On the day before leaving for Netroots Nation, I voted for Jim Martin for U.S. Senate in the July 15 General Primary Election here in Georgia.  

At the polling place I was the only voter but there were a dozen or so poll workers.  After voting (on one of those damned Diebold machines) I asked if I’d get a receipt.  In lieu of one I was given a cute little sticker with a graphic of a Georgia Peach with ‘I’m a Georgia Voter’ printed on it.  I laughed and said that makes me feel better…there were some chuckles.  

I said I wanted a receipt for my vote.  This is what they gave me.

I found this video over at AfterDowningStreet.com. I was looking for something  but found this video instead.  It’s originally from The Onion, I wanted to share it with you all.  If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a good laugh!  Sorry, but I’m going to make this short, my family just started attacking me…I must go play, but I’ll be around to hang out a bit.  How’s every body doin’?

Cross posted at kos

What does an Election Judge do?

Welllllllll….. the Judge makes the Election process easier. The Judge is not supposed to hinder the Election process.

The Judge’s duties start well before the actual day of the Election. First, there is the training. My county used to give training at the County Offices or other large venue, like a Movie theater where a lot of people could be seated. Then the Judge would sit through a Powerpoint presentation of forms and machine assembly. Finally, a short quiz was given. Some places may still require this.

Now, the Judge takes the online course. It has about 5 parts and takes 4 to 6 hours to complete depending on the score one achieves at the end of each section.

Bev Harris has caused a lot of harm and dissension in the voting rights community, so much so that I long ago wrote her off as an agent provocateur or mentally ill. But this latest documentation of hers from New Hampshire is hard to ignore, so with some trepidation, here it is.

Notice at the very end an open box of “extra” SecState seals and notice how easily they are removed after being applied. That is Secretary of State, Bill Gardner in the video with the vacant look on his face.

What the fuck?!

BlackBoxVoting and Bev Harris’ photo essay on ballot boxes, transportation and storage.

BradBlog for a complete description and explanation of events so far.

Any time anybody gives me a marching order, without any reasons why, my first instinct is to ask “why?”

When that person responds “Because I said so,” it tends to rub me the wrong way to say the least.

That approach doesn’t even work with my five year old, and it sure as heck doesn’t work with anybody but authority-lovers like Fundie Christians.

Yet that’s what we’re supposed to swallow from the likes of Kos and his little bully “enforcer” DHinMI over at Dailykos.

“Oppose a recount in New Hampshire BECAUSEE WE SAID SO” is what they’re saying over there.  Do they really think that’s gonna work?

And the reason it’s really suspect:  Why would you oppose something that would ultimately PROVE THAT YOU ARE RIGHT?

The Secretary of State of New Hampshire has announced that they will do a statewide recount. Finally a state is taking sane steps to reassure its people that they in fact participated in a valid election and putting the controversy to rest. It’s about time. A lot of people have been shouted down as conspiracy nuts because they suspected otherwise. I am puzzled and a bit angry that it is controversial for progressives to insist on anything less than mandatory recounts of paper ballots for at least a random selection of districts in EVERY election. The burden is on the state to prove that the election results are correct, yet I read person after person insisting that we should be quiet. It is absurd to think that the burden of proof rests on the citizens.

I was just in Paris and talked to quite a few bartenders and so forth.  Suffice to say the American dollar is barely worth the paper it’s printed on, so we may have spent most of our time in the more dodgy areas of town.

That said, I believe we interviewed quite a cross-section, in our pidgeonish Franglais.  I was repeatedly told variants of the following:

1. Bush and Sarko (Sarkozy) are the same.  (usually followed by an obscene gesture)

2. Sarko won because a weak candidate ran against him.  (followed by a warning not to do the same in US)

3. Diebold voting machines are stealthily and gradually being installed in France.  (followed usually by the comment, “We don’t want to happen in France what happened in US” = stolen election(s).

4. Unions are getting weaker and demonstrations and strikes are ignored in US and France and anywhere else they’re tried, because of globalization. 

There were Chinese products everywhere, and a few suspected sweatshops, lots of immigrants “sans papiers” (& a demonstration planned to try to get preschool services for their children).  Alot of things seemed familiar (though we are still having “reverse culture shock” upon returning to America).

We were staying in the area of Paris that was formerly known for incidents such as the “storming of the Bastille,” which was inspiring, but I have no doubt that something of the like needs to be done periodically, whenever the rich get too uppity.