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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (311129)	11/19/2006 2:41:02 AM
From: Elroy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572893

re: He said Yes What, are you arguing with him about what he said? No, I'm pointing out that "Yeah, but blah blah blah..." and "Look, but blah, blah, blah...." are about the same answer, and the media is making too much of an issue that he made the first answer option. If the news is going to focus on Blair calling the invasion a "disaster" it should focus on that when Blair comes out and says "I think the invasion was a disaster", not when he gets caught in a linguistic error.

To: Road Walker who wrote (311129)	11/19/2006 5:15:35 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1572893

Wife offers first-hand account of what went wrong with voting It wasn't a nonvote of protest, a part of a conspiracy, or any of the flaky theories being bandied about. It was a mistake, pure and simple. My wife was one of 18,000 or so undervotes in Sarasota County. She wanted to vote in the hotly contested race for the 13th Congressional District. But she missed the race on the ballot. Here's what happened: We ran some errands and arrived at the precinct a bit after 4 p.m. on Election Day. The wait for a booth was about 10 minutes. My wife voted, and then helped me cast my ballot. Moving toward my booth, she said she was disappointed that she wasn't able to vote for either Christine Jennings or Vern Buchanan in the 13th Congressional District. That race was not on the ballot, she said. At the time, I thought it was odd that the biggest race of the season was not on the ballot. And when the race appeared on my ballot, I attributed the mix-up to my wife's Luddite tendencies. "When I saw that race on the other ballot, I knew I screwed up," she said. It wasn't until we read the newspaper the following day that we learned how many other voters also screwed up. She felt somewhat vindicated learning that the undervote in Sarasota County reached a disproportionate 13 percent. Typically, undervotes -- those ballots in which a race is left blank -- in major races such as one for Congress are just 2 percent. She now suspects that the ballot design was the reason for her error and probably thousands of others. Finding the reason for the undervote is easier than solving the problem it caused. This isn't going to be solved by a recount, since that would tally only the votes cast. It doesn't take a Rhodes scholar to see that in an election decided by a few hundred votes, those 18,000 undervotes could make or break a candidate's bid for office. As a nation, we've become fairly complacent about exercising our duty to vote. So when we do vote, we want it to have meaning. It's a matter of trust. Voting and the electoral process are part of the infrastructure of democracy. We pay taxes and expect things to work. We send our children to public schools, and pay for cops to enforce laws, and we want the courts to lock up crooks and thieves. It's part of the appeal of Western-style government. Courts, government administrators, employees and libraries all contribute to a concept known as the rule of law. The rule of law is often the most apparent when the nation seems on the brink of chaos. The resignation of President Nixon is a good example of this phenomenon. The most powerful man on earth left office without a shot being fired. Having the infrastructure work also means a ballot that is clearly worded and easy to read. For decades, Blacks fought for the right to vote and have their voices heard in free and transparent elections. This isn't the same struggle. But we should expect no less from today's election officials. It may not happen, but it's clear that a special election is needed to ensure a fair process. That's preferable to sending the wrong representative to Washington. heraldtribune.com