This edition of election day hijinks is dedicated to Karl Rove, who thinks Obama won due to voter suppression. (And he suppressed the vote by…saying bad things about his opponent. I thought this was normally called campaigning?)
It appears there was an online attack on election day in Chicago which shut down the Chicago Board of Elections website–the website voters could use to find out which precinct they needed to go to in order to vote.
From the Chicago Tribune article:
“We are investigating the possibility that our website problems this morning were caused by a malicious attack,” said Langdon Neal, spokesman for the Chicago board of elections. “We were overwhelmed by hits, and we know that a significant portion of them did not come from individual voters asking to find their polling place.”
He said many of the requests appeared to be coming from computer servers
.
“We can tell by the way the requests are coming in and the volume….It’s behaving like a computer program and not like people with legitimate questions.”
And an interesting fact from Ezra Klein’s blog in the Washington Post:
Note that 16 percent of Obama voters had to wait longer than thirty minutes to vote Tuesday, versus only 9 percent of Romney voters, according to a survey by Hart Research.
In my own home state of Oregon, an election worker got in trouble for tampering with ballots. She just so happened to be a Romney supporter and was marking the ballots to invalidate Obama votes. Fascinating….since I thought the Democrats were the ones encouraging voter fraud.
Add to that the long lines and lack of early voting, most of it suspiciously focused on areas with high levels of Obama support…and the amazing thing is, we still won! Yeah, we Democrats have been in quite the self-congratulatory mood over the past few days. But if there was ever a time when we can congratulate ourselves for overcoming the odds, it would be now!
11/12/2012 at 4:52 pm
So ah Republican stooges invalidating ballots, eh? Denigrating the better half of the electorate? Pretending half the nation doesn’t exist and if it does they’re welfare cheats, homos, tax-dodgers, immigrants, communists, American-hating liberals, college educated elitists, Hollywood elitists, goddammit you name it. None of it is inclusive, kind, humane, caring, Christian (or Judeo-Christian), building, community-based or has the staying power to build a larger, more inclusive or stronger nation economically, socially or culturally. They point, they mock, they redistrict, they cut funds, they incarcerate, they start wars, they lie to themselves and lie to us, if not the rest of the world. I’m sick to death of listening to them cry Wolf!, of the fake War on Christmas, of Obama as a Socialist, or now the 20 small movements to secede from the Union. Reality says Obama and the Democrats inclusive message won. Percentages says it’s here to stay. Karl Rove’s time is over. Ralph Reed’s time is over. Dick Cheney’s time is over. American changed and they weren’t even paying attention. What more of an indictment of a bankrupt philosophy do you need than that?
11/12/2012 at 4:58 pm
Oh hey, you’re still here! So nice to see you! Do you still have your art blog, or are you posting exclusively on your new blog now (which I recall I had some trouble finding recently?)
And…it sounds like you’ve been reading the reaction to the election results too, then. Yep, they’re all seceding and buying lots of guns and ammo, so that, um…they can shoot all the gay welfare cheats? I’m not sure where it goes from there.
11/13/2012 at 12:04 pm
I put down The Devil for good, I thought, but now I’m reconsidering. I’m working in new mediums, and really beginning to push my content. Having a voice to tie things together was helpful in the past, might be helpful again.
Now off to read your current missive.
11/13/2012 at 6:26 pm
New mediums, eh? So no more text on canvas? Are we talking something completely divergent, or still built around a similar concept?
After reading your last blog about all that is going on in your life, I can understand why you might not have time for frequent blogging–I went through a phase like that this year. But a little update once in a while on the Devil would be nice, for those of us out there who are interested in following your work and how it develops.
11/18/2012 at 11:46 pm
Hey ok ch-ch-check out the new stuff on thedevil! Initial studies, yep, but part of a larger plan, unlike dear ol’ Mitt who never had a plan. David 1, Mitt 0.
11/21/2012 at 8:47 am
Just heard on the news today that the dude in Ohio (my home state) who is head of the electoral board (Husted?) wants to redistrict Ohio because he said that would have given Romney the majority of the electoral vote. What’s next: a poll tax?
One of the things I hope Democrats and righteous Republicans do over the next four years is work to crush voter suppression–period. Both parties should be coming up with ways to engage the public so that voting becomes a national priority (starting with the day off to vote so that people don’t miss work), because in the end this will benefit us all. In fact, our entire voting system should be nationalized (same up-to-date equipment, same availability to vote early, and same extended hours on voting day). I actually think the Republicans’ suppression attempts actually motivated people to vote–it certainly motivated them to stand in line 6, 7, and 8 hours.
11/21/2012 at 6:57 pm
Well, you know that those uppity “urban districts” got caught voting again! The nerve! I agree that making voting standardized and easier (including the day off!) should be a priority–but as long as the Republicans remain out of touch and their voter base keeps shrinking, I’m sure their goal will be to keep the rest of us from being able to vote. I’m just glad they failed this time.