Democracy in Action — sort of

My friend John McCarthy has sent this link, which shows ballot evidence of folks struggling with, or screwing up, their right to vote in Minnesota.

The ballots reveal weird, but not entirely surprising voter behavior.

Among the conclusions to be drawn are:

• Think before you mark your ballot.
• Wash your hands before voting.
• Don't idly rest your pen on the ballot while you ponder your decision.
• It's not wise to use the ballot to act out just how clever you are.

"Double Bubble" trouble in California

This is part II of a conversation with my friend John McCarthy, who is an election reformer, computer whiz and Obama supporter in California.

Some “voting irregularities” create presidents. The current White House occupant may well owe both his terms to voting screw-ups, or worse, in Florida and Ohio.

Who knows what the consequences might be of strange-goings-on in the California primary last Tuesday. A delegate here or there could determine who the nominee of the Democratic Party is this summer. And that could determine who sits in the White House a year from now.

So what’s with irregularities in California?

My friend John McCarthy, who worked on the Obama campaign and who has also been involved in voting reform nationally, described to me the problems, particularly for independents who wanted to vote in the open Democratic primary. Obama, it should be noted, drew two-thirds of the independent vote in a state where 20 percent of the electorate identifies itself as independent.

John reports that in some places, independents were told flat out, and wrongly, that they couldn’t vote.

Then there was the so-called “double bubble” issue. Independents, or “decline-to-state” voters, who wanted to vote in the Democratic primary asked for and, with some exceptions, were given ballots. In voting, they marked the oval (“bubble”) next to the candidate of their choice. The problem was that many were unaware of another bubble that had to be marked indicating that, as an independent, they wanted to vote in the Democratic primary. Even if they happened t see the second bubble, it must have seemed a strange request, since they had just asked for and been given the ballot.

Too bad for them if they failed to mark the second “bubble.” Their votes were disqualified.

Preliminary reports of the 784,000 “decline-to-state” ballots cast in Los Angeles County show that about half were disqualified, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

There were some technical problems too, John reports. A number of touch screens frooze up, which was mostly embarrassing.

John says that voting reform efforts should require tally audits in every election, not just in close ones or in elections where problems have arisen. He says that, minimally, one percent of each precinct’s votes should be hand counted. Further, the closer the race, the more extensive the audit should be. And, any discrepancy should trigger a still wider audit.

The argument for audits is clear, he says. They discourage fraud, they make sure elections are fair and they detect not just fraud but technical difficulties.

It’s shocking that there are still half a dozen states (Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, New Jersey, New York and Tennessee) that have no paper trail of their voting.

The good news is that a dogged campaign at the state and national levels is demanding audits, which would require paper trails.

A post-election call to California

I decided to check in with The Red Electric’s Barack Obama correspondent in California (Berkeley to be exact) on the day after the big primary.

John McCarthy, an old college friend, leapt onto the Obama bandwagon early and helped precinct leaders navigate computer data in the days leading up to Tuesday’s vote. John has been into the political uses of computers from the early days, but that’s another story.

“Hey, we didn’t do badly,” he exclaimed. “Two weeks ago we were down by 20 points,” The gap was narrowed to nine points in Tuesday’s vote, he pointed out.

Besides, he added, the delegate count is proportional, so Obama’s surge in the closing days netted convention votes.

So where does it go from here? Some in the campaign are painting a “nasty scenario,” he said.

If the contest goes to the convention without either candidate having a clear majority, there’s talk of a rules committee fight over whether delegates from Florida and Michigan should be seated. Because the state parties in the two states moved their primaries up, the national party punished them by disallowing their delegates.

Because no delegates were at stake, the candidates didn’t campaign in Michigan and Florida — except Clinton, who, absent opposition, won the two elections.

A decision by the convention’s rules committee could be appealed to the floor of the convention for a real donnybrook.

Enter the 20 percent of the delegates with “super” status. These are party functionaries who weren’t elected by flesh-and-blood voters.

John surmises that the “super-delegate” pols could view their choice in two ways.

They might see Obama, with his demonstrated strong appeal to independent, new and young voters, as a sure winner in November. For the super-delegates, that means longer political coattails helping elect Democratic Party candidates deeper down on the ticket.

Obama has even demonstrated some appeal to Republicans who are ready for his “change” strategy and are fed up with more of the same. With Hillary as the nominee, the same Republicans are likely to stick with a McCain.

Then again, super-delegates don’t get to be super-delegates without putting in their time and pressing the flesh. They may owe chits to the Clintons stretching back to 1992 or even farther. Talk about coattails.

John and I talked about a disturbing reality that has emerged from the voting. Large numbers of voters are casting ballots based on race and gender. Consider the preponderance of women voting for Clinton and the preponderance of blacks voting for Obama. Call that prejudice “for.” Its flip side is prejudice “against”: white men voting against Clinton; Latinos voting against Obama. In California, a big surprise was the Asian-American vote that was 75 percent for Clinton (or against Obama.)

What is there to explain this besides race? (Quick now, what’s the issue that leads Asian-Americans to vote three to one for Hillary?)

Little of this voter bias shows up in pre-voting polling because no one wants to admit to being a bigot. But the bias is undeniable in the results and it is scary.

John had some interesting observations about voting irregularities in the California primary, but I’ll save them for tomorrow.

Hope, joy found in Obama's books

My friend John McCarthy, who lives in Berkeley, has sent his thoughts on Barack Obama's books. I thought you would find his observations interesting:

If you have not read Barack Obama's two books
("Dreams from My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope"),
I urge you to do so—as I've done over the past couple of weeks.

"Dreams from My Father," by the way, was originally published
in 1995—a decade before it lept to the top of the NY Times
Bestseller list following Obama's keynote speech to the 2004 Democratic Convention.

The books are fascinatingly
autobiographical and thoughtfully analytical about today's pressing world-wide social and political issues.

Now that Barack Obama is running for President of the United States, both books are "must-reads" for everyone who cares about the future of our country and the world.

We have had Presidents who were gifted writers and public orators,
as Barack Obama most certainly is, but I'm not sure we've ever had a
candidate so thoughtful and candid about his motives and origins,
so spiritually led in his choices, so hopeful about the possibilities for
improving our individual and collective lives, and so joyful about public service.

Moreover, here is a writer and candidate whose personal background makes him truly a world citizen.

And it is all laid out in these books.

Obama's writing suggests we now have a presidential
candidate who could well surpass John Kennedy's ability to
communicate with and inspire not only Americans, but people
all over the world who have been understandably disappointed
with American leaders for far too long. I feel a sense of hope and
optimism that I have not felt about American politics for many years
—not just with Obama, but also with Nancy Pelosi, Al Gore,
John and Elizabeth Edwards, and many others at both the state
and federal level.

I believe Obama has the additional potential
for uniting Americans and raising the level of political discourse.
We shall see whether he can do so over the next year—and
whether media coverage will help or hinder his efforts.

As you can tell, I'm clearly still in the honeymoon phase after reading
"Dreams from My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope" (whose title is
taken from a Chicago minister and friend's sermon that began leading
Obama to embrace the African-American Christian tradition after 30
years of more or less traditional liberal universalist skepticism.)

There will no doubt be disappointments down the road.
Perhaps some of you already know why I ought to be skeptical.

But enough of my own words. Read and see for yourself.
I'll be interested to hear what you think.