The plane is about to leave, so just a rushed note to see Boing Boing: Vote Save Error .
This incident is a problem on its own….but alas it also shows why we can't allow camera phones in polling places — it would allow people to prove how they voted, which makes vote selling and blackmail feasible. Which isn't the point the post meant to make.
Foreign poll watchers can observe … the last few hours of voting, long after the machines were set up… Previsously the official position had been that the foreign poll watchers were not welcome.
The Herald reports on its blog,
International observers won a victory in Miami-Dade on election day. After meeting with Supervisor of Elections Constance Kaplan at 1 p.m. Tuesday, she officially gave then the go ahead to observe inside pollings places, but with a department escort.
The observers had been barred after Miami-Dade commissioners voted against giving them access.
“We think it's a real victory and shows an openess by the county to display some openness in the process,” said John De Leon, former local president of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Among those who will visit up to 20 precincts before the end of the day are representatives from Pax Christi USA, a national Catholic peace and justice movement group and California-based Global Exchange, an international human rights organization dedicated to promoting environmental, political and social justice. The groups are affiliated with Miami Workers Center, which will make the groups findings public after the polls close.
Representatives from countries including Great Britain, South Africa, Nicaragua, Mexico and Haiti will be visiting the polls.
I'm in Logan airport between flights, making the most of the wi-fi. First thing I see: the latest Zogby showing an electoral vote tie, with Pennsylvania holding the balance (because it has more votes than Virginia).
Readers of this blog do not need to be told to vote. (So go call all your friends and relations in PA.)
Jack Balkin's inimitable take on the real swing voters.
We've been having some substantial work done on our house, which means that between periods of frustrating inactivity it is overrun by armies of sub-contracted workers. Last week it was painters.
The sign gets a reaction from these transient visitors. By and large the sub-contracting bosses are not very pro-Kerry, although at least around us they profess to not be very pro-Bush either. And our general contractor says he may vote for Nader, or may stay home. At first I thought he was saying that to tease us, now I think he means it.
Several of the workers' cars have Kerry stickers.
The head painter, I'll call him 'Ernesto', mentioned in imperfect English that he'd seen our Kerry-Edwards sign. Ernesto told us with quiet pride that this was going to be his first chance to vote here since immigrating from Honduras.
His first US vote ever would be cast for Kerry, Ernesto said. 'Bush has not been good,' he explained.
A few days later, Ernesto waved a bunch of Kerry-Edwards signs from the back of his truck: all his friends are getting them.
The Guardian has a two-part series online called The road to Abu Ghraib. It's sufficiently weird that it reads like gonzo fiction, but we are asked to believe it.
Did a Major General really decide that psychic powers would let him walk through walls, and psychic healing could save troops wounded without access to ordinary medical care? And even if so, is this really connected to Abu Ghraib?
It's interesting, though, to read about the mythical First Earth Battalion and how the ideas behind it might have seeped into reality.
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