7 Things That Could Go Wrong On Election Day

A bill in Congress that would mandate paper records of all machines nationwide has gathered 216 co-sponsors, including 20 Republicans.

This says, succinctly, what is never said explicitly. Every single barrier to people exercising their franchise can be laid at the door of the Republicans trying to limit ballot access. This is a key part of Republican electoral strategy, is being played out more brazenly than ever before in this cycle, and the result is.....

A TIME story that raises the possibility of questionable results is the upshot.

In the intervening months, the elderly sisters have all had a chance to get government identification.

But did they? How did they? How much time and effort did it take?

You decide, but don't report.

High turnout has always been the enemy of Republican chances. Why do you think that is Michael?

Thanks, MS. I retract the complaint, and apologize.

Space constraints on the internet's? Get bigger tubes.

I am predicting 359 Obama 179 McCain. 252 Democratic house seats. 57 Senate seats. Anybody else wanna guess?

gunny--the article reprints the hard copy. I agree they should post a more complete, web only version that get linked to.

MS:

I know that people reflexively give you a hard time but there are two areas where I just want to thank you for your involvement. The first is of course the voting rights/disenfranchisment issue covered in the current article. The other is your attention to the right of protest and the difficulties with law-enforcment overreach. I may not agree with you about the relative dishonesty of the two campaigns. But I appreciate your attention to Civil Liberties.

Sure it repeats the hard copy and there you do have space constraits. But I guess it takes editorial and publishing genius to understand when you can use your available tools to offer more.

I am trying hard to not reflexively flame MS. I just disagree with his take on things. MS tries to be honest. He does do good on civil liberties issues.

I do think that perhaps he got too caught up with the campaign he is covering. People who are covering Obama probably fall into the same trap. Viva democracy.

Of course number 8 would be McCain/Palin wins.
Good story MS

Jay said: "This says, succinctly, what is never said explicitly. Every single barrier to people exercising their franchise can be laid at the door of the Republicans trying to limit ballot access. This is a key part of Republican electoral strategy, is being played out more brazenly than ever before in this cycle, and the result is....."

MS, you might consider that a challenge. It would be bracing to have a msm article with chattering class followup that laid out, specifically and quantitatively, how the approaches of Dems and Repugs impact the opportunity of American citizens to vote and have their votes counted. This is a particularly useful time to do this, as the Bush DOJ spent years trying to prove that actual voter fraud occurs and came up empty:

-- David Becker was a lawyer in the Bush Justice Department's voting rights section, which was part of the administration's aggressive anti-vote-fraud effort. "The Justice Department really made prosecution of voter fraud of this sort a big priority in the first half of this decade, and they really didn't come up with anything. There's no evidence that any of these invalid registrations lead to any invalid votes."

-- Republican National Committee General Counsel Sean Cairncross has said he is unaware of a single improper vote cast because of bad cards submitted in the course of a voter-registration effort.

-- Republican campaign consultant Royal Masset says, "[I]n-person voter fraud is nonexistent. It doesn't happen, and ... makes no sense because who's going to take the risk of going to jail on something so blatant that maybe changes one vote?"

So, MS, what say you?

Ask Sarah Palin what could go wrong - she would suggest the communists interfered. ...........

http://thefiresidepost.com/2008/10/26/plain-heading-to-communism/

Testing...why are all my comments being held?

Here is what the Democrats are up against in Minnesota.
Our last Republican Sec of State is now involved in a voter suppression group called Minnesota Majority. They are "caging" which is against the law in Minnesota.
And the republican candidate for the 3rd district has these instructions for their Designated Challengers -quoting directly- "your duties are 1) observe 2) deter 3) challenge."
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A lot of republicans dislike democracy.

Off Topic:
AMC is begging for money over on her blog. How sad.
http://anamariecox.typepad.com/ana_marie_cox/2008/10/rate-card.html

dfh3 that IS sad. I would almost be tempted is not for the contempt she has shown for her readership.
I did laugh when I saw this at the end of that beg.
"The comments to this entry are closed."

The other is your attention to the right of protest and the difficulties with law-enforcment overreach. I may not agree with you about the relative dishonesty of the two campaigns. But I appreciate your attention to Civil Liberties.

I second that emotion.

And, on the coverage in TIME, this is not Michael's problem as much as the media's in general. There is deep resistance to calling the Republicans on the use of the Southern Strategy and on the use of voter suppression as a key tactic.

This article is a perfect example. It could easily have been titled " Republicans Bring All Methods to Bear to Lower Turnout" and written that way. ACORN could have been characterized as an attempt to delegitimize a voting bloc with the note that there is no plausible path for voter fraud stemming from this. The other six issues are all barriers of one sort or another erected by Republicans at either the federal or the state level.

This is not a trivial framing of this issue; it's central to functioning representative government that the franchise be exercised readily.

I will not bash AMC either. It's a new vow. Nor will I bash Jay Carney. Only when they post something dumb will I mock them, no more bashing on general principle sake.

They still print the magazine?

Jay, it's part of the flawed he said/she said reporting style. JNS wrote about the AP trying to break that mold this time. Of course Fournier messed things up with his unethical behavior. There is no way he should have covered this campaign bashing first Romney, then Clinton and Obama after he had months of discussions about joining team McCain.

I do like the concept of the new model though.

Hmmmmm. I don't know if you all have noticed it. But obamish and texte and NoBraina et al have been notably missing since the onset of moderation.

I wonder why oh why that could be?

We can go to the moon, split atoms to power submarines, squeeze profits from a 99 cent hamburger and watch football highlights on cell phones. But the most successful democracy in human history has yet to figure out how to conduct a proper election.

I am not reflexively trying to dis MS here. I am purposefully doing it.

The most successful democracy in human history knows damn well how to conduct a proper election. You misidentify the problem.

The problem is that a certain portion of the participants in the most successful democracy in human history have a compelling interest in continuing in its misconduct of proper elections.

Absent the proper deterrents, say multibillion dollar fines and mandatory twenty year prison terms, I imagine things will continue pretty much as they always have, don't you, Mike?

As far as methods used by Republicans to disenfranchise voters, remember that they have done their best to impede early voting in many states.
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And of course, the "Civil Rights" division of the DOJ was perverted to address only voter registration irregularies among minority voters.
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The Repubs are the biggest single obstacle to democracy in this country. I'm hoping that after Obama takes office, the Dems can bring charges against Carl Rove and Rush Limbaugh.
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"There is deep resistance to calling the Republicans on the use of the Southern Strategy and on the use of voter suppression as a key tactic.
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This is exactly true.