The Hollywood Liberal

Democrat Cardin wins Maryland Senate seat: media

AP
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrat Rep. Ben Cardin won election to the Senate from Maryland on Tuesday, keeping the seat in Democratic hands as it seeks to take control of the Senate.
ABCNews.com and CBSNews.com projected that Cardin beat Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, who was seeking to capture the seat held by retiring Democratic Sen. Paul Sarbanes (news, bio, voting record) and become the first Republican black senator in a quarter century.

Democrat holds Senate seat in New Jersey

AP
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey won election on Tuesday, keeping an important seat in Democrats’ hands as the party seeks to capture the Senate.
Television network NBC and CBSNews.com projected that Menendez beat Republican challenger Thomas Kean Jr., son of a popular former governor, who had sought to capitalize on ethics questions surrounding the incumbent Democrat.

Senate’s No. 3 Republican Santorum loses

AP
Excerpt:
PHILADELPHIA – The Senate’s No. 3 Republican bit the dust Tuesday. Rick Santorum, one of President Bush’s most steadfast supporters, was routed by Robert Casey, the anti-abortion, anti-gun control son of a popular Pennsylvania governor.

H.L.s Take:
Hell Yeah!, looks like America might be finally coming to it’s senses.

Latest races called by AP

AP
Excerpt:
Robert Byrd-D elected in West Virginia
Olympia Snowe-R elected in Maine
Bill Nelson-D elected in Florida
Edward Kennedy-D elected in Massachusetts
GOVERNOR:
Ted Strickland-D elected in Ohio
Deval Patrick-D elected in Massachusetts
M. Jodi Rell-R elected in Connecticut
Ed Rendell-D elected in Pennsylvania
Phil Bredesen-D elected in Tennessee
John Lynch-D elected in New Hampshire
Rod Blagojevich-D elected in Illinois

Republican Lose 3 Governors Races

AP
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON – Resurgent Democrats elected governors in Ohio and Massachusetts for the first time in more than a decade Tuesday and challenged Republicans for control of Congress in midterm elections shaped by an unpopular war in Iraq and scandal at hIn Ohio, Rep. Ted Strickland (news, bio, voting record) defeated Republican Ken Blackwell with ease to become the state’s first Democratic governor in 16 years. Deval Patrick triumphed over Republican Kerry Healey in Massachusetts, and will become the state’s first black chief executive.

Voters in Vermont made Rep. Bernie Sanders, an independent, the winner in a Senate race, succeeding retiring Sen. James Jeffords. Brooklyn-born with an accent to match, Sanders is an avowed Socialist who will side with Democrats when he is sworn into office in January.

Surveys of voters at their polling places nationwide suggested Democrats were winning the support of independents by a margin of almost 2-to-1, and middle-class voters were leaving Republicans behind.

About six in 10 voters said they disapproved of the way President Bush is handling his job, and roughly the same percentage opposed the war in Iraq. They were more inclined to vote for Democratic candidates than for Republicans.

In even larger numbers, about three-quarters of voters said scandals mattered to them in deciding how to vote, and they, too, were more likely to side with Democrats. The surveys were taken by The Associated Press and the networks.

From Teresa

It’s scary, isn’t it? Little local political humor to ease the nerves:
Keep it up
Theresa

H.L. Responds:
Theresa, Having Bush and the Republicans around does make for some easy material. I ‘m perfectally willing to take my chances with the democrats. They do some pretty funny stuff too sometimes, plus we still have 2 more years of Bush. You know the Dems won’t impeach him IF They win.

Diebold Voting Machines Failing to Start Up in Utah, Voters Being Turned Away

Brad Blog
Excerpt:
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill Ritter
Waits in Long Voting Line
From Salt Lake Tribune in Utah, the state which ran the 23-year elected Emery County, UT Election Administrator, Bruce Funk out of a job when he dared allowed independent investigators to test the new Diebold touch-screen systems forced on him by the state…
Utah County voters planning to cast their ballots on the way to work were stymied by technical problems with the state’s new voting machines, while some in Salt Lake City also saw delays at the polls.
Robert Nelson was among those in Provo and other locations in Utah County who were unable to cast their votes using the new voting machines when the polls opened. After arriving at his polling location at 7 a.m., Nelson said he spent an hour and a half hoping the machines would be fixed.
“The workers were earnestly trying to get the machines to work, but not a one in our precint worked,” Nelson said. “I work in Salt Lake City, so I couldn’t wait for the machines to work.”

‘Polling places turn to paper ballots after glitches’

Brad Blog
Excerpt:
In Indiana’s Marion County, about 175 of 914 precincts turned to paper ballots because poll workers didn’t know how to run the machines, said Marion County Clerk Doris Ann Sadler. She said it could take most of the day to fix all of the machine-related issues.
Election officials in Delaware County, Indiana, extended voting hours because voters initially couldn’t cast ballots in 75 precincts. County Clerk Karen Wenger said the cards that activate the push-button machines were programmed incorrectly but the problems were fixed by late morning.
Pennsylvania’s Lebanon County also extended polling hours because a programming error forced some voters to cast paper ballots.

CHAOS: Problems worsen, Dems seek voting extension

Denver Post
Excerpt:
On a day already rife with computer glitches, long lines, and legal appeals to extend voting in Denver, provisional ballots are now running out at some Denver voting centers.
Westerly Creek, 8800 E. 28th Ave., ran out of provision ballots shortly after noon. Voters who were seeking shorter lines arrived, and quickly the line here grew to more than a hundred people long.
Democratic party leaders are in court this afternoon, seeking a two-hour extension for voting in Denver, due to massive computer problems which have kept many from casting their vote.
Party spokesman Brian Mason said the motion was in response to “the huge problems in Denver this morning.”
The problems began right at 7 a.m. as computer problems at the
voter-check in stations bogged down, creating a bottleneck in the first hour of voting as a rush to the polls overloaded the system.

H.L.s Take:
I went into my polling place at 7:30 This morning, all the voting stations were working and their was only 1 person ahead of me on line, as the people were able to swiftly move through the process. I got a piece of paper with a bunch of numbers on it. I slid that paper into a slot which has pages above it with the elections and candidates names. This apparatus has probably been being used for the past 50 years. I used a little hole puncher, to push through the numbers for the candidates I wanted, It took less then 5 minutes and I was on my way. But Hey, this is Hollywood California. We are not trying to help Bush steal the vote like Diebold, Sequoia, ES&S, and all the red state election commissioners are.

Thanks to Bush’s Help America (not) Vote Act. More problems then ever are being reported.
I was checking out the Brad Blog Seems there is a big Meltdown going on over there, Here are the stories.

Missouri Election Integrity Org Says More Reports of Touch-Screen Vote Flipping…

Brad Blog
Excerpt:
As of 8:00 a.m. the non-partisan group Missourians for Honest Elections has already received news of two incidents in today’s election in which touch screen machines incorrectly recorded voters’ intentions. These occurred at the Brentwood Community Center in St. Louis County.

There have also been several verified reports from voters in St. Louis County who had this happen to them when trying vote absentee at the St. Louis County Board of Elections in Maplewood. We have had an unsatisfactory, mixed response from the County Board of Elections concerning this matter.

Myriad Problems Reported to Local News Outlet in Chicago…

NBC
Excerpt:
Used the touch screen voting machine – if this is the new technology, forget it. When I would touch on the candidate of my choice, in several instances the check mark would jump to the other candidate. After finally resolving this I reviewed my choices on the screen ( before seeing a printout ) only to find that six candidate choices had mysteriously changed, so again I went back to correct these “mistakes.” Finally, everything looked good so I ran the printout to review my choices only to find that again choices( different ones ) were wrong so I went back and made the changes – imagine my dismay when this happened two more times after that. At last everything was right so I pushed the final button to have my votes cast – or were they??? Sure hope so !

Pennsylvania Tops List of Complaints So Far Coming in to Election Incident Hotline as of Noon ET

Brad Blog
Excerpt:
These are the top ten states, currently, regarding incident/problem reports coming in to the non-partisan 866-OUR-VOTE hotline. Pennsylvania leads the problem calls so far this morning. They are using paperless touch-screen systems in many counties for the first time this year…

By Total Calls
State Calls
PA 841
NY 399
MI 313
NC 239
CA 228
OH 225
AZ 164
MA 142
GA 131
IL 129
Total 2,811

Vote machines crash in Ohio

AP
Excerpt:
EAST CLEVELAND, United States (AFP) – Early trouble with crashing electronic voting machines sparked immediate problems in some areas as US elections again went ahead amid fears of delays and polling irregularities.
In one elementary school in the predominantly black district of East Cleveland, Ohio, all 12 machines went down when voting opened at 6:30 am (1130 GMT), according to an AFP correspondent at the scene.
The machines were not started up until two hours later and poll officials refused to hand out paper ballots until a lawyer for the watchdog group Election Protection showed up.
“The machines weren’t working and they were just turning people away,” said the attorney, Fred Livingstone. “They are not allowed to do that.”
More than 250 problems were reported at polling places in Ohio soon after polls opened according to an Election Protection watchdog operation run by a minority rights group and other non-governmental organizations.
Ohio was the epicenter of controversy during the 2004 elections, as Democrats charged voter fraud incidents disproportionately helped Republicans.

H.L.s Take
So it was not even 7 A.M. yet and already verifiable voter fraud had occured. This was in the state that Bush and Kenneth Blackwell stole in 2004. They had 2 years to fix the “problems” but Blackwell is now running for election in Ohio, and no one seems to care that once again an electon could turn on people not being able to vote in the large urban areas.
Obviously the democrats don’t care if they lose this race. They know what happened in 2004. and have done NOTHING about it. I personally asked John Kerry about it and he acted like he had no idea what I was talking about. If the Senate race in Ohio goes to the Republicans because of this, that could be the deciding factor in keeping the Repubs in control of the Senate. F**king Democrats.