Voting Info pt. 2

Yesterday I gave out some information to help prepare you to vote. So now that you presumably know what you are going to to, the next question is when.

The obvious answer is election day, Tuesday November 4th. On that day you can show up at your polling place any time between 7AM and 7PM.

However, we expect turnout for this election to be huge. Even in the last election, I ended up in a large line that took me half an hour to get through in the morning. This year, I'd say budget an hour, and be prepared to excuse yourself from anything else you might miss if it takes longer. If you try to show up at 5:30 after you get off of work, I wouldn't expect to be out of there before 7.

Don't let this deter you though! I don't care what else you think you are doing that day, you won't do anything more important. If you are worried about your job, don't. By Oklahoma law your employer must give you time off to vote. In fact, under some circumstances it must be paid time off. If you absolutely can't stand this happening on Tuesday though, there are other options.

Absentee Voting
If you don't want worry about waiting all that time, you do have other options. The first is to vote absentee. To do this, print out this form, fill it in, get it notarized, then get it to your county election board. You'll need to write down the address of your polling place, which again can be found here. I'd suggest hand-carrying it there rather than mailing it, as they have to receive it by the 29th of October. If want to mail it in, do so soon! That's only a week from today. You will need it notarized, and your county board is likely to have a notary there or nearby. Any nearby lawyer's office, real-estate agent's office, or car dealer will have a notary too.

Early Voting

Your second option is to vote early. To do this simply show up at the county election board office of the county in which you are registered to vote. For Tulsa County this is 555 N Denver in downtown Tulsa. For other counties you can find the address of your office here. If you live in one of those counties (eg: Osage) for which only a P.O. box is listed, you will need to call the office during business hours to find out the address to show up for early voting. The times and dates of early voting are:

• Friday, October 31, 8 AM - 6 PM


• Saturday, November 1, 8 AM - 1 PM


• Monday, November 3, 8 AM - 6 PM

This is the option we at the campaign are suggesting everyone take, if the travel distance isn't too much of a hardship on you. I know that some folks in northwest Tulsa actually dwell in Osage county, the seat of which is more than an hour's drive away (and through some territory which has not historically been overly friendly to those of us blessed with an abundance of melanin). Even then, if you can't easily squeeze in a 2 hour wait at the polls on Tuesday, a 2 hour round trip on Saturday may be just the thing for you.

Late Voting

There is no such thing as late voting! This is something Repubs like to spread around poor communities before elections to try to trick people into missing the deadline on Tuesday. If you hear or see someone talking about this, you are being lied to.

This is probably the most important election any of us will ever see. Make sure you are a part of it, whatever it takes.

Voting Info

With less than two weeks left until the election, I'd like to go over some voting information with everyone.

First off, to verify that you are registered to vote (and that you know where to show up to vote), you should visit the state election board's Polling Place Locator. You will need to enter your last name, birthdate, and zipcode, and it will show your voter ID number. Click on that to see the address of your polling place, and what voting districts you are in. I highly suggest everyone do this! Polling places change from time to time. Also, make note of your precinct number from this page. You'll need it for the next step.

Next, I suggest you take a look at your ballot now. This will allow you to figure out now, while you aren't under time pressures and surrounded by impatient people, what you need to mark where. Also, there may be some people or things on there you don't know about yet. Better to find out now while you can still educate yourself.

To do this, visit the website for your county election board. In Tulsa county you would go to http://www.tulsacounty.org/Nov42008Ballot.asp. This page has a table mapping the last three digits of precinct numbers to actual pictures of your ballot. Scroll down the page and look for yours.

For each precinct there are two links; one for the ballot for the State and County general election, and one for the City of Tulsa ballot. When you go, I believe they may actually be printed on opposite sides of the same ballot, so make sure to check the back side of your ballot!

The City of Tulsa ballot appears to only have a couple of propositions on it. please do take the time to educate yourself on them, but they are outside of the scope of this campaign. What we care about is the State and County general election ballot.

When you click on that ballot, what you should see is three columns of candidates. Next to each candidate you will see a horizontal arrow pointing to the left, with a big gap in the middle, like in the picture to the right. To select a candidate, you fill in the gap in the arrow next to his or her name.

What I would suggest is that you look for all the grey boxes on your ballot that contain headings. On mine they are labeled PRESIDENTIAL, STATE OFFICERS, CONGRESSIONAL OFFICERS, and LEGISLATIVE AND COUNTY OFFICERS. Under each of those headings will be a box labeled STRAIGHT PARTY VOTING. My suggestion is that you fill in the arrow next to DEMOCRATIC in each of these. You don't have to make any other selections on this side of this ballot if you do that. (In fact, I'd suggest you don't. It might confuse the machines).

The result should look something like what you see to the right.

If you vote straight party like this, you do not need to vote for individual candidates as well. Simply fill out those four headings, and you are done!

Now if you have philosophical problems with voting straight-party, I understand. I've often myself avoided that out of principle, even though everybody I voted for was a Democrat. However, this is the easy way to fill out your ballot and be done with it. Otherwise you will need to read the ballot carefully, and make a selection in every box *except* the straight-party voting boxes. There are lots of variants to the ballots so I can't give direction from here.

Tomorrow I'll try to go over early voting in Oklahoma.

Electoral College Update

With the final voter registration push and all the other news to cover, it's been more than three weeks since my last polling update.

In the popularity polls, Obama has since widened his lead considerably. Since I presented the Gallup graphic last time, I'll use the update here. For reference, our last check had him at the %49 mark on the chart.



Of course the electoral votes are what really matter. When last we checked, Obama was hovering just about 20 to 40 votes under the magic number of 270, while McCain was in the neighborhood of 200. Since then Obama's blown by the magic number of 270, and even past 300 by most reckonings. McCain has slipped down to 150 territory. Pollster has them at 315 to 157, with an additional 68 votes up for grabs in tossup states. Rasmussen has it at 305 to 174, and CNN 277 to 174. FiveThirtyEight (which sadly I didn't know about a month ago), using a statistical method to distribute the tossups, has it at 343.9 to 194.1.

Powell to the People

I just finished watching Colin Powell endorse Barack Obama.

The main thing to know about Colin Powell is that he got where he got in life through his service in the Army, and army values are his values. This means you defend those who can't protect themselves and that you ultimately serve the American people. This is why he is so respected in this country. He also believed in deferring to will of your superiors, and finding and following patrons who can get you ahead. This is what got him to the top in the military, but got him into trouble after he left the Army.

Colin Powell is, like Barack, a child of immigrants who grew up in occasional poverty. In Colin's case, both his parents were from Jamaica, and he grew up in the Bronx. He worked his way up from the bottom of the officer corps in the Army clear to General and eventual Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A lot of folks in the Army, particularly the african-american enlistees, held the man in awe. I remember a video of one poor guy who was meeting Colin at the airfield and looked like he was so nervous he close to passing out.

After he retired there was a lot of pressure on him to "come out" as a republican. At the time they were making a big effort to recruit African-Americans in an attempt to whitewash over their party's unsupportive stances on minority issues. It was pretty clear the Reps had all kinds of great leadership positions lined up for him. My impression at the time was that the main problem was that the guy was just not a Republican.

Sure enough, when he finally did make a statement about it, he said that if he were to be a Republican, it would be a Rockefeller Republican. For those of you who aren't fluent in policialesse, that means as a liberal. This one statement immediately cooled the ardor of the religious right, but the pragmatic libertarian wing of the party still wanted him and his credibility for their whitewashing campaign. So into the Republican fold he came, but with a set of enemies already. Even his patrons felt like he was more of a useful tool than someone to actually be listened to.


Eventually he met the fate of all who the Republican rulers see as useful tools; he was used up and thrown away. Knowing he was the one person in their administration who had any credibility (eg: was known not to lie), they sent Colin up to the UN with their pack of lies about Iraq having WMD's. Of course as soon as the lies were exposed, Colin didn't have any more credibility, so he was no longer useful to the Bush administration. Plus he had an annoying habit of showing scruples, and trying to talk people out of the various stupid ideas the administration had (eg: Unconstitutional jalings, Torture, etc.). So out he went.

I really do feel sorry for the guy, but as we say here in Oklahoma, if you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.

Anyway, after watching him for a half an hour, he's still the same guy. Admirably principled, dedicated, thoughtful, but reticent about saying quite what needs to be said about his former superiors. He came close, but did not quite say that "Compassionate Conservatisim" was a failure. He didn't even hint at what everyone on boths sides knows, that it was never anything more than a marketing slogan.

However he spent several minutes in a passionate defense of Muslim Americans. Many people have not quite caught on that the "Obama is a Muslim" whisper campaign is in a way more of a slander against Muslim Americans than against Barack. This is something I've been trying to say for some time, but never with that kind of eloquence or effectiveness. It was enough to make me tear up. This is something he did not have to do with his time this morning. However, they certainly need defending. He saw that and he stepped up and did it on the biggest platform he could get himself. That, if nothing else, should tell you about the character of Colin Powell.

So there you have it. Colin Powell; American hero, flawed warrior, and Barack Obama supporter.

Down Ticket

Lately I've been seeing a lot of Lantos State Representative signs popping up in my neighborhood like mushrooms. It has been kind of in the back of my head to figure out what that's about for a while.

Well, one unexpected surprise from the debate watch party was that Sebastian Lantos himself showed up. Turns out he's running for state house in district 67, which is of course my district. This is not an easy district for a Democrat. It's a bit more than 3 to 1 Republican. So really I should be thankful that I simply have someone to vote for.

However, this isn't just someone who threw his name up as the sacrificial lamb this cycle. Lantos is an energetic small business owner who is working his tail off to win this election. After meeting him, I don't think the man is capable of doing a half-assed job at anything. He'd been campaigning since the morning, and had been up late the night before studying issues in preparation for the morning event. He was complaining a bit about being tired after all that, but he did so with a smile on his face. He clearly had more energy left at that point (pushing 11PM) than I did. Just think what someone like that could accomplish for us in the state house! He's also the current president of the Coalition of Hispanic Organizations. What else? Oh yeah..he's been endorsed by The World.

I'll be proud to mark my ballot for him. Win or lose, I hope to see a lot more of Sebastian Lantos in the future.

Oliver!

Moving up the ticket a bit, Georgiana Oliver is running to replace John Sullivan. She's trying to run a bit to the Right, so she isn't exactly a lot of folks' ideal Democrat. However, John Sullivan is just odious. He franks our house regularly with the most hateful mailers imaginable on the taxpayer's dime. If for no other reason than to save the taxpayer a buck or two and make my own house more peaceful, please vote this far-right clown out of office.

Rice-a-roni

Andrew Rice made a bit of news recently, thanks to some vastly improved polling numbers.

This still leaves him a bit over 10 points behind, but the momentum seems to be in his favor big time. I hope everyone reading this will do whatever they can to keep it going to election day.

Inhofe is widely regarded as the United States' worst senator. The stupid crap he says occasionally makes international news. We have the chance to do ourselves, our families, our state, our country, and our world a great service all a once by sending Andrew Rice to take his place as our next senator.

Volunteer Opportunities

We are now entering the part of the race where canvassing, going out and talking to voters, is most important. If you'd like to help us with this effort, please contact Mary-Jo via email or at 269-4400. Training will be provided. If nothing else, this is a great way to meet your neighbors.

Volunteers are also requested to help assemble Obama signs at the Transport Worker's Union during the day and on Saturdays and Sundays. Call 361-8384 to help. The activity goes on at the union's print shop, which is in a couple of sheds behind the offices at 11945 E. Pine.

If your free time is hard to come by, one thing you can do is just stake out a busy intersection when you do have time and hold up Obama signs and wave to cars. Obviously this would be most effective during rush hour, but this could really be done anytime during daylight hours.

We will also need drivers to get people to the polls, both for the early (absentee) voting on October 31st, November 1st and second, and for election day itself on the fourth. If you are interested, again contact Mary Jo via email or at 269-4400.

Also, CWA Local 6012 will be phone banking from now until the 24th. If you are interested in helping, please contact Dave Ratcliff at 906-0662.

Debate Wrapup

The final debate of the campaign is over. If you are wondering how it went, the picture here can be considered representative. It was a whole evening of Obama being cool and reasonable and McCain being snippy, erratic, awkward and unreasonable.

McCain had some bizarre fixation with "Joe the Plumber" which put Obama in danger of cracking up at various times. At one point, just to humor McCain, Obama looked straight in the camera and talked to "Joe".

McCain also would jump to attacks in his responses that were complete non-sequiturs. It reminded me a lot of certain no-win arguments I've had with my spouse back in less happy days. McCain had better hope I'm alone in that association.

Interestingly, the two best zingers of the night came not from either candidate's answers, but from moderator Bob Schieffer's questions.
Zinger 1:

... Are each of you tonight willing to sit at this table and say to each other's face what your campaigns and the people in your campaigns have said about each other?

Zinger 2:

I want to ask both of you about the people that you're going to bring into the government, and our best insight yet is who you have picked as your running mates.

So I'll begin by asking both of you this question, and I'll ask you to answer first, Sen. Obama. Why would the country be better off if your running mate became president rather than his running mate?

The instapolls show a huge win for Obama, in the %30 point range with general viewers and the %40 point range among independents. Suffice it to say that I don't think McCain got the game changer he needed out of this debate.