Originally Posted By TMI Well, Donald Trump may have said "the world is laughing at us" (among other choice phrases during his election night breakdown), but down South where the alligators play there really IS a national embarrassment that makes us the laughing stock of the civilized world. Yup, Florida is STILL recounting ballots. Imagine if the election HAD come down to Florida this time, just like in 2000. Imagine the angst right now, the hostility, heck the potential danger of overreacting citizens. <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/in-election-florida-is-state-of-embarrassment/1260463" target="_blank">http://www.tampabay.com/opinio.../1260463</a> "This is the predictable aftermath of cynical efforts to suppress the vote and limit early voting by Gov. Rick Scott, the Legislature and the Republican Party of Florida" According to this article, it all comes down to the vote suppression thing some on LaughingPlace claim doesn't exist, doesn't matter, or is minor at best. Nice work, Florida GOP!
Originally Posted By WilliamK99 The article is an opinion piece, since when have we taken non objective articles and quoted them as fact.. Oh yeah, I forgot it's OK to do so if it's slamming Republicans.
Originally Posted By TMI How was I "quoting them as fact"? I wrote "according to the article", didn't I? Was I supposed to do something else? And what's your opinion on the Florida situation, do you have one? Or was your comment just a hit and run thing?
Originally Posted By WilliamK99 It's not so simple as saying it's voter suppression. Ever since the fiasco of 2000, Florida has had major issues, and not just from the Republican party. What really irritates me about your comment is the fact that there was literally no voter suppression if you mailed your ballot in ahead of time. All Florida citizens can vote via absenteeism if they desired, so technically they wouldn't have had to wait in lines... But yes, you basically spent your entire post slamming Republicans, using the opinion of someone else as your "evidence", please show me some facts, and we can discuss this further...
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< What really irritates me about your comment is the fact that there was literally no voter suppression if you mailed your ballot in ahead of time. >>> That's not true. There's still the problem of the various voter-purge efforts that have been made in FL that disproportionally affect people likely to vote to the left. And even absent that, it's ridiculous to make the claim that long lines and other irregularities in urban locations that tend to vote left don't matter because they could have been avoided by absentee voting. In FL, early voting, absentee voting, and traditional election-day polling are all equally acceptable. How can you claim that it's okay to have issues with one method that creates a bias, as long as another method remains unbiased? Ridiculous.
Originally Posted By WilliamK99 Not ridiculous, the only disenfranchisement I saw was long lines, boo freaking hoo.... If they don't want long lines, mail in a ballot, they have no lines at all. Otherwise prepare to wait. Unless I am mistaken, aren't polls run by volunteers? Maybe there weren't enough volunteers in those areas. All we have are liberal accusations with no proof other than long lines and rumors...No facts...
Originally Posted By WilliamK99 While we are talking disenfranchisement... Let's discuss some facts concerning this... Facts, some military members ( a block that normally leans Republican) were disenfranchised....This isn't rumors, this isn't whining from the left, this is a fact... But int he grand scheme of things it doesn't matter, glitches and mistakes happen, our system isn't perfect. Every anomaly isn't some deep seated plot to disenfranchise someone because they had a long line or had issues voting... <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-34222_162-57544782/active-duty-service-members-disenfranchised-by-fla-voter-purge/" target="_blank">http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-34...r-purge/</a>
Originally Posted By WilliamK99 To continue on my post, we learn from our mistakes, and get better over time, now if the same thing happens every single election, we have an issue, but anomalies can and will happen with voting systems.
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< All we have are liberal accusations with no proof other than long lines and rumors...No facts...>>> Long lines that disproportionately affect only certain segments of the electorate *are* facts that indicate a problem.
Originally Posted By SuperDry And I still don't get your notion that it's okay to have one means of voting be discriminatory as long as there is another means that's not, especially when the problems with the problem means are not visible until after the other means are no longer available.
Originally Posted By wahooskipper No voting should be discriminatory. That said, every Floridian had an equal opportunity to vote absentee ballot (and more and more are as each election season passes). And, it should be pointed out that during the 8 days of early voting (at polling precincts) the lines were manageable, if not short, most of those days. So, if you procrastinated you may have had to deal with long lines. Again I say that is like someone going into the Magic Kingdom at 9am and waiting to go to Splash until 1pm only to find out that the Fastpasses are gone. Well, sorry but I'm not losing sleep over it. As for the voter purge efforts, is an election where dead people or illegal (no voting rights) people actually cast a ballot any more righteous than one where people had to stand in lines past midnight? If you waited in line until after midnight then too damn bad. It didn't have to be that way. And, you are probably the same person who has been waiting at the new H M store down in Miami since 8pm last night to get your free t-shirt and you aren't complaining at all about that...or about the 9 hours you stood in line for the new iPhone...or 12 hours staring right after Thanksgiving standing outside Brandsmart USA to get a free toaster.
Originally Posted By wahooskipper The ironic thing in all of this is the grief I took for not voting at the top of the ticket. I honestly didn't want to pick either one and I'm past the idea of settling for the lesser of two evils. I had family, friends, social media connections giving me hell for that and, well, it didn't matter one bit. In fact, the votes of of the Romney supporters and Obama supporters here in Florida didn't matter either. And, I could sleep with a clear conscience.
Originally Posted By WilliamK99 The thing is, in other states some shady things went on that should be investigated, yet the OP decided to harp on FL when there really were no signs of disenfranchisement aside from the long lines which the person could have avoided.
Originally Posted By TMI "when there really were no signs of disenfranchisement aside from the long lines" You do realize that repeating this doesn't make it any less bizarre and disconnected from reality. Right? As SuperDry so plainly explained, the long lines WERE the signs. How much plainer would you like your facts to be?
Originally Posted By wahooskipper Well, there were certainly concerns with the voter purge earlier in the year. Here in Broward I know that there were a number of people "purged" who turned out to be legit voters and the SoE corrected those. There were also something like 3,000 illegal/dead voters who were rightly purged but the news stories never focus on that.
Originally Posted By WilliamK99 How is that a sign? There were other options to vote. There are other factors that come into play that you are overlooking. 1) Was early turnout in certain areas higher than anticipated? 2) Did less people volunteer for polling places in some areas than others? 3) Is there any evidence aside from rumors that Republicans maliciously set this up? Email? Phone calls? Memos? 4) why aren't Democrats equally upset about the disenfranchisement of the military? Until these questions are answered I consider this nothing but democrats making mucho ado about nothing.
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost Well, there is another fear also. That fear is that their vote is much more likely to not get counted when mailed in then if you personally go to the polls and vote. I had early voting in NC and I was still skeptical about voting a week ahead of time because there was much more time for my vote to somehow be altered before the counting even began. Is it a realistic fear, to be honest, I don't really know. I do know that in years past I didn't even worry about things like that. I have voted in 12 presidential elections and this is the first year that I have worried about the possibility of politicians manipulating the voting process for their own personal gain. Do I know that this happened, NO! I am praying that it didn't but there was no one in the process this time around on the GOP side that I didn't feel was perfectly capable and desperate enough to make an outright effort to mess with our system of selection. To suppress voices that they didn't want to be heard. The GOP seems to have gone out of it's way to do everything possible to destroy this country all the while talking about how we had to return to "core" values. MY RIGHT TO VOTE WITHOUT WORRYING ABOUT DIRTY FINGERS IN THE PROCESS IS ONE OF MY CORE VALUES. Hands off. Sorry about the yelling, I am just very angry that the GOP has gone so low as to do this just to get their own way. I have been listed as an Independent for many years and I ALWAYS voted for whomever I thought was the smartest, best equipped individuals to be in office regardless of their party affiliation. This year I was so upset with the way the moderate Republicans refused to take charge of the party and shut up the extreme right wing crazies that I just voted straight Democratic. It didn't amount to anymore than Wahooskippers lack of vote, but I felt better. I hoped that others would have done this also just to get the message across that we are tired of the self serving insanity that the GOP has been shoveling from the right hand side of the barn the last few election.
Originally Posted By DDMAN26 I want to know what is it about Florida that this seems to come up every election. Do the ballots have a Chinese trigonometry problem on them? Do you have to find Waldo?
Originally Posted By wahooskipper Nobody HAD to stand in a long line. Every Floridian who did not procrastinate had no trouble voting. Those who chose to wait until the last minute got caught up in delays. Those delays, it should be pointed out, were created by those who run the elections in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami Dade counties. Guess who runs those offices? In Palm Beach County it is Susan Bucher, Democrat. In Broward County it is Dr. Brenda Snipes. I do not know her political affiliation though I assume she could be a Republican since she was appointed by then-Governor Jeb Bush. However, it should be pointed out that she has been reelected by the heavily laden Democratic residents of the County twice and I've not heard one word in the press or through rumor of any accusations of wrong doing since she has been in the position. In Miami Dade County the Mayor is a strong mayor and runs day to day operations including the elections office. Carlos Gimenez is a Republican elected in 2011 but again, he was elected by an overwhelmingly Democratic electorate. So, let's be careful about haphazardly throwing out "voter disenfranchisement" before knowing all the facts.
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost Just for clarifications sake...I DID NOT think Romney was the smartest, best equipped individual to be in office. That part was easy.
