Daily Archives: 29 October 2014

For What Are We Voting?

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In mid-term elections, we’re voting for Representatives and Senators for Congress as well as Representatives and Senators for our state legislatures (except States like Nebraska, which have gone the unicameral route; my point will be the same when I get to it) as well as lots of candidates for positions farther down the ballot.

In all of these races, questions are local, and we voters must choose our candidates based on our view of those candidates’ positions on those local questions.

However.

When we’re voting for those Representatives and Senators in Congress, it’s necessary to keep in mind that the Congress takes most of its actions in the name of the United States, not in the name of any particular State. Congress’ questions are national more than local; what our Congressmen do has national and international implications.

Democratic Party Senate candidates like Alison Lundergan Grimes of Kentucky and Michelle Nunn of Georgia, as well as their counterparts in other States’ Congressional races, like to insist that President Barack Obama is not on this fall’s ballots, only their own names are. They’re right, and that’s the crux of the matter.

Obama also agrees that his name isn’t on any of the ballots this time around. However, he’s been quite explicit about his policies, those candidates, and those ballots:

I’m not on the ballot this fall. But make no mistake, these policies are on the ballot. Every single one of them.

Obama also is urging you to vote for Democratic Party Senate candidates in close-run races in several States so he can keep the Senate and continue those policies.

If Michelle Nunn wins, that means that Democrats keep control of the Senate, and that means that we can keep on doin’ some good work.

And

These are all folks who vote with me, they have supported my agenda in Congress…. These are folks who are strong allies and supports of me….

Keep this in mind as you vote next Tuesday. And check you ballots very carefully before you cast them.

No Voter Fraud

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Voting machines that switch Republican votes to Democrats are being reported in Maryland. One voter reported

When I first selected my candidate on the electronic machine, it would not put the “x’ on the candidate I chose—a Republican—but it would put the “x” on the Democrat candidate above it.

This happened multiple times with multiple selections. Every time my choice flipped from Republican to Democrat. Sometimes it required four or five tries to get the “x” to stay on my real selection

And

Queen Anne County Sheriff Gary Hofmann said he encountered the problem, too, personally[.] … It occurred on two candidates on my machine. I am glad I checked. Many voters have reported this here as well[.]

And in Illinois, to Republican state representative candidate Jim Moynihan:

I tried to cast a vote for myself and instead it cast the vote for my opponent. You could imagine my surprise as the same thing happened with a number of races when I tried to vote for a Republican and the machine registered a vote for a Democrat.

And in North Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Colorado, and Utah. So far.

It’s never in the other direction, either. There’s never any accidental switch of a Democrat’s vote to the Republican candidate. This isn’t random error. It’ll be…instructive…to see who wins in the toss-up states and by what margin.

Review your votes, as you cast them and at the final review before you push the CAST or ENTER button that finalizes your choices, to be sure that it’s really your choices that are being registered.

But, there’s no voter fraud. Mm, mm.