Between Barack and a Hard Place: Ultimate US Elections 2012 Thread

[Vibranium]

Polls closing on the east coast yet?

8pm I believe

its 6:26pm here

[Kusanagi]

Predictions?:

On what day do we retire this thread and how many pages will it be?

Depends if we're dedicated to leaving this open till there's a definite winner. I fully believe that only happens tonight if Obama or Romney get over 300 Electoral votes, and thus removes any single state from being the decider.

[7thangel]

Turmoil Follows As Pennsylvania Voter ID Law Meets Reality

Voting and civil rights activists said Tuesday that Pennsylvania’s new voter ID law was causing mass confusion across the state as people tried to go to the polls.

Because of a judge’s ruling in October, the law attempted to walk a line by allowing poll workers to ask voters for photo identification while also giving voters a big loophole to cast a regular ballot without it.

The Election Protection coalition’s voter hotline here began lighting up with complaints soon after polls opened. Some voters said they were upset about being asked for photo identification. Others said they had been turned away because they did not provide it.

“We’ve definitely gotten reports about voters being turned away,” Eric Marshall, co-director of the Election Protection coalition, told TPM. “We’ve had reports of people who have shown up, been asked, and when they didn’t show ID they were turned away.”

Marshall said voting rights advocates were working to resolves the issues as quickly as possible. Assistant Philadelphia District Attorney Peter Berson also told the Philadelphia Inquirer that his office had received complaints about poll workers who misunderstood the ruling.

Voting rights advocates had expressed worry about confusion on Election Day as soon as Pennsylvania Judge Robert Simpson issued his ruling in early October. Some advocates blamed state authorities for failing to properly train poll workers.

“What we don’t understand and what is problematic is that we all knew that this court case that was handed down quite awhile ago — not yesterday, not last week, quite a number of weeks ago — that we knew this was something the state really needed to train their poll workers well about,” said Barbara Arnwine, executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “They really needed to drill down and double down on the training of poll watchers to make sure they understood the identification part. It’s very clear that was not done.”

[7thangel]

Polls closing on the east coast yet?

What Times Polls Are Set To Close Across The Nation

Polls in some states are set to close within the hour, and results will start coming soon after that. Here is the timeline of when the polls will close in each state. Some, marked with an asterisk, have multiple closing times. All times listed are Eastern.

6 p.m.: Indiana*, Kentucky*

7 p.m.: Florida*, Georgia, Indiana*, Kentucky*, New Hampshire*, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia

7:30 p.m: New Hampshire*, North Carolina, Ohio, West Virginia

8 p.m.: Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida*, Illinois, Kansas*, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska*, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota*, Tennessee, Texas*

8:30 p.m.: Arkansas

9 p.m.: Arizona, Colorado, Kansas*, Louisiana, Michigan*, Minnesota, Nebraska*, New Mexico, New York, South Dakota*, Texas*, Wisconsin, Wyoming

10 p.m.: Idaho*, Iowa, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota*, Oregon*+, Utah

11 p.m.: California, Hawaii, Idaho*, Oregon*+, North Dakota*, Washington+

12 a.m.: Alaska*

1 a.m.: Alaska*

* - multiple closing times
+ - mail-in states

also, some may have had they're polling station changed due to redistricting, so they should make sure of where they need to go as time comes to a close

Philly polling location confusion

Voters at Cayuga Elementary School in northeast Philadelphia are leaving the polling place frustrated because their polling location was changed at the last minute — and at least one voter wasn’t notified of the change until earlier this morning.

Laura Elam had voted for 20 years in the same polling place before getting notice earlier in the day that her voting location had changed. Exiting the school, Elam told ThinkProgress that she had still not voted after three tries at three different locations.

Versions of her story were repeated several times in the school parking lot, with other longtime voters explaining that they too were unable to find their correct polling place.

same thing was happening to many folks in FLA due to redistricting

[Michael P]

More on the Pennyslvania voting machine that insisted on choosing Romney instead of Obama.

Apparently after being rebooted it worked just fine. I found this rather troubling, however:



I would think that a machine that doesn't allow you to select the candidate of your choice would be something to worry about, actually.

The poll worker at my polling place was rather blase about not being able to confirm whether the machine scanned my ballot correctly.

[bringthenoise]

The BBC just called Indiana and Kentucky for Romney and Vermont for Obama.

[7thangel]

some more issues and those fighting to correct them

NAACP accuses Mississippi country clerk of failing to process thousands of voter registrations

Mississippi NAACP President Derrick Johnson announced at a press conference Tuesday morning that an unknown number of voter registrations have gone missing in Hinds County, Mississippi, and urged voters to cast what is known as an affidavit ballot if they arrive at the polls and find that they are not listed. According to the Jackson Free Press, Johnson made the announcement at a press event promoting the NAACP’s Mississippi voter help line, a service designed to help voters fight irregularities and suspected wrongdoing at the polls.

Recently, the NAACP held a massive voter registration drive, which added some 10,000 new voters to Hinds County registers, but as of Friday, many of the names were not yet listed in the voter registration database.

Hinds County Circuit Clerk Barbara Dunn told the Free Press, “We worked until 5 o’clock Saturday (Oct. 6),” the deadline for voter registrations in Jackson and Hinds County, and that voters whose registrations were not been processed on time do not have any recourse through her office.

The NAACP’s Johnson insisted that his group turned in the registration forms before Oct. 6 and that they should have been processed. The organization has received multiple calls, he said, from voters whose registrations had not been completed.

Dunn has been in office as the county’s Circuit Clerk for 28 years and within the last four years has received three sanctions from the Mississippi Supreme Court. In 2008, she was cited and fined for “failure to comply with the requirements of the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure.” The Supreme Court fined her office $5,000 in 2010 for failure to send judge’s orders to attorneys, sometimes allowing appeals and other deadlines to expire. And in March of this year, Dunn was ordered by the state’s highest court to personally pay a $9,500 fine and fire a longtime staffer for the office’s failure to file a law firm’s appeal with a county judge within its 30-day deadline.

In spite of the multiple lapses, Dunn cites her “personal touch” as the reason she continues to be elected to the position of County Circuit Clerk.

Johnson said Tuesday morning that he is personally delivering the names and registration information collected by the NAACP to Dunn’s office. He urged voters to file an affidavit ballot, which will be counted when their registration is verified.

Registered Philadelphia voters forced to cast provisional ballots: report

Many voters in Philadelphia are being asked to cast provisional ballots despite having registration cards, according to City Paper.

Poll workers and voters have reported that many residents of the city who had registered to vote were not appearing on the voter rolls. Those voters have been asked to cast provisional ballots, which can take up to a week to be counted.

“Their names are not in the books,” clerk Gwen Howard told City Paper. “Something different. Some have [registration] cards and are not in the books. And you know they come every four years…They were pretty upset.”

The Committee of Seventy, which monitors elections in Philadelphia, said the problem seemed to be a clerical issue.

“For any voters whose registrations were processed after October 23rd, their registrations were supposed to go into a Supplemental Poll Book, and an issue seems to be whether all these new, late-processed registrations made it to the polling place on time for Election Day,” the group said in a statement.

The Committee of Seventy said it had also received reports that some polling places were not allowing voters to cast provisional ballots and had alerted City Commissioners about the issue.

The group warned city officials in mid-October that a huge backlog of voter registration applications could remain unprocessed by Election Day.

[Michael P]

I don't recommend watching the TV coverage unless you like being pummeled with stupid bullshit.

[blackdragon6]

Politico’s definition of presidential mandate diminishes women, minorities

not surprised, this sentiment is usually echoed by Sunday news programs (especially CNN in general). only thing that matters is southern and Midwestern white men and their wives (the groups Romney is winning in a landslide). everybody else is persona non grata, i hear it even from journalists like tom brokaw, and even dan rather (in a subtle way).

[Charles RB]

The BBC just called Indiana and Kentucky for Romney and Vermont for Obama.

The fancy chart has Romney leading 19 seats to Obama's 3, based on three states - so now I really see why Yanks get fed up with the electoral college system!

[blackdragon6]

LMAO, I remember all that "Obama will be shot" stuff.

Like, yesterday afternoon.

to be fair there were alot of abnormal amount of thwarted assassination attempts.

[Vibranium]

Dunn has been in office as the county’s Circuit Clerk for 28 years and within the last four years has received three sanctions from the Mississippi Supreme Court. In 2008, she was cited and fined for “failure to comply with the requirements of the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure.” The Supreme Court fined her office $5,000 in 2010 for failure to send judge’s orders to attorneys, sometimes allowing appeals and other deadlines to expire. And in March of this year, Dunn was ordered by the state’s highest court to personally pay a $9,500 fine and fire a longtime staffer for the office’s failure to file a law firm’s appeal with a county judge within its 30-day deadline.

In spite of the multiple lapses, Dunn cites her “personal touch” as the reason she continues to be elected to the position of County Circuit Clerk.

wow...just mind boggling

I say we sick Anonymous on her

[Mr. Holmes]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democ...#sort-comments

[Spike-X]

Please don't quote the troll.

[dupont2005]

South Carolina was called for Romney with 63% of the vote going to Obama?

Ah. I guess that's at less than 1% reporting