elections

Early Voting

Over at Althouse there’s a conversation about how many groups moved to the GOP this election cycle. People were talking about turnout, which seemed lower in most cases than the last election. It certainly was so in my precinct. It seemed good at the time I voted, but it was down considerably from 2008.

I commented there:

I think we ought to get rid of early voting altogether.

Early voting may have suppressed turnout on both sides. The media kept showing long lines at early voting locations and the media kept trying to guess who was “winning” the early vote.

This may have kept many people home on election day. They didn’t want to deal with long lines (and how many of them would actually be there? The media only reported on the long lines – they didn’t report on the many (I’m sure) locations without long lines. Just as we hear about plane crashes but not the successful landings that most make.

With the guesses as to who was “winning” the early vote, some people may have decided it was over already and didn’t go vote.

Steve Hayward has some thoughts at A Disquieting Thought on Powerline.

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Election Day!

I voted here in Lake County, Illinois around 10 am. I didn’t have to wait in line, but I had good timing. There was no one in my letter line, then no one at the precinct line, and an open booth just as I needed one. The machine that eats the ballots was open just as I got there too. I had one lady ask to see if there were initials on my ballot. There were three machines to eat ballots, two precincts to each machine, so the guy at the machine made sure my number matched the machine.

I’ve never seen that kind of crowd at 10 am. The pollworkers told me that it’s been steady all morning and there was a line at 6 am when they opened.

I’m in the new 10th CD (it was 8th before). There’s actually a chance that the 10th could make the difference for Illinois in this election. It’s a long, long shot, but there is hope for change.

Four years ago our precinct had 86% turnout. I’ll be very interested in seeing what it has this year. Four years ago our precinct had 666 registered voters. I don’t know what the count is this year. I’ll find out later how many registered voters we have and what the turnout is.

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I’ll Be Glad When This Political Silly Season is Over

Less than four weeks until election day. I’ve been seeing some commercials that essentially say:

[insert Republican candidate name] has voted for things Republicans like. [insert Republican candidate name] votes for conservative things. Don’t vote for [insert Republican candidate name]! [insert Republican candidate name] will vote for things Republicans and conservatives care about!

This message brought to you by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Well duh. Do they think they’ll sway any voters? Some people might think  that the a Republican candidate voting in that manner is a feature, not a bug. If the candidate has been voting for big government this might be a bug, but otherwise…

 

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Pre-Florida Polling

John Hawkins at Right Wing News conducted a blogger poll over the weekend.

1) If you had to pick the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee today, which of the following candidates would you select?

4) Ron Paul: 11.6% (8 votes)
3) Rick Santorum: 21.7% (15 votes)
2) Mitt Romney: 31.9% (22 votes)
1) Newt Gingrich: 34.8% (24 votes)

Go see the rest.

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