This is maybe a GQ, but what’s the script with Florida? Is there some reason that they cannot organise a simple vote? I’ve been to Orlando, and very briefly Miami, and it seems like a functional first world place, so why the delay?
The ballot this time around was insanely long, two 24 inch pages back and front. I don’t know if that could contribute to the time it takes to tally up all the results or not. Also, in some counties, people were voting until 1am the night of the election.
I guess I’m just a dumb Canadian, but I have no idea what this means. When I go to vote I place an X in one of maybe five places. Done.
ETA: I understand you also vote for other positions during the presidential election, but 48 inches worth? Really?
There were a lot (maybe a dozen?) of referenda on the ballot this time, many of them confusingly worded. People were taking half an hour to puzzle them out and vote on them.
Jeesh. And now I see it’s actually 2X24X2 = 96 inches worth. No wonder people don’t vote.
I thought (correct me if I’m wrong) that the margin between the candidates was less than the number of outstanding absentee and provisional ballots. So, despite the fact that Obama will certainly win it in the end, they won’t officially call it until those have all been processed on the (impossible) chance that every single outstanding ballot is for Romney or something.
I miss voting in Canada. In and out in 1 minute.
After I moved to the US I was astounded by the size of the ballot. Fortunately, I live in Oregon where we do mail in balloting. But it is long. You vote on the Prez, Senator, House, Gov, Secretary of State, State senators and house, several other State level positions including members of various boards like local water boards, sheriffs. Mayors and City council. Judges for the state as well. There can literally be 30-40 positions you’re voting on. It is difficult to truly know who represents your views.
Then the measures. Some are slam dunks like “Should we correct spelling mistakes in the state Constitution”. But some seem pretty obscure - “Should we allow use of Gill nets in the Columbia river”, “Should we allow a casino to be built”. Others are more of a direct impact “Should we raise taxes for schools/libraries/etc”.
Still seems over the top to me. First you elect a huge multitude of people directly to their position, but then you can’t trust them to decide anything themselves.
I’m not sure we’ve talked about this, but it looks like Florida Rep. and known fucknut Allen West has his re-election campaign. That’s arguably even better than Obama winning Florida because he’d have won regardless. Neither result is official yet, and I think they are still planning to have that done by tomorrow.
Bolding my insert. Did you miss a word?
‘Or early next week at the latest. Thursday, Friday tops. Look, we’ll get back to you, okay?’
One is tempted to suspect the Republicans (all 11 amendments were sponsored by Pub state legislators) of intending that result.
I really blame a lot of the problems and delays on the actual voters. Each registered voter was mailed a sample ballot. If you didn’t get one, you could find it in multiple places on the internet. My son and I stood in line with our samples all filled out and ready to be copied to the official ballot. Few people had done this. SO as ladyfoxfyre said, people had to read and decide on 11 long amendments of which it was for many, the first time they have ever see them. What we wondered at the time is why didn’t the officials go up and down the line with the samples so people could be better prepared when they walked in to the polling place. It would have made a huge difference.
Yes, it looks like West lost. He’s about 2,500 votes behind his challenger and a little bit outside the margin for a mandatory recount, but he isn’t conceding the race.
Okay, here is a very small example.
First, you should know that Florida legislators are lazy. Instead of actually just passing laws, like other states do, when they want to do something that would NEVER pass in a million years, they propose a state constitution amendment. Generally, these are worded in the trickiest way possible, with double, triple, and quadruple negatives, which obfuscates the language so much, even professional editors (such as yours truly) have trouble parsing out wtf the language actually says.
So there were eleven constitutional amendments on Florida’s ballot this year, and that’s just for the state. I’m sure there were referenda in some of the 67 different counties. Add in your local races and you’re looking at very long ballots. I understand that the ballots in Miami-Dade were something like 10-12 pages long. Mine was two 2-sided 24" pieces of paper.
This is the language for Amendment 8 this year:
“Proposing an amendment to the State Constitution providing that no individual or entity may be denied, on the basis of religious identity or belief, governmental benefits, funding, or other support, except as required by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, and deleting the prohibition against using revenues from the public treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution.”
The first part of that sounds pretty good, right? Religious freedom, YEAH! And if you only read that bit, you’d be all for it. The last bit “… and deleting the prohibition against…” is where things get confusing. There’s three negatives in there, canceling each other out. It almost sounds like Florida wants to enact religious freedom in this state, as if we didn’t already have it. But when you think that through, and parse out the language, what you discover is that Florida wants to spend state dollars on churches, religious schools and the like, therefore using public funds for private religions, which clearly goes against the federal constitutional amendments about Congress not establishing a state religion and separation of church and state. Can you imagine if that had passed? Which religion gets the most funds? Shall we fund the Jewish schools in Boca Raton? Or the Fundie Christian schools in the panhandle? How much do the Catholics get? What about the Buddhist temple down the street, how much do they get for running a pre-K program?
So that’s why it takes so goddamn long to vote in this state. It’s not just a list of names and you go down the list and check 'em off. That bit goes fast. It’s the “read the state amendments and try to figure out wtf they’re really trying to do” that takes a minute. In my county, they send out sample ballots about a month ahead of time, so there’s plenty of time to read and study and try to figure it out. I actually sat down at a kitchen table with some friends and our sample ballots and we brainstormed through the language until we were satisfied we understood what they all meant. That little exercise required one PhD, one Master’s Degree, a Journalism degree, and two of us were editors. Oh, and we also had to down several beers each. 
Here in Nevada, and in California when I lived there, on the sample ballot they had rebuttals from Republican and Democrat who would try to put these proposals into simple words and basically tell you why that party was for or against that proposal. It helped a lot, as you are correct with the double negatives and awkward wording that makes it almost impossible to understand if you are reading it for the first time at a ballot box.
I did appreciate in Obama’s acceptance speech that he mentioned how long people waited in line to vote and alluded to the fact this too has to be fixed.
As has been mentioned all over the press and even here on the board, they can spend $6 billion on advertising for these elections, but have balloting procedures from the 1920’s and policies that make third world countries look progressive in comparison.
Florida is just ridiculous…I mean one year of a fuck up, OK…but how many elections do they have to go through this same nonsense? Their Secretary of State should be put in front of a firing squad.
Great idea. Maybe they can add that to the ballot next time. 
Ya mean, like this Secretary of State? 
Yeah, there have been a few more since her, but um. Pretty much all cut from the same cloth.
I think we should add an amendment to the state constitution about the firing squad.
I literally laughed out loud and ended up spitting all over my computer screen. Thank you! 
There’s an app for that, now.
I voted mail-in in Florida and took a few hours researching the questions on the ballot so I would not vote for something I did not understand. I would have been in shock to have seen that for the first time while standing in a booth.