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Archive: November, 2012
Quoth the Youtube description:
I initially selected Obama but Romney was highlighted. I assumed it was being picky so I deselected Romney and tried Obama again, this time more carefully, and still got Romney. Being a software developer, I immediately went into troubleshoot mode. I first thought the calibration was off and tried selecting Jill Stein to actually highlight Obama. Nope. Jill Stein was selected just fine. Next I deselected her and started at the top of Romney's name and started tapping very closely together to find the 'active areas'. From the top of Romney's button down to the bottom of the black checkbox beside Obama's name was all active for Romney. From the bottom of that same checkbox to the bottom of the Obama button (basically a small white sliver) is what let me choose Obama. Stein's button was fine. All other buttons worked fine.
I asked the voters on either side of me if they had any problems and they reported they did not. I then called over a volunteer to have a look at it. She him hawed for a bit then calmly said "It's nothing to worry about, everything will be OK." and went back to what she was doing. I then recorded this video
Reddit claims this video is from Pennsylvania, and the video poster's name — centralpavote — seems to back that up. I'm still waiting for confirmation, though the guy is currently answering questions on Reddit. [UPDATE: I heard back from our mystery voteographer. He says it was Perry County.] Now, here it is for your consideration: a machine that mistakes votes for Obama as votes for Romney.
Last week, Judge Pamela Dembe issued an order allowing some 300 Republican election inspectors to allowed to fill vacant slots at Philadelphia polling places on election day (which, in case you haven't gotten around to voting, is today). But early this morning, the problems began.
A number of the minority inspectors were turned away from their polling places, and went to election court at City Hall to protest. Tim O'Driscoll, a lawyer volunteering for the Republican City Committee, says part of the reason for the large number of conflicts this mornign was that the Republicans had gotten more inspectors approved. "There are more of them this time, so unfortunately we have seen more issues."
This morning, Judge Milton Young issued five orders for 35 inspectors to be seated, and at least a dozen more inspectors could be included on an upcoming order. O'Driscoll said he's now in the process of trying to get the Sheriff's Office to enforce the orders -- and time is of the essence. "There are certainly a lot of people who vote first thing in the morning, and there's another wave at lunchtime. It's too bad that these folks have been turned away."
Claudine Homolash, who is monitoring the Central Election Court for the watchdog group Committee of Seventy, said the court had also seen at least one voter who had been turned away. A Rittenhouse area resident had her voter registration rejected because it didn't include date of birth, "but possibly because of Hurricane Sandy, her mail was delayed." The woman was given a provisional ballot, but would have to appear in Commonwealth Court to explain why her vote should be counted.
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Progressive and civil rights groups have charged poll watchers associated with the Pittsburgh Tea Party and Pennsylvania Republican Party with targeting heavily black precincts--charges which both groups have denied.
Here is the entire list of allegedly targeted Pittsburgh precincts based on a list progressive groups say was obtained from a Tea Party poll watcher training.
The polls have been open less than three hours in Philly, and already there's plenty of mayhem, it seems.
At a polling place in Fishtown this morning, Democratic Committeeman Moon Mullen said turnout is the highest he's ever seen. "We're already over 100 voters. Last election we didn't have 100 until 6:30 p.m." But all wasn't going well: long lines were forming thanks to the fact that half of the voting machines (OK: one out of two) were out of order, and no one seemed to understand how to fix it. "People are hollerin' because the line's too long, it's taking too long," he said, as one voter decided not to wait and walked out — but promised to return later.
Across town, at 48th and Baltimore, CP's Daniel Denvir waited 50 minutes to vote. The rumor circulating was that two poll workers hadn't showed up. Reports on Twitter from a voter at Society Hill Tower were that the wait was also about 45 minutes.
By 4 p.m., the line to see former President Bill Clinton speak this evening at the Palestra basketball arena at University of Pennsylvania was wrapping down 33rd Street and over the South Street Bridge. And yet, by the looks of it, there weren't all that many people in the crowd who had voted for the guy.
"I was like 8 years old" when Clinton was in office, laughed Austin Jones, a 22-year-old Penn student. But what he's heard, he likes: "He came into a generally weak economy to start with, and he turned it around." But Clinton's speech wasn't going to spin him, Jones said. He already submitted an absentee ballot in Ohio (he didn't want to say who he supported), so he was only there as a spectator, not a potential voter. And he wasn't the only one who was there for nonpartisan reasons. Not far away, another Penn student admitted he supported Gov. Mitt Romney, but wanted to see Clinton speak, anyway. "It's not every day you get to see an ex-president speak. I admire Clinton a lot more than I admire Obama," he said, though he could recall little about the Clinton years. "Monica Lewinsky is probably the biggest thing I remember. I can't say that makes me like him less."
Still, the way Clinton told it — when he finally took the stage, after warm-up acts including Gov. Ed Rendell, Rep. Bob Brady, Rep. Chaka Fattah and an incredibly hoarse but enthusiastic Mayor Nutter — students should be lining up to back Obama at tomorrow's election. "The single most important education reform passed in the last four years, in the last several years, is the student loan reform. ... If every student in America understood what's in it and what Gov. Romney's position is, this election would be over."
President Obama's number-one stumper didn't skimp on the drama (or charm), calling Romney's plans "trickle-down economics" and insisting that "everything I've been fighting for since I was a boy is on the line."
He highlighted the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, Obamacare, the president's Hurricane Sandy relief efforts and the success of the auto-industry bailout, while ridiculing the Romney camp for suggesting that the president had supported jobs being sent overseas to China, and that he "worked with the Italians" to do so. "When I was a kid and I got my hand caught in the cookie jar ... I turned red and I took my hand out of the cookie jar. Gov. Romney just keeps diggin' for more cookies."
Clinton got the crowd roaring, but Rendell (after unsubtly plugging his book, A Nation of Wusses, "available at the Penn bookstore") reminded them that turnout in Philly could be critical -- and it's what happens Tuesday that counts. "We need to beat the margin of four years ago" in Philadelphia. "It means no excuses tomorrow."
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We reported earlier today that progressive groups sent a letter to Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas Perez alleging that the Pennsylvania Republican Party and Pittsburgh Tea Party are targeting Pittsburgh precincts with large numbers of black voters "under the guise of combating alleged voter fraud."
The Pennsylvania Republican Party denies the allegation.
"This is a ridiculous claim," Pennsylvania Republican Party spokesperson Valerie Caras tells City Paper. "The Republican Party of Pennsylvania is working to cover as many polls as we possibly can throughout the state. All our poll watchers will be credentialed and be there legally. To claim anything else is simply not true. We support free and fair elections rooted in the principle that every eligible voter has the right to cast their ballot on Election Day."
The rights organizations say they obtained a partial list of targeted precincts, which have black voter registration of over 79-percent, used in a Tea Party poll watcher training.
We are still trying to contact someone from the Pittsburgh Tea Party. If that's you, please drop us a line. The Pittsburgh Tea Party denied the charges to the Post-Gazette.
Follow on Twitter @DanielDenvir
The Daily Caller, a conservative publication founded by Tucker Carlson, isn't known for being good or accurate. But Editor David Martosko's prediction today that "Pennsylvania will flip into the red column ― partially because Hurricane Sandy will depress some turnout in Obama-friendly Philadelphia, and because the new Black Panthers have been warned this time" evidences a savage disregard for the truth.
Or just laziness.
Whatever.
Point being: Hurricane Sandy basically spared Philadelphia. Few people lost power in the city. No one died. Homes are intact. I hunkered down, ate a weirdly large amount of pumpkin bread, and watched a movie. We, unlike New York City and the Jersey Shore, are fine. I'm looking out at Philly right now from my kitchen window. Everything looks as nice or as not nice as always and I think I'll make it the two blocks to my polling location bright and early.
Regarding the Philly 2008 "New Black Panther" incident that has been legend amongst conspiracists for four long years now: two members of the marginal organization briefly stood outside of a North Philadelphia polling place, one carrying a nightstick. But as I reported in 2010, almost no one in the neighborhood had ever heard about the incident that was, at the very moment, being discussed ad nauseam in the right-wing media echo chamber--ostensibly on behalf of them, the supposed victims of "voter intimidation." Republicans never put forth a single person in this overwhelmingly black neighborhood who accused these two obscure activists of "intimidating" them.
Hey, Obama supporters: Remember how excited you were back in '08? We know, it's been a long four years. But on the eve of Election Day, we wanted to introduce you to the one guy we met this campaign season who still feels that way. Meet Morton Monsky, 74, of Bala Cynwyd. And yes, that is a photo of the president glued to his face. And hat. And shirt.
Monsky volunteered for Obama four years ago, and says he's been stopping by the Bryn Mawr Obama office from time to time this campaign season. He's been busy making his own Obama t-shirts and hats (using photos of, it seems, questionable, Internet-based provenance). He was hoping the Obama campaign would want to start distributing them as well. "I have magnets, too," he adds. "I'd like to put them on 25 cars and have the 25 cars all drive down the street. I'd like to have a family of five people all wear Obama shirts. I'd get the Main Line Times to put a picture in if I had eight or 10 people in Obama t-shirts."
This morning, Mayor Nutter was doing some correcting of confusion and misinformation on Twitter (and a fair job of not sounding too exasperated about it), as people asked: Would Philly polling places have electricity? "Polling places will have power, thanks." And, does a straight-ticket vote somehow not count for the presidential race? "That makes no sense and is not true."
But apparently, a lot of people are getting the confusing message about whether a straight-ticket vote will count at the top of the ticket in Pennsylvania. Committee of Seventy, a local watchdog group, is urging people to ignore such emails:
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Civil rights and other progressive groups have sent a letter to Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas Perez alleging that the Pennsylvania Republican Party and Pittsburgh Tea Party are targeting Pittsburgh precincts with large numbers of black voters "under the guise of combating alleged voter fraud."
“We have seen their list and it strongly suggests that the Pennsylvania Republican Party is coordinating with the Pittsburgh Tea Party to target African American voters for intimidation at the polls,” according to a statement from Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Associate General Counsel Nicole Berner. “The Pennsylvania Republican Party has serious questions to answer about where they are putting their poll watchers and why.”
According to the letter, the rights organizations obtained a partial list of targeted precincts distributed at a Pittsburgh Tea Party poll watcher training coordinated with the Republican Party. The precincts have a black voter registration of over 79 percent.
Full text of the letter is below:
November 5, 2012
The Honorable Thomas E. Perez
Assistant Attorney General
Civil Rights Division
U.S. Department of Justice
Civil Rights Division
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530
Dear Assistant Attorney General Perez:
The undersigned civil rights and community organizations write to raise concerns about the
likely targeting of African-American voters by the Republican Party and groups and individuals
acting in concert with it in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Allegheny County is one of 51
jurisdictions that will be monitored by the Civil Rights Division of Department of Justice on
Election Day 2012 as part of the Department’s efforts to enforce the Voting Rights Act, to
prevent discrimination, and to the protect the rights of voters of color.
We have received information that strongly suggests the Republican Party, under the guise of
combating alleged voter fraud, has assigned Election Day poll watchers disproportionately to
majority African-American precincts in Allegheny County. We are in receipt of a partial list of
targeted precincts that was distributed at a poll watcher training conducted by the Pittsburgh
Tea Party Movement. The Pittsburgh Tea Party Movement conducted this training, on behalf of the
Republican Party, as part of its program to combat alleged voter fraud in Allegheny County.
We understand the Republican Party has targeted approximately 111, out of a total 1,319
precincts, in that county. The partial list, which is attached hereto as Exhibit A, includes 59 of
the total 111 precincts targeted by the Republican Party. We are unaware of any history of
voter fraud at any of these 59 locations. We are concerned that these locations are being
targeted for impermissible, racially-motivated reasons.
A comparison of the 59 Republican Party targeted precincts to the other precincts in Allegheny
County reveals that the targeted precincts disproportionately contain African-American voters.
Specifically, the targeted precincts are over 79% African-American. By contrast, the nontargeted
precincts contain, on average, less than 11% African-American registered voters.
Moreover, although the targeted precincts include only 3% of the total number of voters in
Allegheny County, they contain 18.5% of the registered African American voters. The vast
majority of these precincts are among those with the mostly highly concentrated African-
American populations in the County. A statistical analysis of the 59 Republican Party targeted
precincts is attached hereto as Exhibit B.
On the basis of the above, the undersigned organizations are extremely concerned that the
racial composition of the targeted precincts districts suggests that race may have been a factor
in the decision of the Republican Party to target these 59 precincts in its voter fraud prevention
program with the purpose or potential significant effect of deterring qualified African-American
voters in Allegheny County from casting their ballots and thereby suppressing the minority vote.
We call upon the Justice Department monitors to make every effort to ensure that voters at
these targeted locations are able to cast their ballots freely and fairly on Election Day and to
inquire of the Republican Party and the Pittsburgh Tea Party Movement as to the source of its
list and the basis of the targeting.
Respectfully submitted,
Advancement Project
1220 L Street, NW, Suite 850
Washington, DC 20005
Common Cause
1133 19th St NW
Washington DC 20036
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
1401 New York Avenue, NW, Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20005
Service Employees International Union
1800 Massachusetts Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20036
American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania
313 Atwood Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
One Pittsburgh
841 California Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15212
Pittsburgh A. Philip Randolph Institute
60 Blvd of the Allies, Room 208
Pittsburgh, Pa 15222
Pittsburgh United
841 California Ave
Pittsburgh PA 15212
CC:
David Hickton
U.S. Attorney
Western District of Pennsylvania
700 Grant Street, Suite 4000
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
Chris Herren
Chief, Voting Section
U.S. Department of Justice
Civil Rights Division
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530
Meredith Bell-Platts
Deputy Chief, Voting Section
U.S. Department of Justice
Civil Rights Division
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530
Spencer Ross Fisher
United States Department of Justice
Civil Rights Division, Voting Section
950 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
Washington, DC 20530
David Knight
United States Department of Justice
Civil Rights Division, Disability Rights
950 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
Washington, DC 20530
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