The MidTerm Elections thread (2018)

[Isgrimnur]

Probably your voter registration paperwork.

[Z-Corn]

Joke's on them, I never registered!

I just show up, they see I'm a white male and I get to vote.

[GreenGoo]

Joke's on them, I never registered!

I just show up, they see I'm a white male and I get to vote.

Twice!

[Z-Corn]

Joke's on them, I never registered!

I just show up, they see I'm a white male and I get to vote.

Twice!

For that I have to walk out backwards and get back in line.

[Zork]

AZ is providing a website for people who mailed in their vote to verify if it was accepted.

Here are my results:

Code: Select all

Ballot Detail
Election
Name MARICOPA COUNTY NOV 6 2018 GENERAL ELECTION  
Date 11/06/2018  

Application
Status No information available  
Reason No information available  

Ballot
Sent No information available  
Returned 10/18/2018  
Status ACCEPTED  
Reason BALLOT PACKET WAS SIGNATURE VERIFIED AND YOUR BALLOT COUNTED

I recently found out that Krysten Sinema completed the 2013 Ironman AZ. Very impressive!

-Zork

[Ralph-Wiggum]

I can't make my signature match one that I wrote five minutes earlier; I have no idea how they expect signatures to match that may be years apart. But maybe I just have a shitty signature...

[Sepiche]

I can't make my signature match one that I wrote five minutes earlier; I have no idea how they expect signatures to match that may be years apart. But maybe I just have a shitty signature...

No, that's pretty much the point... almost everyone is that way, and it gives them carte blanche to reject whatever votes they want by saying the signatures don't match.

[Brian]

AZ is providing a website for people who mailed in their vote to verify if it was accepted.

Here are my results:

Code: Select all

Ballot Detail
Election
Name MARICOPA COUNTY NOV 6 2018 GENERAL ELECTION  
Date 11/06/2018  

Application
Status No information available  
Reason No information available  

Ballot
Sent No information available  
Returned 10/18/2018  
Status ACCEPTED  
Reason BALLOT PACKET WAS SIGNATURE VERIFIED AND YOUR BALLOT COUNTED

I recently found out that Krysten Sinema completed the 2013 Ironman AZ. Very impressive!

-Zork

I checked ours and they were both confirmed and counted. Sinema was actually my second choice. I cast for Deedra Abboud in the primaries even though I knew there was practically no chance of getting a Muslim woman on the ballot in AZ.

A lot of the reasons I supported Abboud are summed up in this article from back in August.

[Kraken]

I can't make my signature match one that I wrote five minutes earlier; I have no idea how they expect signatures to match that may be years apart. But maybe I just have a shitty signature...

No, that's pretty much the point... almost everyone is that way, and it gives them carte blanche to reject whatever votes they want by saying the signatures don't match.

I have three distinct signatures: The full, formal one that I use for contracts and whatnot; the quick one that I use for everyday transactions and suchlike; and the "sign with your finger" one that's barely better than an uneven line. A graphololgist might certify that they all came from my hand, but a non-expert sure couldn't.

[Defiant]

I'm a former Florida congressman and my vote was rejected over a signature 'mismatch'

[malchior]

Funny how Trump is not complaining that NJ is still counting ballots too. Andy Kim is ahead of MacArthur right now in NJ-3 by a few thousand votes and counting is expected to continue over the weekend. MacArthur was the only 'yes' in NJ in favor of the tax "cuts" that fucked his constituents. I wonder if he regrets that vote now.

Edit: This is pathetic. The GOP is completely sick.

[Max Peck]

Millennial congresswoman 'can't afford rent'

The youngest woman ever elected to Congress has a problem - she can't afford her rent. That is until she starts her new job in January.

After telling the New York Times she's waiting for her first pay cheque before renting an apartment in Washington DC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is again being called the "millennial Congresswoman".

On Friday Fox News presenter Ed Henry suggested the 29-year-old wasn't telling the full truth because she wore "multi-thousand dollar outfits" in a magazine.

Ms Ocasio-Cortez responded on Twitter, pointing out the clothes were lent to her for the photo shoot.

Her comments - "I've really been just kind of squirreling away and then hoping that gets me to January" - got many on Twitter empathising with her.

[YellowKing]

On Friday Fox News presenter Ed Henry suggested the 29-year-old wasn't telling the full truth because she wore "multi-thousand dollar outfits" in a magazine.

What a dumbass. "Hey, can you come do a photo shoot? Just wear whatever you got handy." That's not how photo shoots work. Moron.

[Defiant]

The current estimate for turnout is 48.8%, which would be the highest turnout for a midterm in over 100 years.

[GreenGoo]

Florida has officially triggered recount mode as required by law.

Gillum recants concession, calls for thorough and fair recount.

Drumpf and Scott accuse liberals of trying to steal the elections. Not suggest it, claim it is happening.

Some dude who I don't remember is ignoring the recount, proceeding as if he has won.

Good luck Florida.

[Daehawk]

Florida never fails to fuck up elections.

[GreenGoo]

Florida never fails to fuck up elections.

Perhaps, but they seem to be on top of it this time. At least nothing I've heard has been particularly strange or incompetent. There are just a bunch of very, very close races in Florida, and after 2000 with Gore/Bush, they've codified some of their election procedures into law, and those laws are kicking in.

From what I can tell, Florida is doing everything right, which makes Scott's and Drumpf's undermining particularly offensive, imo. Their behaviour and words can't make the voters of Florida feel very good, and are pretty insulting actually, even for GOP voters imo.

[msteelers]

I'm a former Florida congressman and my vote was rejected over a signature 'mismatch'

I like Patrick Murphy. He was our congressman before he decided to run for Senator. He's not a Democratic firebrand. He spent a good chunk of his four years in DC trying to reach across the aisle, and there was rumor that he would run for Governor this year with a Republican as his Lieutenant Governor, but for some reason the state won't allow that.

[msteelers]

Florida never fails to fuck up elections.

Perhaps, but they seem to be on top of it this time.

Well, hopefully that pans out. But the recount is possibly due to a machine counting error in Broward, which would be added to a laundry list of goofy things that have happened in Broward over the years. And already the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections is saying there's no way she can meet the November 15th deadline for the recount.

So I'm fully expecting this to be a disaster.

[GreenGoo]

Again that could be true, but voting machines seem to be an ongoing issue in many places.

These are just my perceptions. I have no idea about the Florida specifics.

[Chaz]

Voting machines have trouble all over, but Broward County specifically seems to have something weird going on regarding statistically improbable levels of undervoting (not casting a vote for specific races on a ballot) with the Senate race.



That one dot way on the right is the % of Broward ballots that voted for Governor, but not Senator, which represents 26,000 votes. The cluster in the middle is everywhere else. The one on the left is Liberty county, which is sparsely populated, and represents 26 more votes for Senate than Governor.

[tjg_marantz]

There's a real possibility it's about ballot design in Broward. And if it is, fine. But that's why you do the recount. So you can see what happened.

[Isgrimnur]

If it’s ballot design, it’s not fine. The idea that you can design a ballot deliberately to impact a race’s result, either through accident or malfeasance needs to be addressed.

[GreenGoo]

Yeah, I'm not defending Florida or Broward county, I only stated that it didn't appear to me to be unusually incompetent or Florida specific.

That chart certainly raises some questions that need answering.

[GreenGoo]

If it’s ballot design, it’s not fine. The idea that you can design a ballot deliberately to impact a race’s result, either through accident or malfeasance needs to be addressed.

Sure, but in this case I think tjg's fine just means no one is taking peoples' ballots and throwing them away.

It's the difference between burglary and securities fraud. One is straight forward while the other might be more complex.

Edit:. I have no idea why I felt the need to analogize that.

[Chaz]

If it's ballot design, yes, it should be addressed, but I think it should be addressed on a national scale so you don't get situations where there's different standards and methods from one locality to another. It's a duplication of effort that we can and should avoid doing. But if it's a legit ballot design problem, and the count accurately reflects the votes as cast on the flawed ballots, there's really nothing you can do besides change it for next time. The only option would be to re-do that race in the precinct that used the bad ballot, and that's a bad solution because it drastically changes the nature of the race.

Basically, we need to make sure that the votes as cast are counted, and go from there.

[Kraken]

Who needs Russian hackers when we have Florida?

[Madmarcus]

Millennial congresswoman 'can't afford rent'

The youngest woman ever elected to Congress has a problem - she can't afford her rent. That is until she starts her new job in January.

After telling the New York Times she's waiting for her first pay cheque before renting an apartment in Washington DC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is again being called the "millennial Congresswoman".


Her comments - "I've really been just kind of squirreling away and then hoping that gets me to January" - got many on Twitter empathising with her.

I'll be the obnoxious guy. What does it mean that she can't afford rent? She can't afford to rent where she wants? She has to have a long commute from an apartment that isn't as nice as she would like?

The odd thing, to me at least, is that I support most policies that help this situation. I worry we'll create a situation like rent control or housing project (well meaning solutions that have negative consequences) but I agree that there is a major issue about affordable housing. Yet in the specific case of any one person saying "I can't afford my rent" my first thought it that they, the individual, should work on solving that instead of making it a public thing. I think it's the emotional tug on the heartstrings. We should make policy with clear heads.

BTW I make a big distinction between "can't afford" and "can't pay." In my mind the second one is how I would talk about a temporary issue like a lost job or a sudden bill that makes things rough for a while. Can't afford strikes me as a long term issue of wanting to live beyond your means.

[GreenGoo]

I'll be the obnoxious guy. What does it mean that she can't afford rent? She can't afford to rent where she wants? She has to have a long commute from an apartment that isn't as nice as she would like?

If you take a a job in downtown San Fransisco that pays well, but until you get paid you can only afford an apartment with a 2+ hour commute, that means you can't afford rent.

If everyone working at the company lives in a certain area of the city, but you can't put up first and last month's rent in the same area until you get paid, maybe even two pay cheques, that means you can't afford rent.

If you're interested in the details, it's a good question you've asked. For many people it's enough to know that she probably can't afford to live where everyone else with the same job and same pay lives. The assumption being that many people of her new peers can afford to live there with or without the job. She cannot. Presumably.

It's really just a fluff piece about how she's making more now than she ever has, but until she gets paid, things are going to be tight because of cost of living in the area, etc.

Still, if you get your answer share it with the rest of us.

[Max Peck]

Millennial congresswoman 'can't afford rent'

The youngest woman ever elected to Congress has a problem - she can't afford her rent. That is until she starts her new job in January.

After telling the New York Times she's waiting for her first pay cheque before renting an apartment in Washington DC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is again being called the "millennial Congresswoman".


Her comments - "I've really been just kind of squirreling away and then hoping that gets me to January" - got many on Twitter empathising with her.

I'll be the obnoxious guy. What does it mean that she can't afford rent? She can't afford to rent where she wants? She has to have a long commute from an apartment that isn't as nice as she would like?

The odd thing, to me at least, is that I support most policies that help this situation. I worry we'll create a situation like rent control or housing project (well meaning solutions that have negative consequences) but I agree that there is a major issue about affordable housing. Yet in the specific case of any one person saying "I can't afford my rent" my first thought it that they, the individual, should work on solving that instead of making it a public thing. I think it's the emotional tug on the heartstrings. We should make policy with clear heads.

BTW I make a big distinction between "can't afford" and "can't pay." In my mind the second one is how I would talk about a temporary issue like a lost job or a sudden bill that makes things rough for a while. Can't afford strikes me as a long term issue of wanting to live beyond your means.

If she's waiting for her first congresscritter pay cheque, I'd guess it literally means she doesn't have enough spare cash sitting around to cover rent for wherever she's going to stay in DC, presumably while also maintaining a residence in New York. Since a quick check on the intertubes tells me that something on the order of 78% of Americans live pay cheque to pay cheque, not having cash on hand to cover rent for two residences doesn't seem like it would be all that abnormal for typical working-class folks.

[Chaz]

And has she been working for a bit? I can absolutely see why someone who's been campaigning for a while, didn't have savings before they stopped working, and has no income for several months would have a hard time finding housing they can afford in DC.

Plus as noted, having various first, last, and security is a lot. My last, cheap, bachelor pad was $900/month, and I needed to write a check for about $2500 just to move in. If I wasn't working, that'd be impossible. And since she's elected, I'm sure she's limited in what kind of help she can accept.

[GreenGoo]

And since she's elected, I'm sure she's limited in what kind of help she can accept.

Maybe while campaigning, but now she's a elected official, so let the graft begin!

[Chaz]

I'm pretty sure there's still rules. Scott Pruitt got in trouble for getting a discounted room rental, among other things.

[Madmarcus]

It's really just a fluff piece about how she's making more now than she ever has, but until she gets paid, things are going to be tight because of cost of living in the area, etc.

Still, if you get your answer share it with the rest of us.

The idea of such a fluff piece is the heart of the matter; any request for why is really just a rhetorical question on my part. I suspect she's in an uncomfortable situation just like practically anyone else moving to take a new job. But it's not that this was unexpected, outside of her control, permanent, or unusual.

To me the piece sets her up as a victim. It would be much more powerful to say "I'm successful by most measures but I still have to find a roommate/have a long commute/find a horrible temporary place until I save up. Is that what we really want for people?"

[GreenGoo]

I'm pretty sure there's still rules. Scott Pruitt got in trouble for getting a discounted room rental, among other things.

Graft brah.

Graft.

[GreenGoo]

To me the piece sets her up as a victim. It would be much more powerful to say "I'm successful by most measures but I still have to find a roommate/have a long commute/find a horrible temporary place until I save up. Is that what we really want for people?"

Ok. Don't forget to share if you find your answers. I'm curious about the details now too.

[Madmarcus]

I would love to see an Odd Couple comedy with two Senators having to share an apartment. Mix and match; old, young, R, D.

[Isgrimnur]

I would love to see an Odd Couple comedy with two Senators having to share an apartment. Mix and match; old, young, R, D.

[Unagi]

Mix and match

How about Mitch and Maxine

[Zarathud]

She (and the writer) is comparing herself to the typical member of Congress with a median net worth over $1 million.