Can Bernie Sanders Do An End Run Around Anti-Democracy Conservatives-- With A New National Holiday On Election Day?

Over the years there have been attempts to move election day to the weekends so that people who work for a living can actually vote without a lot of extra hassle. Louise Slaughter penned one last year. "Having Election Day on a Tuesday," she said at the time, "is an outdated requirement that simply does not comport with the schedules of modern Americans. Instituting weekend voting would make it easier and more convenient for Americans to exercise their right to vote, and would help reduce lines at the polls and increase voter turnout." Although many Republicans said they liked the idea, in the end Boehner buried the bill. House Republicans do all in their power to prevent working class Americans from voting-- and they always have (or at least conservatives always have). So Bernie Sanders decided to try something new.

His basic idea, which he introduced yesterday, is to keep election day on the first Tuesday of the month but to make that day a national holiday.  “In America," he said, "we should be celebrating our democracy and doing everything possible to make it easier for people to participate in the political process. Election Day should be a national holiday so that everyone has the time and opportunity to vote. While this would not be a cure-all, it would indicate a national commitment to create a more vibrant democracy." This is from the press release he sent out:

In Vermont, only 43.7 percent of registered voters cast ballots, the worst turnout on record, according to an Associated Press analysis. Nationwide, preliminary indications are that the total turnout was only 36.6 percent, according to the United States Elections Project at the University of Florida. The big drop-off from presidential election years was disproportionately greater among minorities and young people. Voters 18- to 29-years-old made up only 13 percent of those who went to the polls on Tuesday, according to exit polls. The same survey found that only 8 percent of Tuesday’s voters were Hispanics, far less than the Latino share of the population.

“We should not be satisfied with a ‘democracy’ in which more than 60 percent of our people don't vote and some 80 percent of young people and low-income Americans fail to vote. We can and must do better than that. While we must also focus on campaign finance reform and public funding of elections, establishing an Election Day holiday would be an important step forward.”

More Americans vote in presidential election years, but even typical turnouts of about 60 percent are “an international embarrassment” compared to other democracies, Sanders said. In Denmark, 80 percent turnout is normal. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance ranks the United States 120th in the world for average turnout.

Sanders said a national holiday would be just one step forward in attempting to strengthen American democracy. He has long advocated public funding of elections to blunt the impact of negative campaign ads bankrolled by billionaires and big corporations. He cosponsored a constitutional amendment to overturn the disastrous 2010 Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission that voided campaign funding limits.

Sanders also has criticized a wave of voter-suppression laws passed in states with Republican legislatures and governors. Reducing opportunities for early voting, making it harder to register to vote and requiring IDs all have discouraged participation in elections.

A BILL

To designate Federal election day as a public holiday.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the "Democracy Day Act of 2014".


SEC. 2. FEDERAL ELECTION DAY AS A PUBLIC HOLIDAY.

(a) IN GENERAL.-- Section 6103(a) of title 5, United States Code, is amended by inserting after the matter relating to Columbus Day, the following undesignated paragraph:

"Federal Election Day, the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November in each even-numbered year"

(b) CONFORMING AMENDMENT.-- Section 241(b) of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (52 U.S.C. 20981(b)) is amended--

(1) by striking paragraph (10); and

(2) by redesignating paragraphs (11) through (19) as paragraphs (10) through (18), respectively.

What's not to like? The Koch brothers will tell Republicans quickly, I'm sure. Here's how two very conservative Republicans see it:

Thank goodness THAT election is over! (What? For real? Are you SURE?)

"[A]t the age of thirty-seven, [Connaughton] joined Arnold & Porter and launched a new career: as a lobbyist.

"Connaughton's timing in politics hadn't been great, but in lobbying it was nearly perfect. In 1997, organizations were spending more than a billion dolars a year exercising their First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances. Within a decade, the figure was nearly three billion. . . ."

-- from George Packer's New Yorker profile of "Washington
Man" Jeff Connaughton in the Oct. 29 & Nov. 5 issue

by Ken

Phew! Thank goodness that election is over!

Really? It's not? You're sure about that? I must have entered the date wrong on my calendar. Oh fudge!

We'll get back to that, but first let me explain the quote above from George Packer's piece on Alabamian Jeff Connaughton, who worked his way up the lower ranks of the Washington bureaucracy dreaming of one day being "Joe Biden's man," which he sort of did, only the senator didn't quite seem to know about it, and finally drifted into the lobbying business, and finally drifted out of it and back into government and actually tried to do some financial reforming, but failed and eventually wound up writing the book The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins.

I haven't finished the piece yet. (Unfortunately only an abstract is available free online.) I've only just gotten to this part where Jeff does the drift into lobbying and suddenly, after scrounging at low-paying government jobs, finds himself raking in the moolah. And I stumbled across this passage, which stuck in my head for its connection to this horrible election that's just finally ended. Or, you know, almost.

A SYSTEM DESIGNED TO SUSTAIN ITSELF, AND IT DOES!

I know Howie is exhausted, probably more mentally than physically, from all his election-season activities. And while it's still possible that all the Blue America candidates will emerge triumphant tomorrow, and it will be a happy day indeed, it's also possible that not all of them will. And when we were chatting about this the other day, my mind immediately went to what it must be like for those fine folks, enduring the rigors of this horrible ordeal, in general for no better reason than that it's the right thing to do, because somebody has to do something to dislodge those horrible people they've been running against.

Going into Election Day -- as certain people are claiming we're only just about to do -- I instinctively flash ahead to the stupefying number of utterly abysmal people who are going to be doing victory dances at the end of the day. Oh sure, there are going to be some good people winning too. That's just a matter of numbers; there are bound to be some. But the system is totally weighted toward the election of those abysmal people. It's abysmal people who make the system, er, work.

That and money, in case I didn't mention it. Acres and acres and still more acres of money -- and that's just the daily haul.

But I know it's not just money. The people inside that system depend on a high level of maintenance of its existing abysmal people as well as a steady supply of new talent to replace those who have moved on to the lucrative echelons of the consulting and lobbying worlds, which are of course all part of the same system.

I know how frustrating it is to Howie that no one else seems interested in the ongoing story of how outfits like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) exists basically to fill that role: to protect its abysmal incumbents and cultivate the abysmal incumbents of the future. And not just to protect its own abysmal incumbents, but also those of that other party they have there in DC. So that not only does the DCCC take most unkindly to the thought of upgrading its own roster; it shudders at the idea of challenging the influential abysmals who sit on the other side of the aisle. Apparently that other party's Campaign Committee isn't thought to be entirely adequate to the job of precting its abysmals.

SAY, WHAT IS CHRIS "FATBOY" CHRISTIE RUNNING FOR?

For some reason, possibly storm-related, I've lately been watching more commercial TV with the commercials, rather than my usual practice of watching them via DVR with zapping capability. So I'm noticing the profusion of no doubt high-price spots bankrolled by right-wing high rollers fairly effectively crucifying the Obama administration, at least in the eyes of viewers who don't get that all those problems President Obama is being crucified for not solving are problems he inherited from the last president of that other party.

(Not to mention that that president and his staff did a lot of fibbing about the state of those problems the whole time they were packing up their secret decoder rings hoping to slip out of DC before anyone noticed the true scope of the catastrophe they were leaving behind, the rascals! But then, fibbing comes naturally to right-wingers. It's kind of like breathing for them.)

The adorable thing about those spots is that since they aren't actually campaign ads -- legally can't be campaign ads, I assume -- they not only don't but can't pursue the itty-bitty question of what the alternative to that wicked, ineffectual President Obama might be. As long as we viewers grasp the urgency of sending the Obama team packing, their legal requirements are satisfied -- and miraculously their job is done!

(On a more positive note, in that these spots actually tell us why we should vote for someone, there are the strange spots on behalf of NJ Gov. Chris "Fatboy" Christie, who was delivered unto earth inorder to save the earth, or anyways New Jersey, whichever came first. What's peculiar is that now we're duly primed to vote for Fatboy, it turns out that he isn't running for anything! Unless maybe it's President-in-Waiting Willard's new job next time around in the event that Willard doesn't get it this time around. And speaking of Fatboy, did you see those pix of him standing in profile alongside President Obama striking terror in the heart of his state's storm damage? My goodness, he's now absolutely round!)

AND WE OWE SO MUCH OF IT TO "SLOW ANTHONY" KENNEDY!

Of course you know all of this about the money and stuff -- the stuff mostly all coming back to the money. That reminds me of that comical Supreme Court decision in which our favorite justice, "Slow Anthony" Kennedy, announced that we didn't have to worry about any danger from allowing unlimited corporate contributions to campaigns, on account of how the money hasn't been show to have any noticeable corrupting effect on our elections! Can Slow Anthony kid, or what?

After tomorrow I'm imagining Slow Anthony writing a letter like this:

Cheef Justiss John Jacob Jinglehymer Roberts
Supreem Kort of the US of A
Washington DC

Deer Cheef,

So hows by you?

I regret to inform you Ive decided I hafta rezine on account of how Im too stoopid for the job.

See ya! And dont take no woodin nickles!

Yor frend,

"Slow Anthony" K

THE OTHER POSSIBILITY IS THAT SLOW ANTHONY . . .

. . . isn't so slow after all, but just thinks this whole monstrous political system we've developed really isn't corrupt. It's just bizniz as yewzhal heer in the US of A.

#

Special Edition: Election Wrap-Up

Yesterday was something like a mini-dress rehearsal for the momentous elections coming up in 364 days, the first Tuesday of November, 2012, in which voters will pick between a mainstream conservative and a right-wing extremist for president-- and have the opportunity to elect progressives in both chambers or switch party dominance of both or either house. Yesterday wasn't that dramatic. But it was dramatic. Especially in Ohio.

Although the biggest election in the state was to pick a mayor for Columbus-- incumbent Michael Coleman (D) was reelected over Republican Earl Smith 72-28%-- the real action was a statewide ballot measure-- much hated Governor John Kasich's anti-union Issue 2. Despite massive amounts of money spent by billionaire fascists David and Charles Koch and their front groups and allies, the measure was soundly defeated 62-38%. More votes were cast yesterday to defeat #issue2 than were cast to elect Kasich governor last year. Even staunchly Republican Butler Co., the north Cinci suburbs that keep reelecting Boehner, turned on Kasich and gave the No on 2 a healthy 58-42% margin. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka was pretty jubilant:

One message rang loud and clear tonight in Ohio and across the country: those who spend their time scapegoating workers and pushing a partisan agenda will only strengthen the resolve of working people. From the very beginning, it’s been clear that Gov. Kasich, and indeed many politicians, were pushing an agenda that was about politics, not about solving our nation’s problems or creating jobs.

Today’s defeat of Issue 2 is a major victory for working families in Ohio and across the country. Ohio’s working people successfully fought back against lies pushed by shadowy multi-national corporations and their anonymous front groups that attempted to scapegoat public service employees and everyone they serve by assaulting collective bargaining rights. And it’s a great day for common sense, as Ohioans from all backgrounds and political parties rejected the crazy notion that the 99 percent-- nurses, bridge inspectors, firefighters, and social workers-- caused the economic collapse, rather than Wall Street.

Politicians in Ohio and across the country should finally understand that working people will fight hard to ensure the survival of the middle class, and politicians who fight battles for the richest 1% will find their radical efforts stopped by the voices of working people.

Let's hope Obama's campaign and the idiots at the DCCC and DSCC draw the right conclusions. The massive victory in Ohio last night wasn't a Democratic Party victory; it was a democratic 99% victory. If the Democratic Party wants to be part of that, it isn't too late for most of them... I don't think. If they think the enthusiasm for voting yesterday had anything to do with embracing their corrupt, conflicted and pathetic party, they're likely to be as disappointed next year as they were last year. People hate the Democrats; they just hate them less than the Republicans. Both parties are basically contemptible, with unbelievably bad leadership. The whole country would be better off if the parties' leaders were all put on trial for corruption and... dealt with appropriately.

The other two important ballot measures yesterday were in Maine-- to restore same day voter registration that the GOP abolished-- and Mississippi's insane Initiative 26, the so-called "personhood" law that defines a sperm and an egg as a legal human being from the moment of fertilization. Both the Democratic and Republican candidates for governor endorsed the controversial and clearly unconstitutional Personhood thing but it lost anyway (58-42%), extremism getting smacked with a rolled up newspaper across the snout even in backward, ignorant, superstitious Mississippi. In Maine, despite big last-minute spending by teabag Gov. Paul LePage supporters (as well as the crazy, inflammatory attacks that are always associated with right-wing extremism), same day voters registration was restored 60-40%.

Constitutional officers were elected in Kentucky and Mississippi. There were no blue to red or red to blue changes in Kentucky-- Democrats for Governor (56% for Steve Beshear), Attorney General (55% for Jack Conway), Auditor, Secretary of State, and Treasurer and the Republican was elected Agriculture Commissioner. Mississippi was the mirror image of what happened in Kentucky. Republicans won all the statewide races except that the incumbent Attorney General was reelected.

Mississippi, New Jersey and Virginia also had state legislative races. It's irrelevant to discuss Mississippi because there's no Democratic party just an out-and-out fascist GOP and a nearly as bad entity that calls itself a Democratic Party. Going into the day, the Republicans controlled the state Senate 27-25 and the so-called Democrats controlled the House 68-54. The Republicans won more than enough "Democratic" seats in the House to now be in control of the whole government-- Executive mansion, Senate and House. It doesn't matter. The state is getting exactly what they think they want.

Democrats controlled both houses of the New Jersey legislature-- the Senate 24-16 and the Assembly 47-33. The Democrats increased their hold slightly, despite a major effort-- ignored-- by Chris Christie. The loud-mouthed fat man lost an "Assembly seat, as a Democratic candidate from Gloucester Township, Gabriela Mosquera, won an open contest for a seat previously held by a Republican, in a district that was redrawn to exclude the incumbent’s home."

Virginia, which will be key for Obama next year, went badly. The Democrats lost their bare 22-18 seat control of the state Senate and the Republicans retained their control of the House. A very radical right GOP now has complete control over the state government and will likely make immediate moves against democratic institutions, particularly voting rights. This was really the worst news of the night.

In Wisconsin, Democrats fought to hold onto the La Crosse Assembly seat now that Jen Shilling has been elected to the state Senate. And they did-- by a much better margin than anyone had dared hope for. Democrat Jill Billings beat reactionary Republican Dave Dewes better than two to one-- 5,938 to 2,247.

The race we've been talking about the most, though, was a special election to fill the open seat in Iowa's 18th senatorial district. Democrat Liz Mathis beat Republican Cindy Golding, 55.8-43.5%, saving the Senate-- and the entire Iowa state government-- from right-wing extremist domination. The large margin of victory was in great part due to the incredible work Progressive Kick did on absentee ballots. 50.4% came in from Democrats and 27.2% came in from Republicans. In the end, though Mathis won just about everywhere, Iowans having contemplated what happens when Republicans get complete control on any government.


Arizona fascist buffoon Russell Pearce, the embarrassing state Senate president, was recalled and replaced by a more mainstream Republican Jerry Lewis. Lewis beat the detested Pearce 53-45% despite having been outspent by Pearce 3-1. And that wasn't the only good news in Arizona. For the first time in a generation, there will be Democratic mayors in both Phoenix and Tucson, respectively Greg Stanton and Jonathan Rothschild.

In New York, Erie County Executive Chris Collins (R) was defeated in his reelection bid by Democrat Mark Poloncarz, 53-47%, a big and unexpected shakeup for the GOP. And at the extreme other end of the state Suffolk County elected Democrat Steve Bellone over Republican Angie Carpenter (57-43%), also a surprise outcome. And in Michigan, anti-education and anti-gay wingnut state Rep. Paul Scott (R), a Michelle Rhee protege (she wasted $200,000 trying to prop him up) was recalled, largely by the efforts of angry school teachers and parents.

The last race of the night saw Suzanne Bonamici, the worst of the three Democrats running to replace David Wu, win her party's nomination. She'll be facing perennial candidate and right-wing crackpot Rob Cornilles in January for the remainder of Wu's term.

Are there winners on this Election Day? I don't know, but there sure are a lot of losers

The Coney Island subway yard seemed a much happier election evening destination than the traditional tubeside Election Night vigil.

"[I]t was revealed last week (by David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former reporter for The New York Times) that the incomes of the very highest earners in the United States, a small group of individuals hauling in more than $50 million annually (sometimes much more), increased fivefold from 2008 to 2009, even as the nation was being rocked by the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
"Last year was a terrific year for those at the very top. Professors Hacker and Pierson note in their book that investors and executives at the nation’s 38 largest companies earned a stunning total of $140 billion -- a record. The investment firm Goldman Sachs paid bonuses to its employees that averaged nearly $600,000 per person, its best year since it was founded in 1869."

-- Bob Herbert, referencing the book Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer -- and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class by Jacob Hacker of Yale and Paul Pierson of Berkeley in his NYT column today, "Fast Track to Inequality"

"This is the essence of an economy that has broken down, where people become desperate, where they do things to preserve their lives and their families they wouldn't normally do. For a great number of Americans out there, it's everyday reality. And the new regime that swept into power on January 20, 2009 has not materially changed their circumstances."

--David Dayen, in an FDL post today telling "The Story of the Election"

by Ken

Happily, I'm going to be otherwise occupied this evening. Other-than-election-result-watching, I mean.

I wish I could credit myself with smart planning, but sometimes the smarter things I do are done with a minimum of thinking. The New York Transit Museum tour of the massive Coney Island subway yard was offered on two different dates, which only recently occurred to me represented a choice between the evenings of Election Day and Pearl Harbor Day. I really wasn't weighing the relative disaster content of the two dates, or the freshness of those disasters. As best I can remember, I simply picked the earlier date. Now I'm pretty happy about the timing, which has turned out unintentionally smart.

I'll have to leave work a little early to trek out to Coney Island in time for the start of the tour. Afterward, it's a long schlepp home to (way) Upper Manhattan, and I won't be rushing it. Since I'll be in Brooklyn anyway, I thought of stopping off on that long way back to join the local contingent of Drinking Liberally who'll be gathering at Fourth Avenue Pub (76 Fourth Avenue), but now I don't think so. 

If I do any stopping off to break up the long trip, it's likelier to be non-election-related, preferably election-proof -- i.e., no place where there's apt to be a TV or radio playing. And when I do get home, I'm going to try to focus on the accumulation of unwatched TV treasures on the DVR. Maybe take a look at this newfangled Sherlock Holmes thing.

It's not, after all, as if the election is going to go away. It'll still all be there when I decide I'm ready to deal with it, and by then, with luck, we'll actually know what's what, more or less, and I'll spare myself those long, awful hours of making believe that stuff is "happening," when all that's really happening is that they're counting votes that have already been cast.

This election has me pretty worked up, partly of course the unnecessarily stupid and hard-to-defend position the lordly ranks of the Democratic Party have put us in, having to defend a whole host of policy decisions and nondecisions we've been screaming bloody murder about the whole time. But more because of the utter depravity and delusionality of the marching forces of right-wing hooliganism and delusion. It's hard to control my rage that all over the country people who should be in prisons or mental institutions, people who should be spat upon by anyone with a modicum of sense or decency, are poised to be elected to positions they will disgrace. What kind of country has a half-electorate who would even think about voting for such degraded specimens of humanity?

In this mood maybe the last thing I needed was Bob Herbert's NYT column today, taking off from Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson's book Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer -- and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class (all emphasis added):

"Over the last generation," the authors write, "more and more of the rewards of growth have gone to the rich and superrich. The rest of America, from the poor through the upper middle class, has fallen further and further behind." . . .

Something has gone seriously haywire in the distribution of the fruits of the American economy.

This unfortunate shift away from a long period of more widely shared prosperity unfolded steadily, year after year since the late-'70s, whether Democrats or Republicans controlled the levers of power in Washington. "Winner-Take-All Politics" explores the vexing question of how this could have happened in a democracy in which -- in theory, at least -- the enormous number of voters who are not rich would serve as a check on policies that curtailed their own economic opportunities while at the same time supercharging the benefits of the runaway rich.

The answer becomes clearer when one recognizes, as the book stresses, that politics is largely about organized combat. It's a form of warfare. "It's a contest," said Professor Pierson, "between those who are organized, who can really monitor what government is doing in a very complicated world and bring pressure effectively to bear on politicians. Voters in that kind of system are at a disadvantage when there aren't reliable, organized groups representing them that have clout and can effectively communicate to them what is going on."

The book describes an "organizational revolution" that took place over the past three decades in which big business mobilized on an enormous scale to become much more active in Washington, cultivating politicians in both parties and fighting fiercely to achieve shared political goals. This occurred at the same time that organized labor, the most effective force fighting on behalf of the middle class and other working Americans, was caught in a devastating spiral of decline.

Thus, the counterweight of labor to the ever-increasing political clout of big business was effectively lost.

'We're not arguing that globalization and technological change don't matter,' said Professor Hacker. 'But they aren't by any means a sufficient explanation for this massive change in the distribution of wealth and income in the U.S. Much more important are the ways in which government has shaped the economy over this period through deregulation, through changes in industrial relations policies affecting labor unions, through corporate governance policies that have allowed C.E.O.'s to basically set their own pay, and so on.'

This hyperconcentration of wealth and income, and the overwhelming political clout it has put into the hands of the monied interests, has drastically eroded the capacity of government to respond to the needs of the middle class and others of modest income.

Nothing better illustrates the enormous power that has accrued to this tiny sliver of the population than its continued ability to thrive and prosper despite the Great Recession that was largely the result of their winner-take-all policies, and that has had such a disastrous effect on so many other Americans.

Still and all, how can it be that so many people are prepared to vote for candidates who by hook or by crook are witting or unwitting creatures of the oligarchy that feeds off the rest of us?

But somewhere in there I read our friend David Dayen's post this morning at FDL, in which he references Zaid Jilani's ThinkProgress account of Jennifer Cline, a Michigan woman "lucky" enough to receive a hand-written note from the president (links onsite).

In January of this year, Obama read a letter from Jennifer Cline, a 28-year-old woman living in Monroe, Michigan. Cline informed Obama that she and her husband had both lost their jobs in 2007 and fallen on hard times as a result. "I lost my job, my health benefits and my self-worth in a matter of five days," she wrote. Following the loss of her job, Cline "was diagnosed with two types of skin cancer, and she had no health insurance. She signed up for Medicaid, and treatment was successful. She went back to college after her unemployment benefit was extended." She hoped that in "just a couple of years we will be in a great spot."

After reading the letter, Obama chose to reply with a handwritten note on White House stationary. He wrote, "Thanks for the very kind and inspiring letter. I know times are tough, but knowing there are folks out there like you and your husband gives me confidence that things will keep getting better!"

But things, unfortunately, did not get better. Crunched by the costs of a down payment on her home and cancer treatments, Cline has been forced to sell her letter from the president to earn some money. She is selling the letter to autograph dealer Gary Zimet for $7,000, who will then sell it on his website momentsintime.com, which markets autographs.

D-Day comments in his post (again, links onsite):

Jennifer Cline is selling the letter to pay for a mortgage payment and medical bills. She got the help she needed from the President, in a manner of thinking, but not nearly the way she wanted to. Her hope had to turn into currency, the belief in a President turned into raw commerce.

Zaid Jilani adds that Cline's circumstances are not unique. Cline fares better than most in this economy because at least she came into possession of something of value to sell. For many others, it's their most cherished longtime assets, the last items they can scrape together, that comprise what they can exchange for money to keep them going. This is the essence of an economy that has broken down, where people become desperate, where they do things to preserve their lives and their families they wouldn't normally do. For a great number of Americans out there, it's everyday reality. And the new regime that swept into power on January 20, 2009 has not materially changed their circumstances.

Obama's done some things and it's important not to lose sight of them. But outside the political junkie class, he is measured on whether he brought a positive development in the lives of the great mass of people. Unfortunately, people are still unemployed, they're still losing their homes, they're still getting screwed by their loan servicers and they still have little recourse in bankruptcy. They are on the brink; their sacrifice and their struggle demands an overwhelming policy response. They got tinkering around the edges.

We did get our first "blame the whiny Left" column today, and I eagerly anticipate many more. But that's a stupid debate among elites. You can blame the lack of material economic improvements for the circumstances that occur today. Some of these were because of the depths of the crisis, some because of serious policy misjudgments, some because of an unwillingness to take on the forces of power who caused the problem. But it's this truth, the story of Jennifer Cline and her struggle to survive, that has brought us to this point.

People in Jennifer Cline's position are seriously kidding themselves if they imagine that voting for Republicans will help them. But it's not hard to understand why they would think long and hard before voting for Democrats.

#

New York State report: Election Day in the Empire State goes electronic, and the natives are restless

Mayor Mike summed up the reports he heard today about New York's brave new world of electronic voting as "a royal screwup."

by Ken

We probably all have elections on our mind, so this seems no time to continue with the late Tony Judt's late thoughts about the lengths to which smart people will go to avoid having to think for themselves. Pencil that in for tomorrow.

As Noah reported recently, today's statewide primary is a watershed election in New York State, as we discard our rusty old mechanical manual voting machines, which I believe were put into service when Alexander Hamilton was the big name in state politics, in favor of an electronic system, under the compulsion of federal electoral "reform" law aimed at proving that by golly we can do worse than the Florida hanging-chad horrors of 2000.

The new system worked -- for the lucky ones among us -- pretty much the way it had been described. When you check in at your poll site you're given a paper ballot (as I understand it, by state law the entire ballot is going to have to fit on the two sides of this not-very-larg page, which was fine for the limited choices of a primary but is going to be sorely tested with the infinity of races and parties and ballot propositions that make up the typical general-election ballot -- though in fairness this wasn't exactly easy to follow on the old machines), which you then take to a "privacy booth," where you completely fill in a tiny oval for each of your choices, after which you wait in line for an available scanner (the availability of scanners at polling sites was a source of considerable controversy among today's voters), stick the page in, and if it doesn't recognize any problems with the ballot, your vote is (presumably) counted.

This afternoon Noah passed along this link from the Daily News:

Sen. Charles Schumer fumes after new voting system fails at his local polling place in Brooklyn

BY CELESTE KATZ
DAILY NEWS POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

Tuesday, September 14th 2010, 10:51 AM

Sen. Chuck Schumer allegedly had trouble Tuesday at his Primary Day polling place with the new voting machines (seen below).

Apparently even Sen. Chuck Schumer isn't immune to the pitfalls of the new voting system.

What the hElmo is going on with these voting machines?

A party insider told me Schumer showed up at his polling place, P.S. 321 in Park Slope, Brooklyn, at 5:55 a.m.

"They don't open the polling place until 6:10... They can't figure out how to open the machine and he is, like, screaming at the staff that he wants to vote," the insider said.

Another source said, "First, the site opened late. Second, the room was in a different location. Third, there were only 2 machines, and workers told him there were supposed to be 8. And 4th, the machines did not boot-up on time."

There was some dispute about whether the senior senator had to vote by emergency or regular ballot, but his office says he was (finally) able to vote by regular ballot.

Schumer's not the only one having trouble:

A voter wrote to me:

"Voted on Long Island, in Suffolk. Got to my polling place a few minutes after six. None of the new voting booths were working. Poll workers had no idea where to find the paper ballots that are supposed to be used for backup.

Watching the poll workers was like watching your grandparents try to work a VCR for the first time. They were all confused and yelling at each other. I was the second voter in my election district, and it took me 35 minutes to cast my ballot because they didn't know what they should be doing. It's a good thing they have 15 hours to try to figure it out."

I led off my response to Noah: "My question is: Would our Chucky have behaved better or worse if there'd been cameras present?" We know the sight of a camera, especially a video one, shoots Chucky instantly into high performance mode.

After a day of politics-free toil, and a couple of hours of transit agony (don't ask) I got home way late this evening, and after flipping on the Yankee game and seeing the Yanks (mired in a four-game losing streak) increase a 2-0 lead over the (snarl) now-first-place Tampa Bay Rays to 4-0, felt safe to switch to our local cable news channel to see what they're reporting about the day's political doings.

I was greeted by a distressed Mayor Bloomberg railing for the cameras about the widespread reports around the city of problems with the new machines. It all sounded to him, he said, like "a royal screwup," which he judges "completely unacceptable," Back in the studio, guest Liz Benjamin, the Daily News's ace political reporter, who of course spent the day tracking voting reports, pointed out that the mayor has had seriously strained relations with the city Board of Elections for some time. She suggested, though, that "these voting machines could eventually turn out to be a really big problem," raising the possibility that with many close races today, and with so much of the day's voting in such a state of flux, we may not necessarily have results tonight. (The polls don't even close for -- as I write -- another 12 minutes.)

For the rest, here's the rest of what I wrote to Noah this afternoon:

I had no problem to speak of this morning, but luckily my polling place is pretty sleepy (only two EDs).

I actually read through three long pages of reader experiences on the NYT blog. Geographic distribution was interesting: Don't recall a single one from Queens or Staten Island, and the only one from the Bronx I recall was Spuyten Duyvil, which is barely the Bronx, but a fair number of Brooklynites -- mostly the downtownish gentrified areas like Park Slope, where there do seem to have bee a lot of problems just getting voting started, with polling sites not open and/or functional till after 8am (instead of 6am) or even, so it's claimed, 9:30am. Apparently sites with 5 or 6 EDs had to make do with two scanners, with lots of scanners breaking down.

There seems to be a diversity of opinion about how the ballot has to be inserted in the scanner, where my pre-election info was expressly that you could insert it any which way. But then, I could swear I'd read that when your ballot was scanned you got some sort of printout to check. All I got was the machine flashing that my vote had been counted. Robert Benchley once wrote (more or less) that he would believe anything that was said to him with a friendly smile; I wonder whether this would have qualified.

I'm fascinated by how many people are freaked out by the fact that in the course of the process somebody might SEE their ballot, thereby nullifying the concept of the secret ballot. I mean, I'm a big fan of the concept, and yeah, I worried a little about my ballot being seen during the march to the scanner, but ferchrissakes, the possibility that the person behind you in the scanner line or the election worker might catch a glimpse of your ballot is truly not the same thing as being in Soviet Russia. Really now, like as if anybody at your polling place gives a friggin' damn who you voted for! (Maybe those people had cast write-in-votes for Hitler or Mussolini?)

After all the warnings about tiny type, I was relieved to find I had no problem reading the ballot, and my vision ain't great. Of course we should also remember how small this ballot was compared with a normal NYS general election, and my understanding is that by state law the ballot has to fit on two sides of that sheet.

I'm not so sentimental about the old machines, which broke down plenty, and never left me feeling all that confident that I'd completeld the process correctly, or that my various votes had been counted. (It always struck me as dead wrong that the very first thing you had to do when you went in the booth was to pull the giant lever all the way across the width of the booth. And even after I did it, I was sure most every time that I'd done it wrong.)

All in all, given the many ways in which this system is subject to breakdown, it's hard to believe that the results are going to be more accurate than our sad old machines -- left over from the Age of the Dinosaurs -- were.

Well, I guess we'll see what we'll see.


UPDATE: I checked back into the Yankees-Rays game to find the Yanks ahead 6-1, briefly -- in short order the Rays completed a seven-run fifth inning to take a 7-6 lead. I'm not sure I'm up to this.

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Why this primary day matters (P.S.: If you live in NYS, be sure to vote for Eric Schneiderman for AG)

Candidates like Eric Schneiderman, who's vying for the Democratic nomination for New York State attorney general, candidates who are emphatically not the proverbial "lesser of two evils," are the reason this election cycle matters.

by Ken

I'm sure regular readers have noticed that I'm happy to leave the candidate vetting to Howie, because this is one of the things he does so indefatigably and well. I just do my best to keep up.

And I hope everyone realizes why it's so important.

We've devoted a frustrating amount of attention to the raging controversy over where we on the Left should be positioning ourselves in the raging war between the Obama administration and its increasingly loony, ignorant enemies on the Far Right. Are the far-right loonies worse than the Obamanauts? Of course. It's hard to think of anything seriously worse than the loonies.

Still, there's a case to be made that the reigning cabal of hopeless, gutless corporate-shill fake-"centrist" right-wing Dems is literally incorrigible, and there's no solution but to let the bums be thrown out of power. I can't say I'm comfortable with the case, but I see the logic. While the "centrist" Dems may offer a less extreme form of right-wing governance, there is no path from its unapologetic embrace of our megacorporate masters to any kind of truly progressive alternative. After all, the New Democrats, of whom the president is the most august exemplar, consider us on the Left almost as much the enemy as the Right. Indeed the president often seems to have warmer feelings for, not to mention a greater willingness to accommodate, the Right. So maybe they need to be purged, with the hope that we can then work like heck to shift the balance of power to something more sane and workable. (Disastrous as our last experience of unabashed right-wing governance was, it was candidate and then President Obama who explicitly rejected the opportunity to use it as a teaching moment for the evils of right-wing governance.)

The objections are obvious: (1) Can we, can the country, survive the punishment to be inflicted by the loony Republicans who may take over one or both houses of Congress this year and the White House in 2012? (2) The record for such ideological rejuvenation after defeat isn't good, and we already know that the lesson that will be drawn from Democratic electoral defeats in November ise the opposite of the reality, that those defeats will be blamed on the nonsensical idea that the party "moved too far left" rather than the reality, that it wallowed too unconcernedly in the mire of quasi-Republicanism.

THERE'S ONE THING WE DEFINITELY CAN DO

I think we're all only too familiar with the arguments both ways. It seems pretty futile either way. But one thing we can do is everything possible to elect better people everywhere and at every level where they're running, and trying to make sure that it isn't necessary for a good candidate to be a docile pawn of the retrogressive party machinery.

Of course we can never be sure what we're getting from campaign rhetoric and promises. But Howie and our Blue America colleagues Digby and John Amato have gotten better at each time out is sniffing out mere campaign rhetoric and improving the odds that the people they give the thumbs-up are going to improve our body politic. Hasn't Alan Grayson shown us what a difference one person of real conviction and courage can make in the House of Representatives? Do we really need more Heath Shulers?

(Thhis seems an obvious moment to throw in a link to the Blue America '10 webpage, where you can review the candidates who've already gotten the Blue America thumbs-up, and have an opportunity to help their fights.)

WHICH BRINGS ME BACK TO NEW YORK STATE

There was some good news in the all-but-certain Democratic gubernatorial candidate and all-but-certain next governor Andrew Cuomo has agreed to accept the endorsement of the Working Families Party, which has played such a valuable role in steering the state Democratic Party in a progressive direction. Unfortunately, the price was the WFP's acceptance of the whole of Cuomo's "New New York Agenda," which includes a fair amount of distinctly unprogressive-sounding "tough guy" talk. But there's no way the WFP could have found a candidate capable of drawing the 50,000 votes statewide needed to keep it on state ballots until the next gubernatorial election.

The race everyone's watching, though, is the crowded Democratic field for the nomination to succeed Cuomo as state attorney general. There are several quite presentable candidates among them, but naturally the best-financed of them is also the least persuasive, Nassau County DA Kathleen Rice (who rather picturesquely couldn't be troubled to vote until she was 37).

For me the choice is simple, though. The name of Eric Schneiderman (who happens to be my state senator) is familiar to DWT readers. His entire career has shown him to be a tireless battler to change our political system from within into something responsive to the needs of the people. He really is that "better candidate" we need to be on the lookout for.

One of my most tireless progressive friends, Elana Levin, makes this case for Schneiderman in an e-mail she's not only allowing but encouraging everyone to circulate:

Vote Eric Schneiderman for NY Attorney General

“You don’t beat a movement through triangulation, you beat a movement with another movement,” said Eric Schneiderman to me in 2004. Eric is probably my favorite elected official at any level. Currently state senator from the Upper West Side and Washington Heights, Eric has been the brains behind almost every piece of progressive legislation that made it through our f-ed up state government.

• Eric’s ended a disgusting health insurance loophole that let insurers drop sick people.

• He took the lead in supporting LGBTQ Marriage in NYC (and has the endorsements to prove it).

• Eric ended prison-based gerrymandering that hurts urban communities (that NYT editorial explains the bill which Eric pushed through for years and won).

• Eric got Hiram Monserrate, the corrupt state senator who slashed his girlfriend’s face and led the destructive Albany coup, kicked out of office.

He has the NYT endorsement, and even more articulate is The Nation’s endorsement. Eric is the most progressive and most reform-minded candidate. He is polling ahead, but by a nose, so we really need your vote.

Eric is supported by the leading anti-political corruption group, Citizens Union. From the moment he took office in the State Senate he pushed so strongly against corruption that BOTH political parties went after him. They actually tried to gerrymander him out of his district by making it majority Latino.

Guess what? Schneiderman learned Spanish, engaged with that community on the issues rather than pandering to identity politics and he won! The political bosses running Albany got so petty they refused to give his staff office supplies in his office at the Capitol.

You KNOW the guy’s a reformer when that happens.

Not only does Eric get important policy passe,d he gets the big picture of how to create progressive change in America. Read the opinion piece he wrote for more on ending “checklst” politics.

Finally, one of the women I respect most in politics and activism is Debra Cooper, on the board of NY NARAL. She wrote a great letter on why women and feminists should support him that I posted to Facebook.

Populist pundit David Sirota’s post "Eric Schneiderman & the Progressive Movement's Carpe Diem Opportunity on September 14th" is here.

Well said, Elana!

In so many contests across the country, both primaries and the November general election, we're going to be put in the position of holding our noses and voting for that proverbial lesser of two evils. In the AG primary we're in the situation of having several candidates a lot of us could vote for in good conscience under other circumstances, but when a candidate like Schneiderman is presented who has established that he's the real deal, someone to vote for with confident enthusiasm, well, we just have to vote for him.

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By One Blog Post

Darcy Burner voted this morning-- pic courtesy of NPI

Lately, every time Roland comes over after work he says something to the effect of "Jesus, you look like a wreck." And I do. I haven't shaved in weeks and my hair is an overgrown horror show. After I swim in the morning and hike I don't get away from my computer until it's a dire necessity-- and for as short a time as I can. I mean what if Darcy Burner or Larry Kissell or Alan Grayson or Jeff Merkley loses by one... blog post!

Today is very calm. Everything's pretty much done-- at least as far as what I can do. I just got back from voting. Ten machines, no real line to speak of, very smooth and easy. I decided to drive to my barbershop and get a haircut. Slow day, unless you want to bother with the psychopaths. On the way I passed two polling places in poor neighborhoods with huge lines down the street. I didn't get a shave; I want the beard so I have even a chance of getting into the closed-to-the-infidels ancient mud mosque in Djenne when I visit Mali in a few weeks.

Other than voting and the haircut, the most useful thing I did today was register my cell phone so that telemarketers can't call it. The Do Not Call Registry is at 888-382-1222. It takes 60 seconds to complete.

Biggest news so far today comes from someone I rarely admire but who sure rubbed some shit in the far right's face today.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday defended the so-called Fairness Doctrine in an interview on Fox News, saying, “I think we should all be fair and balanced, don’t you?”

Schumer’s comments echo other Democrats’ views on reviving the Fairness Doctrine, which would require radio stations to balance conservative hosts with liberal ones.

Another Democrat I don't always see eye to eye with is Dianne Feinstein, who explained it even better: “I believe very strongly that the airwaves are public and people use these airwaves for profit. But there is a responsibility to see that both sides and not just one side of the big public questions of debate of the day are aired and are aired with some modicum of fairness.”

Yes, as Bush reminded us, there are consequences to elections. That's democracy.