter base, and basic competence, which ought to be enough to counter the usual Republican ability to turn out more voters and to disenfranchise those likely to vote Democratic.

North Dakota could be interesting. FiveThirtyEight has it leaning McCain, Pollster has it leaning Obama, and it's the only state that allows you to vote if you simply show up with an I.D. I don't think Obama has been putting a lot of resources into the state, since he didn't expect to compete there. But he did organize it during primary/caucus season, so a strong get-out-the-vote effort could tip it for him.

Comments

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I didn't realise until the other week that it's much harder to vote in the US than in the UK - here you just have to i) register (either online, post or filling out the form when the nice woman knocks on your door - I think you can even just give Hackney Council a text if you're just re-confirming that yes indeed you still live in your house) ii) turn up iii) remember your address. No ID or nothing. Obviously this is not the most secure way of doing things but we seem to manage ok.

The American early voting system thing makes an awful lot of sense though.

[koganbot]

Well, the U.S. doesn't have a single system, as it is done state-by-state. Southern states used to have poll taxes and subjectively judged "literacy tests" to prevent black people from voting. And of course requiring I.D.s themselves tends to suppress voting among the poor and transient. Some states forbid anyone ever convicted of a felony from voting. Some states purge their lists of voters who haven't voted in several elections. In general, the more requirements there are, the more it is an attempt to suppress the votes of poor people and minorities.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I think I read somewhere that in Florida in 2000 they purged the voter list of anyone who had been suspected of a felony as well - I have no idea how they got away with that (perhaps they didn't?)

I can understand the different states having different rules for state/governer elections, but it does seem strange that there isn't one set of rules for national-level or presidential elections. They are all going to get the same president, after all?

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

they are not electing the president, they are electing their local representatives of the electoral college* -- who then choose the president (from the available list, almost invariably dividing along exactly the party lines the election has jjust been fought on: in 2000 elector Barbara Lett Simmons of Washington D.C. chose not to vote, rather than voting for Al Gore as she had pledged to do -- this was done as an act of protest against Washington, DC's lack of Congressional representation) <--- from wiki, in the "faithless electors" section of its article on the Electoral College

[koganbot]

It's states that officially decide who votes. Think of the confusion it would cause if there were separate lists for who could vote for president and who could vote for everything else.

The electoral college itself isn't strictly one person, one vote, since states with a smaller population get a relatively larger share of impact per person. This is because the electoral votes combine the number of representatives and the number of senators, and every state, no matter how large or small, has two senators.

It would have been against the law (and the constitution) for Florida to purge the list of people who were merely suspected of a felony. But a quick Google search suggests that there may have been a list of felons, and people whose names matched those on the list were dropped from the rolls, but there were charges that the list was inaccurate and racially biased (and anyway, more than one person can have the same name). But then, preventing felons from voting is a form of racial and class bias anyway.

The serious battle this year may be in places like Ohio and Colorado, where the attempt is to suppress the votes of newly registered voters:

Justices Block Effort to Challenge Ohio Voters

In Tight Race, Victor May Be Ohio Lawyers

States Actions to Block Voters Appear Illegal

[koganbot]

FiveThirtyEight: Our job is to ensure that the Florida statutes regarding voter access to the polls are properly enforced

(Interesting thing: Charlie Crist, the governor who did "a truly great thing" by extending voting hours, is a Republican and was a McCain supporter back in the primary. He took this action knowing it would likely hurt McCain. I read speculation that he and McCain have had a falling out. But a simpler explanation is that as a matter of principle he is in favor of all voters getting the opportunity to vote.)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

novak sed mccain got crist's support by promising him the veep slot

[koganbot]

Just got a robocall from Obama himself. Completely positive message. "Most important election of our lifetimes...* Will cut taxes for the middle class...** end the war in Iraq responsibly..." At the end was a message with my polling place (pronounced correctly).

*If my parents got the call, they might say that the '32 election was more important (not that they were old enough to vote)

**My guess is that at some point he'll simply have to raise them on more than the rich, but he needs to hold off at first until he's provided successful stimulus to the economy.