- Early voting in the US election has been beset by computer
hang-ups, two-hour queues, frayed tempers, and the resignation of at least
one election official.
-
- Voting ground to a halt in three Florida counties after
the laptops used to check voter information stopped connecting to a central
database.
-
- Many polling locations had only one phone line dedicated
to the purpose, and voters reported hi-tech electronic voting machines
standing unused while queues formed at the laptops.
-
- Early voting, which also began this week in Arkansas,
Texas and Colorado, is intended in part to prevent long delays on election
day.
-
- But in larger Floridian cities, including Miami and Tampa,
waits of between two and three hours were reported, causing anger among
voters.
-
- "I've been a supervisor for 33 years and this is
the worst I've ever seen it," Theresa LePore of Palm Beach County,
told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
-
- "We are going to be doing this for two weeks. But
everyone had to show up on the first day, and then complained because they
had to stand in line."
-
- In Florida's most populous county, Duval, the elections
supervisor resigned, blaming health problems, while Ms LePore said poll
volunteers had also threatened to quit.
-
- Duval also succumbed to pressure to open more early-voting
sites - just one had been made available - but only after governor Jeb
Bush added his voice to criticisms from black church leaders.
-
- Mr Bush's secretary of state, Glenda Hood, continues
to be embroiled in legal battles with Democrats accusing her office of
pursuing policies that could exclude people from voting.
-
- Late on Monday the state supreme court awarded Ms Hood
a victory when it ruled that provisional ballots, designed to allow the
possibility of a vote to those who find themselves missing from the rolls,
could only be cast in the voter's home precinct.
-
- Lawyers for the opposing side have argued that the authorities
often direct voters to the wrong precinct.
-
- In Texas, President Bush received two early votes yesterday
from a constituency that has not required much campaigning effort on his
part: his parents.
-
- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1331258,00.html
-
-
-
- Comment
- By Alfred Lehmberg
- AlienView.net
- 10-21-4
-
- Consider this people.
-
- The last election brouhaha in 2000 was the most contested
and contentious one in United States history. The ~best~ thing that one
can say about the outcome of ~that~ election is that the Republicans STOLE
it "fair and square." That's the BEST that can be said, remember.
-
- Back at the ranch (in Crawford) the ruling junta has
had four years to fix the voting imbroglio causing the aforementioned brouhaha...
and have, instead, only worked passionately to ~exacerbate~ it, as it is
in their best (documented!) interest to do so. The preceding is clear to
all but the most ardently foaming and reactionary right-wing ideologue.
-
- The record of abject failure in their preceding Presidential
tenure demonstrates that the ~only~ way they can win another four year
license to sodomize our great nation is to ride in on the coattails of
lying subterfuge, their politics of manipulating fear, and their duplicitous
defense of oppressive, regressive, and suppressive social radicalism!
-
- ...Begin the end of our National nightmare! Stop the
stealthy erosion of our human rights! Settle this unjust war!
-
- Vote NO... on *Bush* in November! But, VOTE!
-
- Alfred Lehmberg -- Decorated Veteran, retired military,
and School Teacher!
-
- alienview@adelphia.net
- AlienView.net
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