Well so far my biggest fear hasn’t come true. I haven’t seen any exit polling from any of this early voting. Perhaps the early results aren’t released until Nov 2? (if this is the case thank og!)
I voted yesterday in Texas. There was no Election Judge in sight. The election clerks barely spoke English and all they did was copy down the info from my voter registration card into their book without making any effort to verify using the computer that was setting there on the table, then stamped my Voter regulation card as “voted”. If I understand this system correctly, I will be able to vote again on Election Day just using my driver’s license as ID, since I was never checked off as having voted in the computer. As we say in Texas, “Vote early, Vote often”.
Vote Kerry. 
D&R
According to this article in the Miami Herald, the vote is still counted.
I do not know if this applies anywhere outside of Florida. I’m having a hard time finding out if this is the rule for Texas. Although, the way politics are here, I’m sure my great grandmother would have wanted to vote for Kerry. Hmm … (I kid, the only possible election violations going on in my family come from my Dad who’s threatening to get me inebriated so I’ll vote for his candidate. Dad forgets that I can drink most people under the table if I’m in the mood. :smack: )
P.S. Registration may be required at the site if you’re interested in the article. If you don’t want to register, there’s always bug me not
Yes, but there are also a few people who deliberately wait for the polls and try to vote for the loser. Their rationale–as I understand it–is that you have no right to complain if you don’t vote, but equally, you can’t complain about the guy in office if you helped put him there.
Thus, if being able to bitch about politicians is what makes you happy (and I suspect there may be any number of such people on the SDMB), try to vote for the loser!
And no fair voting for Nader. Nobody listens to whining from Nader voters.
Um. Since your ballot doesn’t have your name on it, how could it be located and tossed out if you died before the general election?
Yes.
As opposed to winning by a negative popular vote percentage, which the electoral college system allows for, and which (arguably) actually happened in 2000? (And even if it didn’t, it has happened in the past.) A 1% victory would be worse than this result how?
Define “better”, and I will. In the case of election of public officials, I define “better” to mean “most accurately representing the will of the people”. If you accept that definition, the pure popular vote is the way to go.
I don’t see IRV and EC as incompatible. I think we should definitely move to runoff voting, but I see no reason to eliminate the EC.
Why would there be a fiasco? Has it ever been unclear, in modern times, who won the popular vote nationwide? From 1960, there were debates over whether Daley or Johnson might have stolen IL or TX on Kennedy’s behalf (and the Nixonites contested a few other states, too), but I’ve never heard Kennedy’s national popular vote win disputed, in the 1960s or today. Ditto Al Gore’s win in 2000. What made these elections contestable (and similarly, why we didn’t know who won in 1968 until about midday of the day after the election) was precisely this antiquated state-by-state system we have, which is what gives rise to the possibility of the Presidency hanging on the outcome of a few hundred disputed ballots.
The EC has a track record: just in my lifetime, it’s caused two elections to be close enough to produce major legal contests between the election and the inauguration, and a third which came close. Direct popular vote can’t do any worse.
Exit Polling is used to detect election irregularities. When people talk about having UN Monitors overseeing an election, they don’t mean keeping the polling place safe (I.E. no gang of Armed Thugs for <Candidate>). Or at least not only. They also do Exit Polling to detect ballot tampering or systematic miscounting when the results are announced.
Anyway, I sent in my Absentee Ballot weeks ago.
Although there are some arguments against it, I’d like to see simple elimination of the winner-take-all EC in favor of distribution more closely matching the PV.
I checked the list yesterday, and sure enough, you name was still on it. With a big “E.V.” on the same line. Oh well.