© 2008 Votelessness. 
The official website of the Department of State of Pennsylvania declared Tuesday that Barack Obama lost that state’s primary to Hillary Clinton by a ten percentage point margin. The same website also officially declared that Barack Obama lost to Barack Obama, who in turn lost to Barack Obama who lost to Hillary Clinton.
In a stump speech in whatever frigging state they are campaigning in now, Hillary Clinton was cheered on by her highly screened, selected, and planted supporters as they all crammed together just enough to fill up the entire camera shot. Under signs displaying her name and claiming any number of broad-based, overly-generalized yet positive […]
Rumors have begun circulating inside the Beltway that President Bush is thinking of switching to the Democratic Party. A made up source close to the President said he overheard Mr. Bush tell an advisor, “I don’t like being in the minority. It blows. How those black folks handle it, is beyond me […]
In a mad rush to see who could say the most mean, dumb stuff about their opponents, Senators Clinton and Obama both used the last few minutes of airtime they could procure before the Pennsylvania primary to lash out at each other in the most ham-handed and sophomoric manner they could. The jeers and barbs fell barely short of the record childish behavior set in 1988 by Michael Dukakis and George H. W. Bush. In that election the Bush camp accused Mr. Dukakis of being a criminal-loving pansy and stated that if they ever saw him alone, they were going to give him a swirlie. The Dukakis campaign responded with, “criminal-loving pansy?!? We know they are, but what is Mike.” To which Bush Sr.’s people responded, “It is a good thing today is opposite day and that Vice President Bush is rubber and Gov. Dukakis glue.”
Rush Limbaugh is eating up some serious column-inches in the papers, the ‘zines (both e- and maga), and he’s hot shit in the blogosphere (which, despite how it sounds, is nothing like the Thunderdome). His wildly inappropriate and utterly reprehensible use of his radio program to encourage widespread election fraud has earned him another stint in the middle of the spotlight.
Electronic voting machines manufactured by Diebold (now Premier Elections Solutions) proved how much easier voting can be in the digital age. In Illinois, in the special election held to replace Dennis Hastert electronic voting machines did voters the courtesy of telling them how they should vote.
Representative Heather Wilson of New Mexico is accused of buying votes in her state’s presidential primary election. Ms. Wilson reportedly* paid $35 (American) per hour for voters to show up at the Republican Delegate Convention for two hours. That results in a net total of $70 per vote.
In the hotly contested Democratic Primaries in Ohio this Tuesday many polling stations ran out of paper ballots, which prompted the Obama campaign to sue to keep many stations open an additional hour and a half. Obama’s spokespeople explained that it was intended to allow time for more paper ballots to be delivered.
Tuesday, February 5th, Elections officials in Chicago gave voters the inkless plastic styluses from electronic touch-screen voting machines so they could fill out the paper, optical scan ballots they were issued. The styluses resemble the stylus one might find tethered to the checkout at Target and contain absolutely no ink or other substance that might leave a mark.
The secret ballot has long been a pretty important part of functioning democracy. It seems that if people are able to find out how you voted, they could coerce you to do it differently than you might be inclined to otherwise do. I know if someone with a recently-broken nose and a large, slightly-bent segment of iron pipe asked me to vote for Ken McGillicuddy for city council…