Voting
Everybody still seems concerned with voting, even now that the Kuhnel recount is finished, Larry Hourany being one. He tries to remind us how important it was that Ron Kuhnel asked for a recount to verify the accuracy of the election.
It was interesting to read that the Voter Confidence Committee asked all the candidates not concede when "questions remain". Well, I still have one:
How would those asking for Kuhnel's recount feel if the recount showed he won by two votes- a much smaller margin than Leonard won by? Do we hold yet another recount?
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Sacramento Bee columinst, Dan Walters, also seems concerned about voting today. He tells us how some people work to limit people's choices in elections.
Hey, I want clean elections just as much as most do, but forgive me for not getting too excited. The idea that politicians are a bunch of bums and everything would be better if we just replaced them with a different set of bums isn't something that really gets me all worked up.
Limiting people's choices? Now that might get me going. But the biggest problem, no matter what the choices are, is that government, whether it be a politician, bureaucrat or 51% majority vote, has way too much control over every aspect of our lives.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 8:25 AM
10 comments
10 Comments:
Fred,
Although we never felt the recount would change anything, we are very happy to have witnessed it.
It forever puts to rest the theory that the system needs to be changed.
What needs to be changed is the errors voters, themselves, make causing their own ballot to be to be among the "no votes".
There were no errors by the elections department. There were no errors by the machines. The vote ended the way it did because, when counting by hand, it was clear that some of the "no votes" couldn't be read by the voting machines. If voters had read the instructions, their votes would have been counted.
Not all "no votes" are actual votes, which surprised me. Many never turned their ballot over to vote in the local races. Many voted for only one or two candidates and not for any others and 8 were either penciled check marks or not completely filled in. After each precinct was hand counted, an additional vote for either candidate was irrefutable.
There were, overall, two additional votes for Ron and six for Jeff ending with a 32 vote margin in favor of our son.
No votes were actually challenged as reported by some. No votes were lost as reported by some. The system is cumbersome and some ballots can get "misplaced" but it all comes out in the wash at the end of the day. So folks should disavow themselves of the notion the elections department is in disarray.
I believe Ron and his supporters, as well as those of us on Jeff's observer list, came away with total confidence in the Humboldt County Elections Office and the voting machines.
I also believe Ron is of the notion anything over a 10 vote margin should not be recounted. I would say 5, but that's just because of experiencing close elections in the past.
I have always rolled my eyes at those ranting about voter confidence and a need to change the system. The real fraud is from voters, themselves, not the system.
No doubt, there are voters who vote more than once or are imported from other areas to vote. The only way to bring that little "system" to a halt is require ID when we go to the polls.
There are also those who vote "absentee" for their deceased relatives or their relatives who are incompetent.
Cracking down on that would go a long way toward "voter confidence", but the battle about the machines and having to change the way votes are counted is now null and void!!
Barb Leonard
You go girl.
"No doubt, there are voters who vote more than once or are imported from other areas to vote. The only way to bring that little "system" to a halt is require ID when we go to the polls.
There are also those who vote "absentee" for their deceased relatives or their relatives who are incompetent."
Is there any evidence of this happening locally that you can point to? I have never seen it.
Then you are an ostrich.
Fred said "that the government has way too much control over every aspect of our lives". I will have to say --that you are 100% correct for we are the product of the State and the Region that we live in.
In other words every aspect of your mind and breath interchanges with that government and politics of the day. For you are born into it, live in it, and die in it. Kind of like that saying--we are nothing but a herding flock of sheep....
Baaaaaaaa...
"Then you are an ostrich"
Then you have seen this with your own eyes? Or someone told you of it first hand? I hear people say they fear voter fraud locally. But I have never heard of any particular incidence to show it is an actual rather than a perceived problem. You must know of some?
As a Republican, I feel it is very important for us to throw out as many votes of minority voters as posible, expecially in Ohio and Florida.
Okay, I admit it, I'm just joking around. I'm not a Republican at all.
No errors by the elections dept? Now theres a laugh miz leonard, what about the missing ballots they ""found"" after they certified the bloody election for trinidad?
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