Librarian's Rant

On Election Day, I heard from many of my family and friends in Ohio, especially in Cleveland, about voters (especially poor women) being turned away from the polls for spurious reasons, votes coming up incorrectly on touch-screen machines, and so forth.

Now it seems that a voter advocacy group, the Election Protection Coalition (part of the People for the American Way Foundation) are conducting hearings to "collect testimony of voting troubles that might be used to seek legislative changes to Ohio's election process".

Tales of waiting more than five hours to vote, voter intimidation, under-trained polling-station workers and too few or broken voting machines largely in urban or heavily minority areas were retold Saturday at a public hearing organized by voter-rights groups.

For three hours, burdened voters, one after another, offered sworn testimony about Election Day voter suppression and irregularities that they believe are threatening democracy.

...[some participants] said they were testifying not on political grounds but out of concern for a suspicious election system that should be above reproach.

Harvey Wasserman of Bexley said he tried to vote absentee with the same home address he has used for 18 years but was told he couldn't because his absentee application had the wrong address.

"But the notice telling me I had the wrong address arrived at the right address," he said. "I wonder, how many of these absentee ballots were rejected for no good reason?

"My concern is not out of the outcome of the election," Wasserman said, "but that this could go on and an election could be stolen. And we simply can't have that in a democracy." [emphasis mine]

Couldn't have said it better myself.

We'll have to see if this goes anywhere. They tried to do some fixing after 2000 (remember HAVA?), but not every state was made accountable for how they implemented change, if at all.

JaBba sent me to it.

Seems some enterprising critters made a dam out of money from a casino heist. The beavers could not be found for questioning.

Thanks, Akeisha, this made my day.

WARNING: entrance to the Unshelved Store may cause you to drop a load of cash on gifts for your librarian friends

They have some neato new items, including this great Library Raid Jacket.

Please Note: To ship in time for Christmas, your order must be received by November 17!

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(I am not in any way affiliated with Unshelved, Overdue Media or Bill and Gene, I simply adore them from afar.)

Thanks to James at LU for the link to this amusing program at MIT. I particularly like the bench.

Yesterday's Unshelved comic was a classic. Dewey: "Everything I know about U.S. history, I learned from 'Schoolhouse Rock'".

Indeed. "I'm just a bill. Yes, I'm only a bill. And I'm sittin' here on Capitol Hill..."