Election Stories
I wrote last month that I've been blogging for John Bonifaz, and I've posted links to some of my blog posts on coslinks, which only a few of you (comparatively) read. I've spent so much time trying to make the blog interesting for other readers, but I wonder whether many of the people I actually know have seen much of it. So...
link to this video
I hope you find some of these fascinating, and send the links around. Today, I'm working on a post about how our incumbent Secretary of State Bill Galvin is considering bringing Diebold touchscreen machines to Massachusetts, so look for that later. In the meantime, you can watch the video of John Bonifaz answering questions about the Ohio recount and computer voting machines.
- Yesterday, Arizona's house minority leader, Phil Lopes, told me his story of running for office with public financing:
- "Once I raised my 220 contributions in June, I never had to ask for money again. All I did from then on, was talk to voters about the issues - knowing that all my opponents had the same resources as I did."
- The fiasco with computer voting in Maryland in last Tuesday's primary:
- "Montgomery County endured not only the morning fiasco with inoperable machines but also chaos at night as election officials ran out of paper ballots for extended voting." ... "With important local, state and federal offices at stake, some were questioning the legitimacy of the election even before the polls closed."
- A story about a spoiled election here in Boston less than three years ago, when an elected office went to the candidate who got fewer votes; and the recount I participated in, which turned on a couple of ambiguous write-in votes.
- ... and then we got to "Louise Phillips". We knew that nobody with that name was running for the seat, and we'd also looked in the Cambridge phone book and could find no Louise Phillips. Clearly, these were voters who intended to vote for Lesley Phillips but misremembered her name, right?
Gerrymandering in Massachusetts - Should Voters Pick Candidates, or Candidates Pick Voters? (crossposted to Blue Mass Group):- If we were confused, walking precinct canvass lists every day, imagine how confused the voters of Allston-Brighton are about it! Hardly anyone can guess whether their neighbor has the same state rep as they do.
- Massachusetts vs. Microsoft - the Open Document Format:
- Microsoft's surprise decision to support ODF could be in reaction to a recent government mandate in Massachussets that will require all state agencies to save documents in a vendor-neutral, standards-based format"
- (unrelated to Bonifaz) Rep. Tim Toomey's editorial on in-state tuition for children of undocumented immigrants:
- "The defeat of this bill [...] did deny several hundred young people the chance to pay $9,000 a year to attend a Massachusetts public university. Congratulations, you have certainly sent a powerful message to the nefarious bands of undocumented immigrants graduating at the top of their classes in our high schools."
- The special election in California's 50th district, to fill corrupt former Rep "Duke" Cunningham's seat, was a mess, the vote count hard to trust. But a few weeks ago, a court ruled that it couldn't be challenged, Catch-22:
- Because the House Republican leadership decided to swear in a new member before his election results were even certified, that means the normal process for handling election disputes has no legal force? Apparently so.
- My post about dreams_of_wings's voter registration led me to write, Same Day Registration - Not Just For New Voters (crossposted to Blue Mass Group). I followed up with a series of posts about election day registration:
- A story I picked up in CT while volunteering for Ned Lamont, about voters denied at the polls and the effort one of them went to to vote.
- The former head of MassVote wrote about how Bill Galvin blocked same day registration legislation in Massachusetts.
- Town Clerks want same day registration and studied it in 2004.
link to this video
I hope you find some of these fascinating, and send the links around. Today, I'm working on a post about how our incumbent Secretary of State Bill Galvin is considering bringing Diebold touchscreen machines to Massachusetts, so look for that later. In the meantime, you can watch the video of John Bonifaz answering questions about the Ohio recount and computer voting machines.