Political MoJo

Video of Ludicrously Long Voting Lines in Florida

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| Tue Nov. 6, 2012 7:38 PM PST

As I've previously reported here, Florida has been beset by massive delays at the polls due to shortages of key voting equipment such as ballots and ballot scanners, and understaffing at polling places. Now comes this shocking video from Video The Vote, showing a voting line snaking around the block in Miami. It should be noted that, as of 6:40 EST, the Florida presidential race was insanely close. NPR was reporting a 500-vote difference.

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Sen. Sherrod Brown Fights Off the Dark-Money Machine to Win in Ohio

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| Tue Nov. 6, 2012 7:36 PM PST
sherrod brownSen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio)

Republican super-PACs and dark-money groups hurled everything they had at Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio)—upwards of $40 million in outside money, according to the Brown campaign. Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS, the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, the US Chamber of Commerce, you name it: The heavyweights in the GOP big-money universe blitzed Ohio with TV ads, mailers, and billboards bashing Brown and supporting his opponent, Republican Josh Mandel.

But Brown didn't buckle. Instead, he defeated Mandel on Tuesday. The Associated Press called the race at 9:23 p.m. EST.

Brown's defeat deals a blow to the GOP's hopes of reclaiming control of the US Senate. (Democrats controlled 53 seats heading into Tuesday's election.) A year ago, the Republican Party and powerful outside groups ranked Brown alongside Democrats Jon Tester of Montana and Claire McCaskill of Missouri as vulnerable incumbents ripe for ousting. The road to a Republican Senate majority ran through Ohio, Montana, and Missouri, as well as contested states like Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, and North Dakota. That's why GOP groups invested tens of millions of dollars in beating Brown and electing Mandel. In Ohio, Brown has left with them nothing to show for it.

Mandel, Ohio's youthful treasurer and an Iraq war veteran, proved no match for the gravelly-voiced Brown. He was dogged by missteps and mini-controversies throughout his campaign: stubbornly refusing to take a position on the US auto bailout, racking up a miserable attendance record for boards on which he served, even confronting a Democratic tracker in the presence of a reporter and then misleading the public about it. At one point Mandel had amassed more "Pants on Fire" ratings from PolitiFact Ohio than any other candidate in Ohio.

Despite all the money poured into defeating Brown, Mandel never took the lead in the race. The closest Mandel got was a 3-point deficit in early September. Heading into Election Day, Brown led Mandel by 5 percentage points, 50 percent to 45 percent, in RealClearPolitics' polling average. Mandel's lackluster support could have something to do with his refusal to stake out a position on the auto bailout. The bailout saved tens of thousands of jobs in Ohio, a state that's home to car plants and auto suppliers, and the bailout itself was a salient issue in both the Brown-Mandel Senate race and the presidential race. Brown voted for the bailout and openly touted his choice throughout the campaign.

Brown's victory puts the Senate Democrats one seat closer to keeping their slim majority. It also serves as a lesson: Even a staggering amount of political money can't always propel a subpar candidate to victory.

Charlie Crist's Wife Receives Sleazy Robocall

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| Tue Nov. 6, 2012 6:57 PM PST
Florida governor Charlie Crist and his wife, Carole.

I just ran into former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, the former Republican who has endorsed President Barack Obama, and his wife Carole, while they were strolling through the Obama campaign event in Chicago. "What's going to happen in your state?" I asked him.

It's close, he said. It's possible Obama can win. Yes, I replied, but if it's close, shenanigans can come into play.

"Yes, yes," Crist said. "Listen to what happened to my wife." He then nudged me in her direction. "Tell him," he said to her.

It was a phone call, she said. A robocall. it came at 8:15 this morning. Usually, she hangs up on such calls. But this one she listened to. It went something like this: "I'm calling from the supervisor of elections for Pinellas County to remind you that Election Day is tomorrow and you can vote until 7:00 pm." Tomorrow.

"If you woke up and heard about long lines and heard a call like this," she told me, "You might think you can wait until tomorrow. How many thousands of calls like this went out? And who made them? I don't know." (She was indeed one of thousands in the county who received the same misleading call.)

Well, I said, let's hope Florida is not another mess. "Yes," she said. "Let's."

Linda McMahon Spent $100 Million to Lose Twice

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| Tue Nov. 6, 2012 6:47 PM PST
Chris Murphy, the next senator from Connecticut

On the last day of her campaign, Linda McMahon got desperate. The former wrestling exec and GOP senate candidate in Connecticut, who has sunk at least $42.6 million into her latest campaign, engaged in a series of misleading tricks that seemed intended to dupe voters into believing she was a Democrat.

Ultimately, it wasn't enough. The blue lean of Connecticut was too great for even McMahon's vast fortune to overcome, and Rep. Chris Murphy, a 39-year-old liberal Democrat, will replace retiring Sen. Joe Lieberman (I) in the Senate come January. Between this campaign and her last losing bid, in 2010, McMahon has now spent a cumulative total of nearly $100 million of her own money in pursuit of federal office. That is more than any other American in history.

Republicans who want to take something good out of the McMahon situation might point to the fact that her spending forced the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to spend money supporting Murphy. That money could have otherwise been spent in closer races in less-blue states. But that's not much comfort compared to the rejoicing progressives will feel after replacing Lieberman with a young, charismatic, liberal.

There's no Senate election in Connecticut in 2014. So if McMahon wants to spend even more of her money in pursuit of a Senate seat, she'll have to wait—or move.

Lines of 150 People and 90 Minute Waits in Akron, Ohio

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| Tue Nov. 6, 2012 5:55 PM PST
voting lineLong lines for early voting in Akron, Ohio yesterday. Paul Tople/MCT/ZUMAPRESS.com

At 6:40 this morning, when the Joy Park Community Center in Akron, Ohio, opened up to voters, as many as 150 people were already in line. Two observers told Mother Jones that the polling place opened 10 minutes late due to troubles with one of its optical scanners, which tallies votes.

The community center also had trouble with an audio device meant to assist hearing-impaired voters, according to Daniel Greenfield, an election observer volunteering for the Obama campaign. The machines were back up and running two to three hours later, he said. It's unclear whether the troubles were caused by malfunctions or by poll workers not knowing how to operate the machines.

[Read more]

Leader of the Free World Barack Obama Weighs in on Korean Dance Sensation "Gangnam Style"

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| Tue Nov. 6, 2012 5:14 PM PST
psy gangnam style music videoObama-endorsed.

As the Obama reelection campaign wound down, the campaign committed him to a string of radio interviews noted for their focus on the big issues of our time, such as collateral damage resulting from the administration's controversial drone program, spicy food, football teams, singer-songwriter Flo Rida, singer-songwriter Pitbull, his friendship with George Clooney, and Carly Rae Jepsen's hit single "Call Me Maybe."

And on the day he will find out if he will serve a second term, the president taped a segment with radio station WZID-FM in New Hampshire.

Via the AP, an election-day quote from the president:

During a radio spot with WZID-FM in New Hampshire, the commander in chief was pressed on whether he and first lady Michelle would do a rendition of the South Korean rapper PSY's hit ["Gangnam Style"], which has hundreds of millions of views on YouTube.

"I just saw that video for the first time," Obama replied. "I think I can do that move. But I'm not sure that the inauguration ball is the appropriate time to break that out."

"Maybe," he concluded, "do it privately for Michelle."

So if Obama loses his reelection bid, one of the last things he will have addressed before his defeat will have been "Gangnam Style."

That is the way history will be written.

[Read more]

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Voter ID Chaos in Pennsylvania

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| Tue Nov. 6, 2012 4:48 PM PST
Misleading flier handed out by a poll volunteer in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania is quickly emerging as the national epicenter of voting chaos. In addition to epic lines, voting machine malfunctions, and what voting rights advocates describe as a possible "unreported purge of voters," Mother Jones has received numerous reports of voters being asked to show ID at the polls. In March, Pennsylvania passed one of the strictest voter ID laws in the country, but last month a state judge blocked it from taking effect until 2013.

Nevertheless, voters across the state report encountering signs and election volunteers requesting identification. Even the polling place in Shaler where Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett voted this morning boasted a hand-scrawled sign informing voters to be prepared to show a photo ID, a poll worker at the precinct told Mother Jones. 

[Read more]

Voter Finds Another Romney-Loving Machine in Pennsylvania

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| Tue Nov. 6, 2012 3:49 PM PST

County officials have found another Romney-loving robot: A faulty electronic voting machine in Union County, Pennsylvania, has been recalibrated and put back online after it wouldn't allow a vote for President Obama, Mother Jones has confirmed.

Earlier today, MJ reported on another incident this morning in Perry County, Pennsylvania, in which a voting computer's touchscreen ballot converted all Obama votes into votes for Romney. The second machine came to light after a local college professor found he couldn't cast his vote for Obama on it.

"I spoke with a poll worker there and saw her fold up the machine. I also called [a national wattchdog hotline] to report the incident," said Andy Hirsch, director of media communications at Bucknell University, who posted a video of the machine's malfunction on Vimeo after it failed to record his ballot choices.

John Showers, chairman of the board of elections for Union County, confirmed that there was a problem with the calibration of the machine; the problem has since been fixed, and the machine has been returned to service. He said: "In general, there's a calibration issue with one machine in each election here, so we had this one, and it was taken care of," he said.

Hirsch said he'd learned about that previous machine snafu in Perry County, just before he set out for his own polling station. "I watched that video right before I left, and wondered whether or not it was real," he said. "Now I'm not surprised!"

Watch the video here:

Watchdog: Evidence of Unlawful Voter Purge in Pennsylvania

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| Tue Nov. 6, 2012 3:14 PM PST
ballot box

The Election Protection Coalition, which is managing a voter protection hotline, says that eligible voters may have been unlawfully purged from the rolls in major urban areas of Pennsylvania, including Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. 

"We suspect there has been an unreported purge of voters in Pennsylvania," said Barbara Arnwine, head of the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights. There are "too many voters being affected by this for us to think it’s voter error or voter confusion," Arnwine said.

The Election Protection Coalition said it had fielded at least five reports, each describing dozens of voters being turned away from their polling places because they were not registered as of this afternoon. Under federal law, states are supposed to purge the rolls only after voters have failed to vote in two consecutive general elections, and only then after notifying voters of their intent to do so. According to the Lawyer's Committee, those calling the Election Protection hotline claimed to have voted in 2008, and so shouldn't have been purged. 

Jon Greenbaum, a former Justice Department attorney who now works with the Lawyer's Committee, said that the only other explanation for the reports was administrative error. Pennsylvania is already facing widespread confusion among poll workers and voters over the impact of a recently passed voter ID law.

Fox's Alternate Reality Election

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| Tue Nov. 6, 2012 3:13 PM PST

Today I'm embedded at the Election Protection phone center in Washington, DC. The room is filled with the chatter of volunteers fielding thousands of calls from all over the country about troubles at polling places, voters being wrongly turned away because of voter ID, or lack of working voting machines, or prohibitively long lines. This is where you'll the real story of how votes are discouraged and blocked in 2012.

But on Fox News, there's only one story: the New Black Panther Party. Back in 2008, a pair of members of the NBPP showed up at a polling station in a mostly black neighborhood in Philadelphia, one of whom was holding a baton. Then, as now, Fox News hyped the story, at the expense of covering genuine voting problems elsewhere. A Bush administration lawyer, working with GOP activists, tried to file a voter intimidation case but was unable to find any actual intimidated voters. The Justice Department ultimately narrowed the case, acquiring an injunction against one of the two NBPP members—the one who was holding a baton—and barring him from ever carrying a weapon near a polling place again. 

After the charges were trimmed, Republicans accused the Obama administration and the entire Justice Department of being racist against white people, knowing that the prosecution was championed by conservatives at Justice working with outside GOP activists to shore up what they knew was a weak case. An Inspector General's report found no wrongdoing on the part of political appointees at the Justice Department, or the officials who ultimately decided to narrow the charges.

The right's fixation on the New Black Panthers, then as now, is another example of American politics being separated into two distinct versions of reality. While voters all over the country struggle with systemic problems caused by Republican engineered restrictions on voting, changes that were deliberately sought to disenfranchise potential Democratic-leaning voters, the right is fixated on some loser standing outside of a polling place in a silly uniform. My colleague Kevin Drum made a similar point this morning. Unfortunately, it can't be made enough.