Tuesday, 2 November, 2004

Election day Adelphi elementary school cafeteria/gym I thought I might pass along some observations of the mid morning polling at my district. There where already long but optmistic lines when I got there at midmorning. I've been going to this polling place for several elections cycles now, and know to wait til I get in the building to assess the conditions. First obeservation was that there were a significant percentage of elderly voters at that time and the diebold touch -screen machines were alien and confusing to them, many who showed signs of not having really dealt one on one with a computer before. Likely as not no one in the state elections office thought of that before they went out and bought these machines. One Chinese or Vietnamese woman seeming to be in her late 70's or 80's was told to fill out a provisional ballet, because they couldn't find her name (though she had her registration card) she didn't understand what they were telling her so she pulled a chair out into middle of the floor and sat down looking sad and defeated. Fortuneately she was assisted by energetic woman, seeming to be in 60's who knew here and spoke the same language she took charge got her provisional ballet and had her fill it out and turn it in. It was also apparent that the diebold machines were equally confusing to the polling assistants many of whom were qually elderly. These machines had been used in the March primary and it had seemed to go well but under the pressure of a mass turnout , it wasn't going well. Then machines began going down. At least half the 10 machines were down for much of the two hours I was there. They stopped letting people in the building which I didn't notice at first until people started commenting on the large crowd outside. The polling workers were trying to place calls to repair techs (presumably diebold techs) but told us they could not locate any. About the time I got to the front of the line briefly it appeared that the last few working units went down. Word filtered in that people in the line outside were begining to bail. The head polling station person decided on a special provisional emergency reboot (he unplugged the machines from the strip outlets they were plugged into, then plugged them back in) the machines came back up. I was glad I hadn't cast my ballet yet. When I finally got to a unit to vote, I noticed the Diebold machine's idiot lights indicated it was in low end of a recharge cycle.This didn't seem right as obstensively it had been plugged in the whole time. It seemed (in PC terms) to take a long time to get through the "load ballet" and "save ballet" cycles. When I got home tonight and caught up on the bits of the Sunday paper I hadn't read yet I came across this comment in E. J Dionnes column When did voting get so intimidating speaking is Dan Trevas, communications director for the Ohio Democratic Party talking about Republican strategies at polling places: [the idea is] "to slow up the system so people are back in the line, looking at their watches and saying 'do I have time?'" I laughed. Mission Accomplished! 11:20:27 PM    comment [];trackback []; New Risk Society Of all the rhetoric I've heard bantered about in this election cycle; what sits least comfortable with me is talk about the new ownership society. In general This pertains to various initiatives that seek a wider base of investment income in the American population, specifically what they mean is essentially privatizing social security, medicare, or any other area where a federal program institutionally invests. The idea is that stakeholders are the ones that really care. Citizenship, home-ownership are outmoded concepts, our portfolios make us American. I don't want to seem too disparaging because the idea of a what a nation state is and what belonging means is an evolving thing. At the same time under guise of 'the ownership' society the Federal Government t is heading toward renegeing on a set of implicit and explicit deals made half a century or more ago to keep American exceptionalism exceptional. In reaction to the great depression and the socialist labor movement. There were degrees of risk the Federal government took on - a burden lifted, and assorted guarantees that stabilized the working class and helped foster a expanded middle class, much of that occurring simply through home ownership and 80 years of rising real-estate returns. Think of programs like the Glass - Steagal act of 1933 which created the FDIC, which guaranteed the savings of the small depositor. The home owners loan act of 1934, the establishment of the National Labor Relations board by the NLR Act of 1935, and the Fair Labor standards act of 1938 which put forward the concept of a minimum wage. In return - in the title words of Seymour Lipset's book: It didn't Happen Here: Why socialism failed in the United States. I wouldn't want anyone to get the idea that the current end of history and triumph of the market means that all that can be pulled back and swapped for a ceasing of investment income taxation. Or that upward and geographical mobility means that air and water pollution issues ought not be a problem for people of means, sensible enough to get out of the way. 9:55:21 AM    comment [];trackback [];

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. 2004 Paul Bushmiller. Last update: 12/01/04; 12:13:46.