Arizona
While the Democratic Hate Brigade has been raining toxic Tweets upon Angela Green for "spoiling" the Senate race in Arizona, they may be missing the real story. Late vote tallies now put Democrat Kyrsten Sinema ahead by 9,000 votes, 0.5%.
Green, the Democrat-turned-Green, a week before Election Day, halfway through early voting and after she had already bagged about 30,000 votes. Sinema, the Green-turned-Democrat, may just hang on to flip John McCain's long-held Senate seat.
Meanwhile, AZ Central has posted another article about Green's not-entirely-by-the-book run, from her switching party affiliation last year to her write-in primary campaign to the headline-grabbing belated withdrawal and endorsement of Sinema. It contains a little more detail than last week's piece.
Colorado Green activist Gary Swing, now the avatar of the Boiling Frog Party, has posted a lengthy Facebook status about the Angela Green kerfuffle, with a link to a lengthier blog post of his from 2015.
While the Democratic Hate Brigade has been raining toxic Tweets upon Angela Green for "spoiling" the Senate race in Arizona, they may be missing the real story. Late vote tallies now put Democrat Kyrsten Sinema ahead by 9,000 votes, 0.5%.
Green, the Democrat-turned-Green, a week before Election Day, halfway through early voting and after she had already bagged about 30,000 votes. Sinema, the Green-turned-Democrat, may just hang on to flip John McCain's long-held Senate seat.
Meanwhile, AZ Central has posted another article about Green's not-entirely-by-the-book run, from her switching party affiliation last year to her write-in primary campaign to the headline-grabbing belated withdrawal and endorsement of Sinema. It contains a little more detail than last week's piece.
Colorado Green activist Gary Swing, now the avatar of the Boiling Frog Party, has posted a lengthy Facebook status about the Angela Green kerfuffle, with a link to a lengthier blog post of his from 2015.
Maine
Meanwhile, those same Hateful Democrats can't seem to hear the words Ranked Choice Voting no matter how loud we shout them. As noted here yesterday, Maine is putting its new Ranked Choice system to the test in its 2nd Congressional district. Counting has started today, but it won't be a simple matter of feeding all the second-choice data from a bunch of voting machines into a computer.
The Republican incumbent and Democratic challenger are only 2,000 votes apart, and neither has won a majority in their four-way race. Both have collected about 46% of the vote. There appear to be lockboxes of actual paper ballots involved and more of a recount than a simple second-ballot tally.
When first choices are verified, the second-choice votes of fourth-place finisher William Hoar (I) will be distributed next. My bet is that those 6,933 votes will still not produce a majority, so then the 16,500 second-choice (corrected from "third-place," thanks to the Portland Press Herald) votes of Tiffany Bond (I) will be distributed to the top two.
Maine remains one of only two states in which at least one Green Party candidate has been elected to the state legislature: John Eder, first elected from a Portland district in 2002. (The other state, in case you're curious, is Arkansas, and that's a story too convoluted for this post. I think Gary Swing covers it in that essay I linked to above.) This year, Greens were on the ballot in six of Maine's 151 state House districts, and only one of them cracked the 10% mark. Andrew Howard in District 1 received 30% of the vote against the Democratic winner, with no Republican opposition.
Florida
Now we turn to the ugliness that is the Florida political scene. There are still no declared winners for the Governor's Mansion or for the Senate seat that Democrat Bill Nelson is fighting to keep. Somebody apparently caught on video election officials in Broward and Palm Beach Counties transporting paper ballots in a manner contrary to protocol, as independent Congressional candidate Tim Canova tweeted yesterday. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the accusation, but Rick Scott has decided to pick it up and run with it, straight into the Broward County courthouse.
Meanwhile, those same Hateful Democrats can't seem to hear the words Ranked Choice Voting no matter how loud we shout them. As noted here yesterday, Maine is putting its new Ranked Choice system to the test in its 2nd Congressional district. Counting has started today, but it won't be a simple matter of feeding all the second-choice data from a bunch of voting machines into a computer.
The Republican incumbent and Democratic challenger are only 2,000 votes apart, and neither has won a majority in their four-way race. Both have collected about 46% of the vote. There appear to be lockboxes of actual paper ballots involved and more of a recount than a simple second-ballot tally.
When first choices are verified, the second-choice votes of fourth-place finisher William Hoar (I) will be distributed next. My bet is that those 6,933 votes will still not produce a majority, so then the 16,500 second-choice (corrected from "third-place," thanks to the Portland Press Herald) votes of Tiffany Bond (I) will be distributed to the top two.
Maine remains one of only two states in which at least one Green Party candidate has been elected to the state legislature: John Eder, first elected from a Portland district in 2002. (The other state, in case you're curious, is Arkansas, and that's a story too convoluted for this post. I think Gary Swing covers it in that essay I linked to above.) This year, Greens were on the ballot in six of Maine's 151 state House districts, and only one of them cracked the 10% mark. Andrew Howard in District 1 received 30% of the vote against the Democratic winner, with no Republican opposition.
Florida
Now we turn to the ugliness that is the Florida political scene. There are still no declared winners for the Governor's Mansion or for the Senate seat that Democrat Bill Nelson is fighting to keep. Somebody apparently caught on video election officials in Broward and Palm Beach Counties transporting paper ballots in a manner contrary to protocol, as independent Congressional candidate Tim Canova tweeted yesterday. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the accusation, but Rick Scott has decided to pick it up and run with it, straight into the Broward County courthouse.
Caught On Video: Concerned citizen sees ballots being transported in private vehicles & transferred to rented truck on Election night. This violates all chain of custody requirements for paper ballots. Were the ballots destroyed & replaced by set of fake ballots? Investigate now! pic.twitter.com/GUPZnz7Gny
— Tim Canova (@Tim_Canova) November 8, 2018
To catch some of y'all up, Canova is a Progressive who challenged Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz in the 2016 Democratic primary, after which he uncovered electoral irregularities in Broward such as illegal destruction of ballots. This year he decided to run as an independent instead.
Democracy Now! today featured an interview with Floridian activist Andrea Cristina Mercado that the infamous Butterfly Ballot of 2000 has offspring, with ballots constructed to make certain races difficult to find—just insignificant races like US Senate.
In light of the electoral Bozosity occurring in various states, Intercept journalist Mehdi Hasan assures us in his Deconstructed podcast for this week that the rest of the putatively democratic world is laughing at us. Bigly.
Democracy Now! today featured an interview with Floridian activist Andrea Cristina Mercado that the infamous Butterfly Ballot of 2000 has offspring, with ballots constructed to make certain races difficult to find—just insignificant races like US Senate.
In light of the electoral Bozosity occurring in various states, Intercept journalist Mehdi Hasan assures us in his Deconstructed podcast for this week that the rest of the putatively democratic world is laughing at us. Bigly.
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