US Midterms

[Epsilon]

If you are in the US, vote. Today.

[Niteflier]

And I got my sticker, too!

[SilverFang01]

I already did. Seeing infuriating news out of Georgia though.

[Dartz]

Another rigged election.....

[Mamorien]

Here in the other Commonwealth (the late God save it), I voted for the Democratic candidates for governor, US Senate, and US House. For the state lege, where our local Republican candidate is running unopposed, I wrote in the name of the friend (of the county Democratic committee) and acquaintance (of mine personally) who ran against him last time around.

[robkelk]

Well, many polls have closed.

Here's a link to the CBC blog about the results.

No surprise that Bernie Saunders has been re-elected.

What is a surprise is that it looks like Donna Shalala will take the House seat in the Miami area's 27th district. How many decades has it been since Miami went Democrat?

And, alas, there's been more problems with voting than there were during the 2014 midterms. Quoting AP:

By Tuesday afternoon, the nonpartisan Election Protection hotline had received about 17,500 calls from voters reporting problems at their polling places. Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which helps run the hotline, said that number was well ahead of the last midterm election in 2014, when it had received about 10,400 calls by the same time.

As of 8:35 ET, projections for the House are practically tied: 42 R, 41 D, (I suspect these are "safe seats") remainder insufficient information to call. 218 needed for a majority.

[robkelk]

It looks like New Hampshire is sending a refugee to the House. Safiya Wazir (D-NH if projections are correct) was six when her family fled the Taliban in 1997.

As of 8:57 ET, projections for the House are 50 D, 50 R, remainder insufficient data.

As of 9:17 ET, two high-profile Senate seats are projected to go R:
"U.S. media projects Republican businessman Mike Braun will oust incumbent Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly in Indiana."
"Staunch conservative Republican Marsha Blackburn will win Senate race in Tennessee, beating Taylor Swift-endorsed Democratic candidate Phil Bredesen, U.S. media projects."

Did anybody expect Arizona to be a swing state?

[robkelk]

Looks like Bob Menendez (D-NJ) is going back to the Senate, despite those charges that were dropped last year.

[robkelk]

I already did. Seeing infuriating news out of Georgia though.

Polls in Georgia are still open (and will be until 10:00 ET), by court order.

[robkelk]

As of 9:29 ET, the races are being projected at:
* House: 61 D, 67 R, remainder insufficient data
* Senate: 35 D, 42 R, remainder insufficient data

One of CBC's commentators has pointed out that, with a chance of six seats there flipping R->D, the California vote might actually make a difference this year.

From the same commentator:

The amount of money being thrown at these midterms is mind-boggling: campaigns, parties and outside groups will spend more than $5 billion US by the end of the election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, making these the most expensive congressional elections ever.

---

Reuters:

Florida voters on Tuesday approved a state constitutional amendment restoring voting rights to some 1.5 million people with felony convictions, ending a system that activists said disproportionately affected poor and black residents.

The passage of Amendment Four with support of 64 per cent of voters could reverberate beyond Florida into the 2020 presidential election due to the outsize role the battleground state often plays in deciding close national elections.

---

And I have an early meeting tomorrow morning. G'night.

[Black Aeronaut]

I'm honestly a bit peeved at Beto. He would have had this thing in the bag, but he had to fucking spout off about banning semi-automatics.

Look, I know a lot of you guys think its a fucking great idea to ban guns. But I'm not gonna get into why I don't think that's going to work here and now. That said, though, Beto screwed the pooch with that statement, even with knowing exactly what sort of state Texas is. The only worse thing he could have said was that we need to place strict dietary restrictions on everyone.

[Labster]

One of CBC's commentators has pointed out that, with a chance of six seats there flipping R->D, the California vote might actually make a difference this year.

Oh yes, I have noticed. I worked a bit for Katie Hill, Harley Rouda, and Katie Porter, all candidates for Congress in Southern California. I had a lot of friends running for office this year, but Katie Hill sucked all of the oxygen out of the room in terms of volunteering -- though I think it was also true on the other side for Steve Knight. I spent a day walking for Katie, and it was a freaking zoo in sheer number of volunteers, and voters over there are so tired of hearing from us. But hell, the race is currently 43 votes apart.

PROTIP: If you vote by mail and actually mail in the ballot, we will stop bugging you by the following Friday when data updates. I know people have a ritual of going to the polls, clapping their hands twice, ringing the bell, and voting -- but seriously you are making your life worse, and ours too.

Looks like Bob Menendez (D-NJ) is going back to the Senate, despite those charges that were dropped last year.

Oh, last I had heard it was just a mistrial, but the charges were dropped. He's definitely not our star player on the Democratic team, but this year we felt we really needed votes to stop the populists.

Of special note is the fact that Proposition 6 failed, the Mobilize Republicans to the Polls Act, er, I mean the Gas Tax Repeal. As a fiscal conservative, I'm happy to see that people are paying taxes to support transportation infrastructure, rather than increasing borrowing. As a meteorologist, I think y'all Republicans are bitching an awful lot about a 15¢ tax 23 years since the last petrol tax increase, which isn't even enough to deter carbon consumption. Back as a fiscal conservative, saying that the government should pay for it with other money is not a substitute for budgeting.

Still don't know what's gonna happen on a lot of these races, but at least we flipped our city council from purple to blue. Still a lot of pro-business developers there, but at least we can look forward to climate change preparedness and no immigration policing.

[SilverFang01]

Well, it wasn't a tsunami but I'll take the wins. The work continues but at least we can see some light now.

Florida may be very different next election cycle after passage of a ballot initiative that restores voting rights to those convicted of a felony.

That's about 1.4 million potential new voters. Key word, of course, is
*potential.* Also, there is nothing to say which way they vote.


I do see it as a problem that D's seem to be having trouble focusing on issues that are relevant and popular, for example: Why democrats didn't campaign more on Net Neutrality

Dems seem to think we live in the land of single issue voters. They pick one issue (this year, healthcare) and run on it.

[robkelk]

I do see it as a problem that D's seem to be having trouble focusing on issues that are relevant and popular, for example: Why democrats didn't campaign more on Net Neutrality

Dems seem to think we live in the land of single issue voters. They pick one issue (this year, healthcare) and run on it.

Republicans ran on one issue, as well: refugees.

I refer you to Viewers are Goldfish and Viewers are Morons. We can't be expected to pay attention to more than one thing, and we can't be expected to remember that one thing without being told about it repeatedly. Canadian politics is just as bad.

That makes casting an informed vote difficult - they don't inform us as to what we need to know.

[hazard]

To be honest, say what you will about list tranferable voting system, the plurality such a system encourages over a first past the post system forces all parties to come up with a wider party agenda. Well, usually. Wilders here in the Netherlands basically ran last time on xenophobia and a part agenda that was one very sparsely occupied page of A4 text.


But what you really need for an informed voter is time, and the only way you get that time made available is by burning into society a culture of requiring informed voters who make the time to become one. Although I'll admit third party organisations that are independent of political parties running issue polls and then compare those to the declared agendas for the voter getting polled's interest help.

[Labster]

Dems seem to think we live in the land of single issue voters. They pick one issue (this year, healthcare) and run on it.

Oh no, we definitely think voters have multiple issues. The thing is, those issues never overlap between parties. If you're worried about net neutrality, you're going to vote Democrat. If you care about your taxes being too high, you're going to vote Republican. Voters who care about racism, economic equality, voting rights, prison reform, and health care will all vote Democratic. Voters who care about illegal immigration, blue-collar jobs, education reform, illegal voting, and tort reform will all vote Republican. All voters care about corruption, but only about corruption on the other side.

So both sides picked the issue that was most likely to motivate their side to vote. There's no longer a middle in American politics. I mean, as a Democrat, I tangentially care about the list of conservative issues above, but it won't motivate me to do much of anything beyond complaining to a few friends.