posted 11-02-2004 09:04 PM                 

quote: Joe

---

quote: Jeremy
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just my opinion*

*-The only opinion that matters, ever.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Uhh... no. The world agrees that my opinion is the only one that counts.

---

posted 11-03-2004 04:27 AM                       

quote: Mike Pennell

---

If you don't vote, which is entirely your right, you do lose the right to bitch about the results for the next four years.

---

quote: Mike Pennell

---

California chooses their jurors randomly by voter registration and/or driver licences.

---

posted 11-03-2004 05:11 AM                    

quote: Carl Martin

---

so how did a non-registered, non-licensed abstaining bicyclist like me get called up?

---

The selection and management of jurors is governed by the California Code of Civil Procedure. Jurors' names are selected at random from lists of registered voters and persons who have valid California drivers licenses or identification cards issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles. The two lists are combined to create one Master Jury List. 7000 prospective jurors each week are randomly selected from the master list to receive a summons. The summonses are mailed approximately five weeks prior to the service date. The summons contains information and instructions on how to have jury service postponed; how to request to be excused from jury service; or how to notify the court of disqualification from jury service. - saccourt.com

Since identification is issued by the DMV, I suspect that is how they got you!

posted 11-03-2004 07:55 AM                       

quote: Dave Williams

---

One vote gave Adolf Hitler control of the Nazi Party

---

Sometimes I have a habit of passing off information I learned from somewhere else as if I did the work and learned it for myself. Quite often, we tend to trust sources that should be trustworthy. I am glad that there are people here who know better and can correct even the smartest of us here.

The source I had that information from was from the Leauge of Women Voters. They are using it this year in thier get out the vote drive.

I should have either posted that I took that information from them or have researched it better.

Shame on me

Ciao

Dave

posted 11-03-2004 10:37 AM                    

quote:

---

Kerry concedes, White House aide says
Candidates to speak later Wednesday

CNN) -- Democratic Sen. John Kerry phoned President Bush on Wednesday to concede the presidential election, a White House aide said.

President Bush was to deliver a victory statement at 3 p.m. ET, Bush aides said. Kerry was expected to make a concession speech at 1 p.m. ET at Faneuil Hall in Boston, Massachusetts.

Kerry's phone call came a few hours after White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card announced that the Bush campaign was convinced the president had won re-election.

"President Bush decided to give Sen. Kerry the respect of more time to reflect on the results of this election," Card told GOP supporters at the Reagan Federal Building and International Trade Center in Washington.

"We are convinced that President Bush has won re-election with at least 286 electoral votes," Card said. (Transcript of Card's comments)

Ahead in the popular vote by more than 3.7 million votes, the president moved tantalizingly close to winning an Electoral College majority with a lead in the key battleground state of Ohio, though the Buckeye State remained too close for CNN to call. (Electoral College)

"President Bush's decisive margin of victory makes this the first presidential election since 1988 in which the winner received a majority of the popular vote," said Card, referring to the White House victory by Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush. "And in this election, President Bush received more votes than any presidential candidate in our country's history."

So far, Bush is projected to have won 28 states, with 254 electoral votes, and a win in Ohio would assure him of at least 274 votes, more than the 270 he needs for a majority Electoral College. (Small inroads make difference for Bush)

Kerry has a projected 252 electoral votes.

A top adviser for Kerry had said Wednesday morning the campaign would determine its plan of action after looking at the "real numbers" in Ohio. The adviser said the Kerry team "won't make this a mystery too long."

Sen. John Edwards told a crowd early Wednesday at Copley Square in Boston, Massachusetts: "We will fight for every vote. You deserve no less."

Card claimed an important psychological victory in the nation's popular vote and said that in addition to Ohio the campaign was putting Iowa and New Mexico in the "winner's column as well." (CNN has no projection yet for Iowa and New Mexico.)

Bush leads in Ohio by more than 136,000 votes, with 100 percent of precincts reporting, according to CNN data.

Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell issued orders for counties by 2 p.m. Wednesday to report total numbers of provisional ballots. Counting of those ballots will not begin until Thursday, according to Blackwell's directive.

It is not clear how long the ballot-counting will take. Initially, Blackwell said the counting of provisional and absentee ballots would not begin for 11 days.

He said he could not immediately put an estimate on the number of those ballots but said 250,000 might not be out of the realm of possibility.

While he said the exact number of provisional ballots was unknown, he said it is "trending toward 175,000."

Blackwell suggested that "everybody just take a deep breath and relax."

In another key battleground state, Kerry is projected the winner in Wisconsin.

Iowa election officials blamed broken machines, a delay in opening absentee ballots and apparent fatigue for delaying the secretary of state's report of a final count until some time Wednesday.

New Mexico is too close to call and will not release presidential election results until later Wednesday because thousands of absentee ballots remain uncounted, according to a spokesman for the secretary of state.

The key turning point in Tuesday's election came when Bush carried Florida, which the president won four years ago by just 537 votes after a lengthy dispute. This time around, though, there was no question who won the Sunshine State, where Bush's margin was more than 370,000 votes. (Special Report: America Votes 2004)

Few states switched from the party of four years ago. New Hampshire, which Bush narrowly won in 2000, went for Kerry. Bush has so far carried no state carried by Democrat Al Gore four years ago, although he leads in two, Iowa and New Mexico.

GOP projected to keep control of Congress
Republicans are projected to retain control of the House and Senate, adding to their majorities in both chambers with strong showings in Southern states. (Senate, House)

In South Dakota, former GOP Rep. John Thune claimed victory over the Senate's top Democrat, Minority Leader Tom Daschle.

GOP candidates are projected to win open Democratic seats in four Southern states and were ahead in a fifth, Florida. The party also is projected to keep vulnerable Republican seats in Oklahoma and Kentucky and to lead in a third, Alaska.

The only GOP setbacks were projected in Illinois, where rising Democratic star Barack Obama took the seat vacated by retiring GOP Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, and in Colorado, where Democratic Attorney General Ken Salazar is projected to beat beer magnate Pete Coors in the race to replace retiring Republican Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell. (Senate)

Those results, coupled with the projected Daschle loss in South Dakota, would give the Republicans a net gain of four seats, making the lineup in the new Senate 55 Republicans, 44 Democrats and one independent.

Daschle could be the first Senate party leader to lose his seat in 52 years.

In the battle for the 435 House seats, Republicans are projected to retain their majority, winning 230 seats -- a net gain of at least four seats. CNN projects Democrats with 202 seats and one independent. (House)

Two more seats will be decided in a Louisiana runoff in December.

GOP candidates are projected to pick up six Democratic seats -- five in Texas, where a controversial redistricting plan pushed by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay redrew the state's map to make it more Republican-friendly.

In addition, two other veteran Texas Democrats forced by the new map to run against Republican incumbents -- Reps. Charles Stenholm and Martin Frost -- also are projected to lose.

Democrats are projected to take a Republican seat in Illinois, where Melissa Bean defeated veteran GOP Rep. Phil Crane.

If projections hold, it will be the sixth consecutive election in which the GOP has held the majority.

Of the 11 gubernatorial races, close contests are expected in Missouri, New Hampshire and Washington.

In Indiana, CNN is projecting a big win for former Bush administration official Mitch Daniels over Indiana Gov. Joe Kernan.

Ballot measures
Six months after gay and lesbian couples won the right to marry in Massachusetts, opponents of same-sex marriage struck back Tuesday, with voters in 11 states projected to approve constitutional amendments codifying marriage as exclusively being between a man and a woman.

California voters, who faced 16 statewide ballot measures, are projected to pass a measure to establish a constitutional right to conduct research using stem cells and to authorize $3 billion for such research.

A ballot measure approving the use of marijuana for medical reasons is projected to pass in Montana.

Colorado voters are projected to reject a proposal to change its winner-take-all to allocated electoral votes for presidential candidates.

A Florida measure to require parental notification before minors can obtain an abortion is projected to passed.

Gambling is another hot ballot issue, with six states deciding 13 measures.

CNN's John King and Kelly Wallace contributed to this report.

---

posted 11-03-2004 12:49 PM                       

quote:

---

For those who voted, what type of ballot did you use? Boston recently switched from lever machines ("Automatic Voting Machine") to optical-scan paper ballots,

---

quote:

---

Standard voting machine
This voting machine was patented by inventor Alfred J. Gillespie and manufactured by the Standard Voting Machine Company of Rochester, New York, in the late 1890s. It was the first to use a voter-activated mechanism that drew a privacy curtain around the voter and simultaneously unlocked the machine's levers for voting. In 1898, Gillespie and inventor Jacob Myers, whose patents informed Gillespie's work, organized a company that became Automatic Voting Machine Company. Myers gave the first demonstration of a voting machine in an 1892 Lockport, New York, town election.

Automatic Voting Machine brochure
From 1898 through the early 1960s, the gear-and-lever voting machine was promoted as an ideal voting technology. Though its internal mechanism changed over the years, the machine's "three steps to vote" never changed:

Pull the handle to close the curtains of the booth.
Turn the voting levers over the names of your chosen candidates to expose the Xs.
Pull the handle back to register your vote and reopen the curtains.

New Yorker magazine cover
In this New Yorker magazine cover from 1956, election officials tally votes registered on the counters visible on the back of a gear-and-lever voting machine. These machines were last manufactured in 1985 and remain in statewide use in Louisiana and New York. They are being phased out under the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which provides aid to states to acquire new voting equipment.

---