Found via Grossmeier.net

Sidebar of voter registration info from GoogleMaps.com/vote

The really cool bit of this video is the service Google Maps has put together for it.  You just enter your address and they’ll print out how many days you have left register to vote for this year’s presidential election.  The Google Maps search results show you how many days you have left to register, where to register and where to get more information.  It’s a brilliant blend of information plus location search and is really something that our government should have provided us rather than a pet project of a private company.

5 Friends © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Then today rolls around. On a break at work, I start checking the Internet to find out where I’m supposed to go and vote tonight. While I’m doing that I run across a link allowing Iowa voters to check their voter registration. I try it out and find that my voter registration did NOT get updated. Grrrr. Tonight after dinner (roughly 6:15PM), Ariesna and I head over to the polling place to vote. I tell the person inside the door that I need the provisional ballot. She tells me to tell somebody else after I’ve signed in. I sign in, get in line and then tell the pollworker who has the book of names. She looks confused and refers me over to my 3rd pollworker of the evening.

Again, I get to wait around for my chance to talk to her. I explain my situation, including the bit about already talking the county auditor’s office. Her eyes look a bit glazed over and she seemed pretty confused. She mumbles something and then brings me some paperwork to fill out. Then she goes to try help 3–4 other people, disappears for a while and eventually comes back to take my paperwork. I hand it over and she disappears again. I hear somebody mention that the phone in the polling place doesn’t work, so apparently she’s running around the building to another room to call the county auditor’s office. Of course, if she could have kept track of what I’d said she wouldn’t have had to do that.… Eventually she comes back, gives me one of the provisional ballots and lets me vote. Wheee!

Next year, I’m so totally going to sign up for the absentee ballot. It’s just so much easier than dealing with understaffed (one of the other pollworkers mentioned they’d all been there since 6AM) & undertrained people at the polls.

¹ So far, I’m still waiting. *sigh*

Did you vote? I did (maybe). © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

“Ultimately, negative perceptions of candidates could have participation implications by keeping more youth from the polls,” they wrote.

Maybe I’m just a bit cynical myself but I’d think there’s also the possibility these youth will start working the political scene to replace the loser candidates we have now with somebody who might actually represent their interests.

Jon Stewart, Cynical Youth and Voting © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Well, I gotta put this here too. I am trying to keep my political stuff mostly in the political groups, but you guys should probably know that there’s a strong possibility that the elections were hacked, and that as a result we have Bush. I don’t see this as a conservative or liberal issue. I see this as an integrity issue that ALL Americans should be concerned about. Our first clue should have been that the exit polls indicated almost the opposite of what happened.

For more of the above posting go give this a read.

If a post of a LiveJournal user isn’t good enough for you, try these sites on for size:

• Evidence Mounts That The Vote May Have Been Hacked [Mirrored by Michael Moore]
• MSNBC — George, John, and Warren
• The Washington Dispatch — Should America Trust the Results of the Election?
• What Really Happened? — 2004 COLLECTED VOTE FRAUD STORIES
• TomPaine.com — Kerry Won…
• TheHill.com — Those faulty exit polls were sabotage

For exta fun, we have a report coming out of Cincinnati of how the election officials locked out the media “citing concerns about potential terrorism.“

County officials say they took the action Tuesday night for homeland security, although state elections officials said they didn’t know of any other Ohio county that closed off its elections board. Media organizations protested, saying it violated the law and the public’s rights. The Warren results, delayed for hours because of long lines that extended voting past the scheduled close of polls, were part of the last tallies that helped clinch President Bush’s re-election.

Call me a crackpot if you will, but I’m siding with the media on this one. There was no transparency in that count and the public’s right to know was violated by the Warren county election officials. Now let’s take a look at a couple of other snippets from the article:

A representative of The Associated Press, which had stringers at every Ohio board of elections site, said no such election-night access problems were reported outside of Warren County.
…
County Prosecutor Rachel Hutzel said commissioners “were within their rights” to restrict building access.
Having reporters and photographers around could have interfered with the count, she said.

Does it strike anybody else as odd that no other county in Ohio made any sort of notice about similar concerns? Or that not one other county had a problem with letting the media observe the count? According to Ms. Hutzel’s biography, posted on Warren County’s official website, she has been both the President and Treasurer of the Republican Women’s Club. Ms. Hutzel, if you don’t mind; please explain exactly how the media could have interfered?

Still not convinced that this election stinks? Go to Black Box Voting and see what they have to say about the security and tamperability of America’s electronic voting machines.

Did Bush REALLY Win? © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

3. Because you’ll make your sixth-grade social studies teacher happy.
…
7. Because there are no television sets in the voting booth, which means the odds are great you will not hear the phrase, “… and I approved this message.“
…
14. Because even if it’s only an illusion to think you are making your voice heard, that’s still better than knowing with absolute certainty that you remained silent.
…
20. Because of United Airlines Flight 93. An amazing thing happened on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, on that hijacked airplane. The 33 passengers knew, from cell phone calls to loved ones, that two other hijacked planes had struck the World Trade Center. Unless they acted, they realized that they, too, were doomed. And do you know what those strangers did?
From the 9/11 report: “According to one call, they voted on whether to rush the terrorists in an attempt to retake the plane. They decided, and acted.“
What a remarkable act. With their lives at stake, with their country facing peril, these 33 men and women of diverse backgrounds did a most American thing: They took a vote. They decided to rush the cockpit. And a plane that might have destroyed the White House or U.S. Capitol crashed instead in a Pennsylvania field.
Why vote? Choose your reason.
Honoring their sacrifice will do just fine.

Oh and just for the record I voted for Kerry, via absentee ballot weeks ago.

Need a reason to vote? © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

That is all.

Dear Mr. President, © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Why I won’t vote for Bush… © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Friends don’t let friends take home ugly men
— Women’s rest room Starboard, Dewey Beach, DE

Beauty is only a light switch away.
— Perkins Library, Duke University , Durham

If life is a waste of time, and time is a waste of life, then let’s all get wasted together and have the time of our lives.
— Armand’s Pizza, Washington , DC

Remember, it’s not, “How high are you?” it’s “Hi, how are you?“
— Rest stop off Route 81, West Virginia

Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.
— The Bayou, Baton Rouge , LO

No matter how good she looks, some other guy is sick and tired of putting up with her shit.
— Men’s Room in Linda’s Bar and Grill, Chapel Hill , NC

At the feast of ego everyone leaves hungry.
— Bentley’s House of Coffee and Tea, Tucson, AZ

It’s hard to make a comeback when you haven’t been anywhere.
— Written in the dust on the back of a bus, Wickenburg , AZ

Make love, not war. –Hell, do both GET MARRIED!
— Women’s restroom The Filling Station, Bozeman, MT

If voting could really change things, it would be illegal.
— Revolution Books in New York , New York .

If pro is opposite of con, then what is the opposite of progress? Congress!
— Men’s restroom in House of Representatives, Washington , DC

Express Lane: Five beers or less
— Sign over one of the urinals in Ed Debevic’s, Phoenix, AZ

You’re too good for him.
— Sign over mirror in Women’s restroom in Ed Debevic’s, Beverly Hills ‚CA

No wonder you always go home alone.
— Sign over mirror in Men’s restroom, Ed Debevic’s, Beverly Hills ‚CA

A Woman’s Rule of Thumb: If it has tires or testicles, you’re going to have trouble with it.
— Women’s restroom in Dick’s Last Resort, Dallas, TX

Good Signs © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.