From Paul Lehto: WHAT'S WITH THE TURNOUT?
My local paper reports national turnout as a record 64%, but I still find this figure lower than what I can believe. Plus, there's fishy reports of really low turnout in Alaska, with Don Young overcoming polls showing him down by 16 points to currently be in the lead, and seven time felon Ted Stevens still holding a lead with thousands of uncounted votes. I did a Google News search for stories only on November 4 or November 5 with the word "election" and the exact phrase "long lines" in it, and got over 14,000 hits (and there are journalistic stories only) with the vast majority and lion's share all reporting actual long lines. It seems either the turnout is under-reported, or our elections administration as a whole was not prepared for what everybody knew would be a huge turnout, despite unprecedently high early voting to ease the pressure. A GOOD ELECTORAL COLLEGE MAP For more accurate and interesting electoral college maps, see this University of Michigan site. They did the same thing for 2004 but it's still very interesting and enlightening. Our system is based on one person one vote (the Electoral College being an exception of sorts) so balanced understanding of the elections mandates demands additional maps, and there are some great ones here: <http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/>http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/ ES&S M-100 FAILURES IN MICHIGAN There's a murkier, though still compelling, story about ES&S M-100 failures in L&A testing in Michigan. This story began (for the public) when it was released by the EAC 15 minutes before the close of business Michigan time on the day prior to the election, in the form of a letter by Oakland County Clerk Ruth Johnson (R) stating, in part, that for the first time in her career, her faith in the integrity of electronic elections was shaken.... GETTING MURKY: The Democratic Challenger to Ruth Johnson has requested a recount. It turns out that Ruth Johnson was in a real race for her political life as chief elections officer. At the same time, though it bears investigation, I don't think the failure of the L&A tests is made up since presumably it was witnessed, though I haven't confirmed that fact yet. See this interesting article about the recount request in Oakland County, Michigan: <http://michiganmessenger.com/7981/democrat-wants-recount-of-oakland-clerk-race>http://michiganmessenger.com/7981/democrat-wants-recount-of-oakland-clerk-race I welcome anyone's thoughts or data on turnout or any of the items above at <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED], or you can call me at 906-204-2333 Paul R Lehto, Juris Doctor PermanentProgress.org P.O. Box 1 Ishpeming, MI 49849 <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED] --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to Mark Crispin Miller's "News From Underground" newsgroup. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] OR go to http://groups.google.com/group/newsfromunderground and click on the "Unsubscribe or change membership" link in the yellow bar at the top of the page, then click the "Unsubscribe" button on the next page. For more News From Underground, visit http://markcrispinmiller.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
