Early voting brings cries of bullying...All of which just proves how right-wing Drudge is, right?
Bush/Cheney Cincinnati headquarters robbed...
Republican Party headquarters in Flagstaff vandalized...
UK GUARDIAN: 'John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?'...
The first story, from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, reports a loophole in Florida law: They forgot to keep that 50-foot safe zone around polling places for early-voting. Thus, there are stories of partisan advocates following voters into the room and standing beside the voting machines telling voters how to vote.
I can't say I'm a big fan of the manner in which these laws are enforced under the best of circumstances. I vote in the local high school, which sprawls over several acres. (Schools have to sprawl, because they have to house so many students, a consequence of guidelines for matching federal funds that require a large student body. This allows the federal government to claim that they don't really run local schools--but local jurisdictions will jump through any hoop the federal level sets in order to get those matching funds. I don't blame the feds for putting conditions on the check: I blame local jurisdictions who are incapable of turning down money if it comes with strings attached. The entire city is littered with empty schools whose students have been consolidated into mall-sized barns--admittedly lovely barns, most of them, but barns the local residents neither asked for nor wanted--in order to achieve the right numbers to qualify for federal money. But don't get me started on that.)
The entrance to the parking lot, and the bus plaza, are more than fifty feet from the front door. Therefore, the campaign volunteers can line up in both places such that I must pass through them in order to vote. This is perfectly legal, yet (in my opinion) counter to the intent of the law. I think fifty feet should be measured from the property line, not the front door.
The second and third stories are, sadly, just the most recent in an ongoing (you should excuse the expression) campaign of violence and vandalism.
And the fourth... Well, the fourth is just plain appalling.
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