Voting Seems Overwhelming In Real America-- In Palin Country... Not So Much

Coleen Rowley sent me this from Minnesota

I heard a report on the radio at around 11am confirming that voting in L.A. County was up over 2 or 3% what it had been at that time in 2004. And The Hill is anticipating record turnout in the battleground states, especially in Ohio, Virginia and Florida, three states that went for Bush that seem to be ready to put Obama over the top. And the NY Times is reporting long lines, some glitches and Republican monkey business.

The Ohio Republican Party re-filed a lawsuit it previously dropped against the Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, claiming that she has not done enough to ensure that provisional ballots are counted properly and uniformly in all counties across the state.

Ohio State University law professor Edward Foley, an election law specialist, said the lawsuit was a placeholder to be used by the Republicans to challenge the final results if the outcome in Ohio is close, using the Bush v. Gore decision by the Supreme Court in 2000.

“They are specifically relying on Bush v. Gore and 14th Amendment and claiming that Secretary Brunner’s rules in handling provisional and absentee ballots are not uniform throughout the state of Ohio,” said Mr. Foley. “This new filing appears to be an effort by the Republicans to have the process for verifying provisional ballots be handled in their own lawsuit rather than another lawsuit filed by an advocacy group for the homeless.”

In Virginia, Mr. McCain’s campaign filed a lawsuit Monday asking a federal judge to order the Virginia election board to count ballots from overseas military personnel until Nov. 14, a 10-day extension that the campaign said is necessary because ballots were distributed late.

And so on. But mostly what I'm hearing about from every source is a gigantic outpouring of Americans eager to be part of the new day dawning, eager to be part of ending the national nightmare of George W. Bush. Sure, the thoroughly discredited hysterical psychopaths on the fringes of the far right are barking at each other with their ridiculous stories about Republicans being intimidated at the polls, but no one believes anything they say-- and with good reason.

I just had a report from deep inside one of the reddest areas of the Old Confederacy. A friend has been driving around Roswell Georgia in Northern Fulton County, a place best known for a UFO sight in 1979, presumably by Martians with a poor sense of direction or an inability to distinguish between New Mexico and Georgia. Tom Price, one of the worst of the Georgia right-wing extremists, represents the area in Congress. My friend has been driving around the reddest parts of the area and he reports that "the polling places are virtually empty. Judging from the few McCain-Palin signs in yards, there's a dramatic change from 2004 where W stickers were on nearly every car... there is little mention of Republicans now." People in his office told him that in rural white Georgia, places like Dawsonville, Ball Ground, Cumming, and most of northern Cherokee County "the polling places are as empty as they've ever been." Exactly what Saxby Chambliss was afraid would happen!

Of course, on the right they're seeing things through their own KKK-tinted glasses as little Jonah explains.