A happy little bumper sticker is making its way around the interwebs, thanks to those of us who are immensely displeased with both McCain and Obama.
Case in point! Reports are coming in from Pennsylvania of Republican election judges being expelled from polling places. Let’s be clear: most of the polling judges in every polling place in the country are registered to one political party or another. Rules are in place for many counties about the need for equal distribution of party presence. Most election judges are not aware of court rulings protect their positions. Man. At the 2004 election for which I worked the polls in Greene County (the Republic poll), my job was to verify voter identification and that they were at the correct polling place. Essentially, I helped the ignorant and stopped the crooks. We had both. I stayed overtime in order to help complete the human counting process (humans count the number or ballots received, machines count the specific votes cast). Four elderly individuals were the election judges for that location and year. They would count up to about 50-70 ballots out of the hundreds and hundreds received, and then they’d lose count. They eventually accepted my “how clever!” system of counting stacks of 10 into 100, and then counting the stacks of 100. They were, for the most part, very sweet… but it’s the sort of environment in which a single bold individual can step in, take charge, and twist the process into criminal activity.
This is the election crap that happens here in Latin America, folks. Do you really want it in the States? All parties should be deeply offended by this behavior, and both McCain and Obama should call for the votes in these polling places to be fully discarded.