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TheCenterLane.com offers opinion, news and commentary on politics, the economy, finance and other random events that either find their way into the news or are ignored by the news reporting business. As the name suggests, our focus will be on what seems to be happening in The Center Lane of American politics and what the view from the Center reveals about the events in the left and right lanes. Your Host, John T. Burke, Jr., earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Boston College with a double major in Speech Communications and Philosophy. He earned his law degree (Juris Doctor) from the Illinois Institute of Technology / Chicago-Kent College of Law.
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The Voting Begins
October 30, 2008
The long-awaited 2008 Elections are finally underway. According to the Early Voting Information Center website, 32 States allow in-person early voting. As the voting proceeds, we are seeing an enormous number of people opting to cast their votes before November 4. On Tuesday, October 28, Gary Langer (polling director for ABC News) reported that as of that morning, 9 percent of “likely voters” had already voted. As reported in the October 30 Washington Post, Michael McDonald, an associate professor at George Mason University who compiles early-voting statistics, observed that his running total of early voters now tops 16.5 million. USA Today reports that approximately 25 percent of Georgia’s registered voters have already cast their ballots. In Florida, Governor Charlie Crist extended the hours for early voting. Prior to Crist’s executive order, Florida law allowed for early voting 8 hours per weekday and a total of 8 hours over the weekend. The polls in Florida will now be open 12 hours per day, through Sunday, the last day for early voting. The Miami Herald reported that prior to Christ’s signing of the order, the long, winding lines at the polling stations resulted in waits of as long as four hours to get to a voting machine. The Herald reported that as of Tuesday morning, 10 percent of the state’s registered voters had already voted. On Wednesday, October 29, Susan Saulny reported in The New York Times that there have been rumors circulating in Jacksonville, Florida’s African-American community that early voting could not be trusted because the votes cast early would be discarded.
By this point, there are already reports of voting machine problems and irregularities. Martina Stewart reported for CNN that in Jefferson County, Texas, the County Clerk admitted to receiving “about half a dozen calls” that touch-screen voting machines were recording votes inaccurately. Apparently, the candidates’ names are so close to each other on the screen that there is a possibility of pressing the wrong name when making the selection. The machines have a “summary screen” where the voter can verify that the correct candidates were selected before finally hitting the button to actually cast the votes. Similar problems were discussed by a reporter named Bill Murray at WSAZ in West Virginia. Murray’s report pointed out that long fingernails and contact with the screen by bracelets could result in erroneous votes.
On Monday October 27, The New Mexico Independent reported that in Albuquerque, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against a Republican state lawmaker, alleging violations of the Voting Rights Act and disclosure of confidential information about voters, including Social Security numbers. The article discussed the efforts of a Republican State Representative, Justine Fox-Young (a defendant in the suit) to support claims of voter fraud in the state’s June election. The Independent had previously reported that Republican Party attorney Pat Rogers had hired a private investigator named Al Romero to make contact with voters whose registrations were under scrutiny by Republican activists. The article discussed allegations by two legally-registered Hispanic voters, that they had been intimidated by Romero. Pat Rogers had been cited in the U.S. Department of Justice report about the firing of U.S. attorneys and was described as one of the New Mexico GOP activists who complained to the Department of Justice about then-U.S. Attorney David Iglesias. Iglesias was one of the U.S. Attorneys fired by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for political reasons. The firing of Iglesias was a result of his failure to pursue a politically-motivated, bogus “voter fraud” investigation.
If Barack Obama defeats John McCain by a narrow margin, we can expect protracted recounts and microscopic inspections of voter registration documents. My concern about this was reinforced when I read a quote from McCain speechwriter, Mark Salter, in a Washington Post article by Michael Leahy, on Thursday. Speaking about John McCain, Salter said:
So, don’t expect McCain to be a “gracious loser”. Unless there is a landslide on Tuesday, there could be a long, ugly fight, reminiscent of the election fiasco of 2000.