Election Thoughts

Been tired and thinking.

I worked as an election alternate judge in a heavily Republican precinct this election. Long hours for low pay but we had very few problems

Problems: A booth control unit in the morning suddenly had a smell of ozone and we had to renumber it's half of the booths but it did not lose the one voter's code who was preparing to vote or lose the votes already cast. After I assigned the booth numbers again no problems. I was aware of one person who apparently managed to cast a blank ballot - you have to hit cast ballot five times without a selection for that to happen. There were probably more, the highest election (for President) had only 857 votes out of 874 cast ballots.) This precinct had 850 early voters as well as the 874 Tuesday, less than 60% turnout. We had four provisional ballots, one or two which should count and the others which won't. The GOP county clerks office eliminated voters from the list who had the same name at the same address, ignoring the birth dates. Two people were not from our precinct, had not changed voter registrations in time, one from out of state. Another voter should have been a provisional ballot but the elections office let her cast a regular ballot after her mail-in ballot did not come in the mail but her husband's did.

Analysis of this precinct: 64% straight ticket - over two to one straight ticket Republicans over Democrats. Sixty-one percent of Bush's votes were from straight tickets, seventy-three percent of Kerry's. Bush with seventy-one percent. In contrast seventy-two percent of DeLay's vote came from straight ticket voting while only sixty-two percent of Democrat's Richard Morrison. DeLay did much worse than the President, only 28% of his vote in my precinct came from people taking the time to choose him, but with a GOP rout this was not enough for Morrison.

The national election. I got home early, by 8:30 PM which is very early mostly because I didn't have to return the equipment. I would watch the returns for a few hours then sleep for a couple hours and do this all night long. Seemed like a long nightmare.

ANALYSIS - Over a year ago I didn't support John Kerry because I knew a Massachusetts liberal could not take a Southern state or a rural plains state. I chose to support Dean because he was conservative, plain-spoken, honest and anti-Iraq war. Other acceptable choices would have been anyone who I thought could win, Edwards, Clark, Gephardt, or Graham. Dean was driven from the race by the national media and Washington insiders and was finished after an ad war with Gephardt in Iowa. In the primaries the Democratic party became convinced that Kerry could win despite being a Massachusetts liberal because of his Vietnam war record. They didn't see that his anti-war record would be the issue in the South or the Swift Boat liars.

The surprising thing about this election, besides the continued descent of the Republican insiders into the worst lies and political dirty tricks, was that Kerry almost pulled it off. Final results are not in yet but a wartime president was held to 52% and a change of 100,000 votes in Ohio it would be President-elect Kerry. The Democrats also might have been better even to have Gephardt on the ticket as VP for the Midwest states. Edward's charisma, speech, and message was not on display often enough to swing many voters.

The worst thing is that with Kerry on the ticket the GOP swept the Southern Democratic Senators and consolidated their hold on the South.

Was the Election Legit? I had some questions at first but am now leaning that it was. If there was fraud it was the sophisticated black box fraud I have been worried about - a program that switches one in twenty votes by county in the tabulators. I would demand an audit in a county like Dade in Florida and compete the paper totals for Kerry from precinct machines with the county tabulator totals. If the GOP had done that in Ohio and Florida where the polls disagree you could not tell except with a county audit like that. Here is some analysis without looking at the paper trail on the precinct machines. Meta Analysis is looking at the polls.

What now? Build local, decide what the Democratic message is, I think fiscal responsibility and the party of clean government against corporate welfare is a start. As Josh Marshall states we must start to build the same infrastructure that the GOP now has to be competitive. As Maureen Dowd warns this crowd in power now has already overreached and been rewarded - what now? I would add maybe the Democrats should do some overreaching themselves. Progress is made by liberals who work. Religious values can lead to tolerance, not prejudice. Locally I know two local women who should run for office, one is going to but needs to moderate her positions to gain a majority and the other doesn't want to. Democrats could gain a Senate seat or the Lt. Gov. office if "Fighting Grandma" Strayhorn switches parties which seems likely to me. She has some positions Democrats and Independents would get behind - fiscally responsible but concerned for kids. Still has crossover with Texas religious groups. One thing Southern Democrats have to do is take fewer positions which are portrayed as pandering to their constituents and link their positions to American Democratic values. Learn how to fram the debate. Thom Hartman reviews some material on that.