CQ reports this morning that election administrators nationwide are awash in new registrations and that voters are likely to face long lines at polling places, despite record levels of participation through early voting.
If there is a year that even more than 2000 and 2004 makes the case for increased funding for election administration in America, it will be this one.
Just note the numbers:
A number of key swing states around the country are reporting significant increases in voter registrations, an early indicator of how many people are likely to vote come Election Day. Among battleground states with the biggest gains in voter registration are Nevada, up 30 percent, Virginia, up 11 percent and North Carolina, up 9 percent.
[...]
Ohio's Cuyahoga County, home to Cleveland and its suburbs that has a history of election problems, has seen a 10 percent increase in registered voters compared to 2004 and St. Louis, Missouri is seeing the highest registration levels in a quarter century.
Overall, 13 battleground states have already received 3.4 million new registrations as of Oct. 14, compared to 1.8 million new registrations in 2004, according to Laura Quinn, chief executive of Catalist, which tracks voter registration for progressive organizations.
This is certainly an issue in Montana. Since the primary in June, 31,000 net new voters have been added to the rolls. But this burden isn't shared equally among counties. Missoula and Gallatin each saw a 5,500 increase, while the larger Yellowstone County saw a 4,000 increase.
This was one of the major problems with the scurrilous voter challenges from the Montana GOP that caused a number of local Republicans who have some understanding of election administration upset -- they know that these hard-working county officials are already deluged and that dumping new work on their plates for ridiculous reasons was just mean in its effect if not in intent.
So here's the question -- why can't we effectively fund election administration in this country? It's a line item that not a ton of groups fight to increase, but after seeing these sorts of problems election after election, surely we can agree that funding upfront to avoid the problems later is worth it.
Consider it this way, both liberals and conservatives by their own arguments have pretty good reasons to support increased funding of election administration:
For conservatives who worry about both voter fraud and voter registration fraud, increased administrative capacity increases the chances of oddities being caught. That includes everything from Mickey Mouse being registered to vote to having time to make sure individuals' former election jurisdictions are notified when they move their registrations. At this point, many of these problems are capacity problems.
It's also no amazing feat of logic to think through the fact that election fraud of any sort is the sort of thing we're better off preventing than responding to. Some things, like larceny, can be handled just fine with reactive measures to provide restitution to victims and penalties to criminals. But with election fraud, you want to prevent the act from ever taking place because you can't provide restitution in almost any case. Additionally, a heightened chance of getting caught is a better disincentive to committing a crime than is a stiffer penalty, according to sociology research. So the focus should be on catching perpetrators, not simply on extending jail sentences.
Note: I write all of this believing both that voter registration fraud is very rare and that out-and-out voter fraud is exceptionally rare in this country.
For liberals the key concerns with voting right now is that sometimes counties just can't process the deluge of information. If a county can't process your voter registration by Election Day, you can't vote in many states. If your polling location gets short changed on voting machines and turnout surges, you get to wait in line for an extra hour. You want to increase election participation? Increase election appropriations.
Good news for Montana Democrats in a new Research 2000 poll for Daily Kos:
McCain (R) 49 (52)
Obama (D) 45 (39)
Trendlines are from late September. So we're seeing a 9 point swing a month.
The crosstabs are both believable and, if anything, hint at a slight bias toward Democratic undersampling and a too pessimistic prediction of the youth vote for Obama (from my read).
I've probably been one of the more pessimistic voices in the state regarding Obama's chances. But with this poll coming on the heels of a similar ARG poll -- and with the strength of Obama's volunteer base -- this race is suddenly looking winnable to me in Montana.
Of course, as Markos notes, it is still unlikely to be a tipping point state. It's more like a victory lap state for Obama. But in play it is.
The more interesting news in the poll comes in with numbers in the U.S. House race:
Rehberg (R) 52%
Driscoll (D) 38%
Surprisingly low numbers for Rep. Rehberg given the lack of a race. A poll like this is likely to have a number of people taking a real close look at that race for 2010.
The poll also has Schweitzer with a solid 18 point lead.
One last note -- the R2K polling method doesn't name third party candidates during the questioning. I think this is sound, but someone trying to find another way to improve Obama's numbers might note that Ron Paul's name is on the ballot here. While I think Paul detracts a bit from both Obama and McCain, it seems likely he hurts McCain more than Obama.
This gap narrows a couple points on strength of Obama's field operation and a point or two because of Ron Paul and we have ourselves a nail-biter.
My dad, a smart guy more conservative than me (how tough can that be?!?!?! hardy har har), is in Missoula, so we grabbed dinner this evening. He's a smart guy (so there's two things I didn't inherit) and when we started talking politics, he brought up a story he heard recently about a young woman making phone calls in Bozeman for Obama who got a comment back along the lines of "Someone needs to put a bullet in that n-----."
This isn't shocking. It is, I mean, except that people have been yelling similar things at John McCain rallies and John McCain, amazingly, said last night that he defends "categorically" the people who come to his rallies. Categorically would indicate, of course, that he also defends the people who yell "Kill him!" in response to Obama's name.
Bad news.
We ended up talking sign wars for a bit -- my dad had apparently also seen this sign down in Billings, or a similar one.
Sign theft is something I've never understood. I've never been too keen on yard signs or bumper stickers as a method of political persuasion. So spending time stealing such a passive statement of political support seems to me to be nothing more than a way of say, farting in the face of some kid you don't like.
It's just, you know, pointless. I mean, getting pissed (and leveling a threat to shoot someone over a yard sign) is also kind of pointless. But whatever.
Part of my point here, I think, is that as long as people think it is teh awesome to play childish pranks on the random supporters of their candidate's opponents, it isn't shocking that there are also going to be some total assholes out there.
Of course, it isn't my point here that sign theft justifies dropping the n-word or using death threats. Far, far, far from it. The difference between stealing someone's yard sign and threatening to kill a Presidential candidate is like the difference between a flooded basement and the Grand Canyon (the water damage is of such a different scale as to be of a different type).
But I just think we need less general jerk bullshit in politics. And since I'm the one writing this, I probably need to state the obvious which is that of course I'm a hypocrite on this stuff. So in writing this, know that I'm chastising myself (not for stealing signs or calling a candidate the n-word or threatening their lives -- I don't think I've ever done any of that) as well as all these folks.
Well, I just voted. And, for the first time in my life that I remember, I voted a split ballot.
Without going into details, I'll just note that I voted predictably in at least a handful of races: for Obama/Biden, for Baucus, and for Steve Bullock, whom I have been defending today.
But I went Republican on there a couple times and third party once.
Maybe closer to Election Day, I'll post all or part of my ballot. We'll see. Some of what I did hardly equates with a full-throated endorsement.
During the primary season, I remember hearing Steve Bullock talk multiple times about the death penalty and generally sounding like someone who is OK with the death penalty in theory, occasionally has problems with it in practice, and gets nervous talking about it in a state with a pretty vocal abolition movement.
How did I spot that? Well, I fall in basically the same place.
How much did I think about this? Not a ton -- in large measure because as Bullock has emphasized repeatedly, the Attorney General is not a legislative actor, but an executive one. The AG manages an operation of limited resources to focus on different priorities. And Bullock has always been pretty clear that his interest is in managing the state's legal operation, not being a mini-Governor using the bully pulpit of the office to try to convince the legislature to act on his agenda.
Because of that -- and because of a thoughtful, nuanced interview he gave to Jay here at Left in the West -- he is being attacked in a dishonest ad. Jennifer McKee nicely summarizes just how dishonest it is:
Among other things, the ad claims Bullock, also a Helena lawyer, is "against the death penalty."
Bullock has been repeatedly quoted on the radio and in Montana newspapers as saying he supports the death penalty and would support it as attorney general.
In documentation supporting the ad, the GOP cites an interview Bullock gave with the blog, Left in the West. There, Bullock said several times that as attorney general he would support the law.
So where does the GOP argument come from? From stuff like this:
He also said that if anyone hurt his daughter he "would want to kill them but I'm not sure the state should." Elsewhere in the interview, Bullock said he would be neither surprised nor disappointed if the death penalty were overturned.
Hell, I'm in favor of the death penalty, just like Bullock, but I'd also be neither surprised nor disappointed if it was repealed.
Questions of life and death and the state are complicated. They can be complicated legally and are inevitably complicated morally. That's why a bunch of progressives are upset with John McCain's dismissiveness of a mother's health as a justification for late-term abortions. And that's why a lot of us who favor the death penalty in theory also wouldn't be super upset if the penalty went away.
In fact, I think it says a lot more about the Republican Party that they'd be so flippant about taking someone's life than it does about Bullock that he appreciates the import of that decision.
Sadly, though, despite pretty clear evidence that the Republicans aren't just distorting, but that they are outright lying, Montana media stations have yet to pull the ad. It's high-time they do so.
Missoula's County Attorney is going to be looking into both potential criminal and civil penalties for the BS affidavits:
Van Valkenburg said "there's a basis" to a complaint by Missoula resident Dana Boruch, who obtained a copy of her affidavit - though none were actually mailed out here - and took issue with the fact that she was challenged based on a non-discrepancy. Boruch's voter registration had her living in an "apartment" and the U.S. Postal Service had down as living in a "unit." Obviously they are one in the same.
Boruch took her affidavit to the county attorney's office. Van Valkenburg said he's heard of other examples like this. It's too soon to know anything for sure.
Apartment? Unit? These clear examples of fraudulent voters are outrageous!
John Stossel, who sports a very amazingly terrible mustache, recently did a special report on whether new voters were informed enough to be trusted with ballots.
My friends at the Oregon Bus Project went and found middle-aged voters in a high-end shopping mall and found that, much like Stossel's new voters, they rarely knew who Joe Biden or Justice Ginsburg was in a photo. Even worse, none of them know who Mos Def is (!):
Obviously, this is all a bunch of crap. And for a member of the media to spend time talking about the uninformed public is borderline hilarious. Hell -- I think I'd be able to name Ruth Bader Ginsburg on sight, but one of the funny things about the Supreme Court is that they still don't allow photos or videos to be taken during proceedings. Why would a typical American recognize all 9 Justices on sight?
Bottom-line, being able to ID prominent political leaders in a photo lineup or knowing exactly how many states or Senators there are is not very relevant information for voting, even if some of us consider it baseline knowledge.
Democracy works in part on the basis that we reach acceptable group decisions by allowing individuals to make decisions based on what they care about. For John "Full Mustache/Empty Head" Stossel to presume he knows better than others what the proper knowledge they should have to make a decision in an election is utterly ridiculous.
It's like insisting that all Americans should have memorized MPG statistics before purchasing cars. Fuel efficiency is something I care about and possibly even a good community goal to be reached through raising standards. But it may not be particularly relevant for someone who has different needs and means than me.
Trust a libertarian to fail to understand how the wisdom of crowds works.
You may have seen this story this morning, with an excerpt from a letter Conrad Burns sent to elections offices across Montana inquiring about purges of election rolls (an odd request, given that as of about 65 days ago, no more purging of voter rolls could be legally done -- as we've recently learned thanks to Judge Molloy).
In quoting just a single sentence, reporter Chelsi Moy is forced to 'sic' it up twice:
"As chairman of the McCain/Padin (sic) campaign here in Montana, we are getting reports from all across the country of fraudulent registrations and the abuse and mis-use (sic) of our liberal laws to get more people to participate in our system," he wrote.
But this excerpt hardly does justice to the full email:
Election Administrator
As chairman of the McCain/Padin campaign here in Montana, we are getting reports from all across the country of fraudulent registrations and the abuse and mis-use of our liberal laws to get more people to participate in our system. These irregularities are not just in areas who have noted reputations. We should encourage all citizens to vote and to facilitate the electors as much as legally possible.
I would appreciate if you could inform me as to when you last purged your list of registered voters in you county. It seems that is where we experience most of our irregularities. Now some take our laws lightly and abuse them to give their political party power or personal politics become more important than the welfare of our state or nation. It becomes very important to millions of responsible citizens who go through the rigors of being a legal and motivated voter. They do not think it smart or cute to abuse the law.
There is a reason election laws tend to be broken or abused. There is no penalty and/or no change in the result when violations occur. Our elections are based on honesty and integrity because we as the free self-governed people take voting very serious. Until we change the law, we are strapped with a law that is very hard to administer.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Conrad Burns
We've been trying to make heads or tails of this letter. Frankly, we can't tell whether our former Senator is calling for purges of the voter rolls or for jailtime for Jake Eaton. Either way, it's a heckuva read!
Don Molloy has ruled (pdf). And while he denies the request for a TRO (not a huge deal given that the challenges have been withdrawn), he set a hearing date for next week.
New numbers from Rasmussen still have McCain up, but by a narrower margin: 52-44.
That's still a bit wide of a margin for a normal field operation to be able to make up, but it wouldn't be impossible.
From the analysis:
McCain is now viewed favorably by 56% of Montana voters, down four points from a month ago. Obama earns positive reviews from 50% of Montana voters, unchanged since September.
McCain leads by 23 percentage points among men but trails by five among women.
As for the running mates, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is viewed favorably by 56% of Montana voters while 48% say the same of Delaware Senator Joseph Biden.
Strong numbers for national Dems in Montana. We'll see what happens to Palin's favorable numbers during tonight's debate. And Biden's, too, I imagine. I think he's sort of the card in the hole here (who knows if he's an ace). The media has paid Palin a lot more attention. We'll find out in the next few days what America thinks of Joe Biden.
So while I've been a longtime skeptic of Obama's chances to win Montana come November, I wanted to look a bit deeper into the R2K numbers from Daily Kos on the race. That poll showed McCain winning the state by 13.
In fact, it even showed McCain winning the youth vote in Montana by 5.
So I went to some national polling to look at how the white youth vote is going elsewhere to try to get a handle on whether it would make sense for Montana youth to be going McCain (the under 30 vote in Montana is probably about 90% white, a bit more diverse than the state as a whole, but not much).
So I checked out Rock the Vote's latest polling. They have white youth going Obama 48-36. Democracy Corps has slightly older numbers that show white youth going Obama by the wider margin of 46-45.
Both of the polling firms in question are Democratic firms, but they are very respected Democratic firms. How to account for such disparity? While subsamples have higher margins of error, so that could be part of it.
But keeping in mind that the Montana youth vote is 90% white, is it likely that youth in Montana are really going more for McCain than white youth nationally? I'd doubt it. Especially since Montana's white population tends to be more big-D Democratic than whites nationally (I think this is typical of homogenous white states).
Now that homogeneity could also mean that we're seeing a racial effect here. This isn't a Bradley effect, mind you, it's people being openly racialized in their voting.
All that said, I think this subsample throws some questions on the 13 point margin.
Bottom line in my book:
I don't think Obama is really down 13 in Montana.
I also still think McCain ultimately wins Montana.
Take all of this with a grain of salt because subsamples are just that -- subsamples.
Jay already mentioned this, but it unfortunately appears that there is a lack of agreement in our Congressional delegation on whether to reconsider the deregulation of Wall Street that allowed for this mess to occur:
Rehberg said he favors some curbs on excessive executive pay and wants to have a full debate on the House floor. He wouldn't say whether he favored more regulation of the banking industry.
A few things we need to be clear about -- this isn't just the banking industry. It's the larger financial sector. And as much as I'm all for more accountability for executives, what we're talking about there is small potatoes in the larger scheme of things.
The better questions revolve around a lot of the newly ginned up financial instruments that were largely operating without oversight.
Unfortunately, the penchant for deregulation as silver bullet hasn't dissipated. Despite a bit of outcry over McCain's recent writing in an actuarial magazine that the best route for health care is to deregulate in the same way that we deregulated the financial services realm, similar ideas continue to percolate.
From Duane Grimes, Republican candidate for State Auditor:
Grimes said his plan would ease some insurance regulations and give consumers more information so they could have more choices and competition in the private health insurance market.
[...]
Analyzing how health insurance mandates drive up costs, and possibly pushing to eliminate mandates so insurers can offer less-costly products that provide only the coverage that some consumers want.
No one is going to argue that subprime health insurance is going to cause BCBS to be overleveraged and crash our economy. But the other problem will still be real. On a cashflow basis, toothless insurance is cheaper. The monthly bills are lower.
But the point of insurance isn't to protect against the harms you foresee, but also against the ones you don't. Narrow insurance isn't really insurance at all. And especially in health care, what mandates largely cover are preventive approaches that most people agree are what we need more of, not less of.
Health insurance deregulation is likely to exacerbate America's health care problems, much of which is driven by overconsumption of health care by the rich and underconsumption of health care by the poor. The overconsumption by the rich drives of the price. The underconsumption by the poor results in people seeking (costly) treatment at the emergency room.
Look -- from everything I've heard Duane Grimes is a stand-up guy and a friendly human being. I actually think there's a decent chance he'll be the next State Auditor. Fortunately, in that role, he won't have the power to deregulate the health insurance sector unilaterally (as far as I know).
But it should raise concerns that he wants to take the approach to health care that got us in this financial mess.
Well, call him teflon, cause Brian Schweitzer appears not only to be surviving arguably his worst week of news since becoming Governor, but thriving.
Following the allegations of election fraud that emerged with news of his speech at a lawyer convention this summer, some folks on the right have been hoping that the Governor's numbers have taken a hit.
My hunch was that it wouldn't be the case. Despite a lot of interest among the "chattering classes," I didn't hear a single member of the real public mention the issue ever. And several people I asked were wholly unaware of the scandal. Forget whether they were watching it closely.
Now, a Mellman Group poll for the Democratic Party shows Schweitzer leading Roy Brown 63-24. Now, this is a partisan poll, so take it a bit with a grain of salt. But Mellman is a respected firm, which means that the bias is likely not to come from the poll, but from the willingness to release it. Worst case scenario, the poll is a bit of an outlier on some otherwise realistic numbers and Schweitzer is up 30, not 37. Whatever, this race is basically done.
Baucus and Rehberg no doubt hold similar leads right now.
Political Wire reports that a new American Research Group poll shows McCain only up 2% in Montana.
Four notes:
I have some memory of ARG offering regular outlier numbers. Some commenters at Yglesias' site discussed this some time ago. Some agree, some disagree.
Even with a solid polling firm, outliers will occasionally appear simply due to statistics.
Is this the outlier or is Rasmussen's showing the race moving to McCain? I have no idea. I've long been a skeptic of Obama's chances to win Montana. But his campaign, which is smarter (and better informed) than me on this subject, is still here.
Does ARG include Paul and Barr in their survey? If so, it may artificially look bad for McCain. Alternately, if they're not included, it may appear to be artificially good for McCain.
Here's some interesting news. The Constitution Party of Montana, which disaffiliated from the U.S. Constitution Party, has submitted Ron Paul as their nominee, which means that Ron Paul's name will be on the Montana ballot as an option for voters.
The names that will be on the ballot as far as I can tell:
Party
Presidential Candidate
VP Candidate
Constitution
Ron Paul
Michael Peroutka
Democratic
Barack Obama
Joe Biden
Independent
Ralph Nader
Matt Gonzalez
Libertarian
Bob Barr
Wayne Allyn Root
Republican
John McCain
Sarah Palin
Ron Paul is a big enough name in enough of Montana that this could cause some trouble for John McCain.
In the GOP primary, Paul drew over 20,000 votes. Consider the closely fought 2006 Senate race, ultimately decided by 3,500 votes and 20,000 votes could be a big deal, especially if Bob Barr (a more credible nominee than the Libertarians have had in some time) pulls the same 1,700 votes the Libertarians drew in '04.
By means of comparison, Nader and the Green nominee combined in '04 received about 7,000 votes total in Montana.
All told -- this could be about a 14,000 net vote advantage for the Ds, just based on the other names on the ballot.
Also -- this is a canny move for the Constitution Party. They'll actually have a statewide candidate with some name recognition. The way election law works in Montana, I think this almost guarantees ongoing ballot access for them.
Note: so far the only source for Paul's name being filed appears as a news item from Ballot Access News, which has always had good info in the past. But there's nothing in the local papers or on the SOS website to verify this information.
Count me as very curious to hear others' takes on this news.
Two interesting posts on Palin in the Montana sphere. David Crisp wonders whether he would be as critical of a Schweitzer for VP announcement on the experience front. He admits that he probably wouldn't, but cites Schweitzer's international business experience. He also notes that proximity may be a factor in the level of trust (while noting that explanation is undermined by the criticism of Palin coming out of Alaska political and journalistic quarters).
Meanwhile, Mark T thinks me naive since Palin herself does not matter, only the coalition she represents.
That's actually a bit hilarious. The "guy" doesn't matter, but the "guy" behind the "guy" behind the "guy" is crucial. Look, coalitions matter in politics, but the buck does stop somewhere and politicians are rarely tools of their backers, especially in those areas they value most.
We don't even know enough about Palin's background to know which coalitions she is a part of. What we do know is that her resume is awfully thin to be leader of the free world and so far, her demonstrated judgment is damn questionable.
Brian Schweitzer is probably an imperfect analogy here. A better one might be Jon Tester. Folks who have read this blog or who know me personally know that I think very highly of Jon. He's a sharp, personable, hard-working leader. I also think that he will go on to do great things in politics. Would I be gung-ho for him as the VP nominee right now? Not really. I think he's still got some teeth cutting to do.
Now, Sarah Palin has a few months to prove herself. So far the signs aren't good.
Far more troubling than her thin resume is her connection to the Alaskan Independence Party, a secessionist outfit that appears (at first glance) to be part of the far right. From what I've been reading, Alaska sure looks a lot like Montana. Even moreso. And no one in Montana politics is blind to the presence of some fairly radical conservative factions -- with ties to the militia movements. These factions aren't exactly helpful. The notion of putting someone with such ties in the White House is unsettling. It's a bit like putting an unreconstructed Maoist in there.
Update -- The Alaskan Independence Party is apparently the Alaska affiliate of the Constitution Party. Montanans know the Constitution Party because of Rep. Rick Jore, its sole state elected official anywhere in the country (although the Montana Constitution Party disaffiliated with the national party recently). Rick Jore is widely known for being a nice guy personally and a radical politically. Sounds a lot like Sarah Palin. Palin strikes me as the type of politician I'd like to have over for dinner, but who I wouldn't exactly trust with the Health and Human Services budget.
Some dextra-bloggers in Montana have found shocking instances of liberals saying mean and untrue things about Sarah Palin. Let me just say that for the record, I believe Governor Palin is the mother of five children and will not be a grandmother for several more months. I think her children's decisions are theirs and not really appropriate for media feeding frenzies.
But for the modern American political right to get its underwear in knots over this bullshit is just hilarious. Spend some time beating up Jerome Corsi, who has actually been a pretty mainstream figure within the modern right.
ArcXIX, the anonymous diarist on the Daily Kos website (where anyone in the world can be a diaryist), is not exactly a known figure. Hell if I even know her or his real name.
Bottom line: political campaigns apparently cause shitty people to say shitty things about non-shitty people. Pretending that this is a feature solely of the right or the left is hilarious. I would say, though, that the mainstream right has been far more accepting of this shit emanating from their side.
