Election 2006
Speaker Pelosi's hour arrives
Editorial
San Francisco Chronicle
Thursday, January 4, 2007
NANCY PELOSI'S election as speaker of the House will bring a moment of history today, to be followed by 100 hours of furious legislative activity.
First, let's pause to recognize the historic significance of the first woman and first Californian to assume a position that will put her second in succession to the presidency of the United States.
Comic echo of 2000 election -- it's not funny
By CARL HIAASEN
MiamiHerald.com
Sun, Dec. 17, 2006
The first time I tried a touch-screen voting machine was Nov. 7. It was not an experience that inspired confidence.
When I pressed a finger down to select my choice for governor, a mark appeared beside the name of a different candidate at the bottom of the list. A poll worker insisted that the device was working properly, and suggested that I'd accidentally touched it in the wrong place with my ``wrist.''
I'd done no such thing. The machine screwed up.
I hit another command to nullify the wrong vote, corrected it and moved on through the remainder of the ballot. After I finished, the machine allowed me to re-check all my selections to make sure they were right.
Whether or not the votes actually were recorded that way, I'll never know. No paper receipt was provided.
Analysis: Ballots favored Dems
ELECTION 2006: SARASOTA RECOUNT
Analysis: Ballots favored Dems
Sarasota's 'undervotes' were examined in 5 state races.
Jim Stratton | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted November 22, 2006
The group of nearly 18,000 voters that registered no choice in Sarasota's disputed congressional election solidly backed Democratic candidates in all five of Florida's statewide races, an Orlando Sentinel analysis of ballot data shows.
Among these voters, even the weakest Democrat -- agriculture-commissioner candidate Eric Copeland -- outpaced a much-better-known Republican incumbent by 551 votes.
The trend, which continues up the ticket to the race for governor and U.S. Senate, suggests that if votes were truly cast and lost -- as Democrat Christine Jennings maintains -- they were votes that likely cost her the congressional election.
Voting issues and problems
Please use this forum to report any problems with the touchscreen voting machines, or any other problems you may have encountered when voting during this election.
Sierra Club's endorsements
The Sierra Club is a bi-partisan conservation organization which uses candidates' records, LCV (League of Conservation Voters) scores which tally these records, interviews, and other qualifications to make endorsements through a meaningful process. Thank you for your time in looking over these endorsements, and in going to the polls to vote tomorrow, November 7th. Here are Sierra Club's endorsements:
NO on Amendment 3, which would sabotage the citizen initiative process
YES on Environmental Lands Program for Charlotte County
Jim Davis for Florida Governor
Skip Campbell for Attorney General
Bill Nelson for U.S. Senator
Christine Jennings for Congressional District 13
Dual endorsement of Dick Loftus and Joan Fischer for Charlotte County Commissioner, District 4. They both exhibit good environmental stances.
Thank you for voting.
Election coverage from C-SPAN
Campaign 2006 information at campaignnetwork.org -- watch debates, track polls, etc. Joint venture between C-SPAN and CQ (Congressional Quarterly)
The Worst Congress Ever
How our national legislature has become a stable of thieves and perverts -- in five easy steps
MATT TAIBBI / Rolling Stone
There is very little that sums up the record of the U.S. Congress in the Bush years better than a half-mad boy-addict put in charge of a federal commission on child exploitation. After all, if a hairy-necked, raincoat-clad freak like Rep. Mark Foley can get himself named co-chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, one can only wonder: What the hell else is going on in the corridors of Capitol Hill these days?
These past six years were more than just the most shameful, corrupt and incompetent period in the history of the American legislative branch. These were the years when the U.S. parliament became a historical punch line, a political obscenity on par with the court of Nero or Caligula -- a stable of thieves and perverts who committed crimes rolling out of bed in the morning and did their very best to turn the mighty American empire into a debt-laden, despotic backwater, a Burkina Faso with cable.
To be sure, Congress has always been a kind of muddy ideological cemetery, a place where good ideas go to die in a maelstrom of bureaucratic hedging and rank favor-trading. Its whole history is one long love letter to sleaze, idiocy and pigheaded, glacial conservatism. That Congress exists mainly to misspend our money and snore its way through even the direst political crises is something we Americans understand instinctively. "There is no native criminal class except Congress," Mark Twain said -- a joke that still provokes a laugh of recognition a hundred years later.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/...
Protect Florida voters' rights
Waldo Proffitt / Sarasota Herald-Tribune
SAY NO ON AMENDMENT 3
Let me tell you about the most important vote you can make in the November election.
It is to vote against proposed Amendment No.3 to the Florida Constitution.
Every registered voter -- Republican, Democrat or independent -- will be able to vote on this question. If you are not registered to vote, it is well worth your while to get yourself registered in the next few days just to be able to vote against this proposal.
Amendment No.3 is a frontal attack on your rights as a Floridian.
