http://realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/
Sunday, November 04
| General Election: Romney vs. Obama | Politico/GWU/Battleground | Obama 48, Romney 48 | Tie |
| General Election: Romney vs. Obama | NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl | Obama 48, Romney 47 | Obama +1 |
| General Election: Romney vs. Obama | Rasmussen Reports | Obama 49, Romney 49 | Tie |
http://www.businessinsider.com/ohio-provisional-ballots-recounts-2012-11
DEAR TRADERS: The 'Biggest Political Risk' In The World Is Looking More And More Possible
They wrote:
We view most of the recent price action in G10 FX (with the possible exception of the USDJPY rally) as being the result of squaring up ahead of the US election and 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. The biggest political risk is the potential that the US result won‘t be known due to the combination of a tight election and re-count/mail-in issues in swing states.
They cited the possibility of a nail-biter in Ohio that doesn't get resolved for days, as mail-in ballots take a long time to get counted.
Now more and more people are talking about this possibility.
The problem this year is that there could easily be that many provisional ballots cast in Ohio, where state law prohibits officials from starting to count them until 10 days after the election.
About 200,000 of the more than 1.3 million absentee ballots mailed have not yet been returned, the Ohio secretary of state's office said Saturday.
...
In an effort to avoid the mess of 2004 -- when thousands of voters waited hours in the cold to cast their ballots -- Ohio election officials sent absentee ballot applications to every registered voter in the state.
The aim was to cut down on lines and make it as easy as possible for people to vote: they can pop the early ballot in the mail, drop it in a box at a polling station or just walk into a polling station and request an early ballot.
But if someone applies for an absentee ballot and then decides to vote on election day -- and experts think plenty of people will -- then they will be required to cast provisional ballots that are sealed in an envelope until it can be proven they haven't already voted.
About 200,000 of the more than 1.3 million absentee ballots mailed have not yet been returned, the Ohio secretary of state's office said Saturday.
...
In an effort to avoid the mess of 2004 -- when thousands of voters waited hours in the cold to cast their ballots -- Ohio election officials sent absentee ballot applications to every registered voter in the state.
The aim was to cut down on lines and make it as easy as possible for people to vote: they can pop the early ballot in the mail, drop it in a box at a polling station or just walk into a polling station and request an early ballot.
But if someone applies for an absentee ballot and then decides to vote on election day -- and experts think plenty of people will -- then they will be required to cast provisional ballots that are sealed in an envelope until it can be proven they haven't already voted.
With the latest poll in Ohio showing the margin to be razor thin, this is a real issue for the country and markets.
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/11/03/1134981/last-minute-ohio-directive-could-trash-legal-votes-and-swing-the-election/?mobile=nc
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/11/03/1134981/last-minute-ohio-directive-could-trash-legal-votes-and-swing-the-election/?mobile=nc
Last-Minute Ohio Directive Could Trash Legal Votes And Swing The Election
A last-minute directive issued by Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R) could invalidate legal provisional ballots. Ohio is widely viewed as the most critical state for both presidential campaigns and — with some polls showing a close race — the 11th-hour move could swing the entire election.
The directive, issued Friday, lays out the requirements for submitting a provisional ballot. The directive includes a form which puts the burden on the voter to correctly record the form of ID provided to election officials. Husted also instructed election officials that if the form is not filled out correctly by a voter, the ballot should not be counted.
According to a lawsuit filed by voting rights advocates, this is “contrary to a court decision on provisional ballots a week ago and contrary to statements made by attorneys for Husted at an Oct. 24 court hearing.”
Indeed, it also appears directly contrary to Ohio law. From the lawsuit:
Ohio Rev. Code § 3505.181(B)(6) provides that, once a voter casting a provisional ballot proffers identification, “the appropriate local election official shall record the type of identification provided, the social security number information, the fact that the affirmation was executed, or the fact that the individual declined to execute such an affirmation and include that information with the transmission of the ballot . . . .” (Emphasis added.)
The law “ensures that any questions regarding a voter’s identification are resolved on the spot or, consistent with due process, the voter is informed that he or she needs to provide additional information to the board of elections. This protects the integrity of the voting process, and provides a reasonable opportunity to resolve deficiencies.”
The last-minute directive changes this and switches the burden to the voter, greatly increasing the chances that legal provisional ballots will be discarded.
The court gave Husted until Monday to respond to the lawsuit and indicated it will resolve the dispute before provisional ballots are counted on November 17.
Husted has also tried to limit voting in Ohio by reducing early voting hours.
and weather related matters can't help but impact the Election.....
http://rt.com/usa/news/sandy-voting-extend-election-934/
Sandy may deter storm victims from voting and extend US election
Published: 04 November, 2012, 08:26
A woman votes early at a polling station in Silver Spring, Maryland October 27, 2012. Early voters could account for up to 40 percent of all ballots cast in the 2012 U.S. presidential election, and polls of people who already voted show President Barack Obama with a comfortable lead over Republican challenger Mitt Romney.(Reuters / Gary Cameron)
and........
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-04/after-flood-comes-freeze-tens-thousands-need-housing-says-cuomo-noreaster-approaches
After The Flood Comes The Freeze: "Tens Of Thousands Need Housing" Says Cuomo, As Nor'Easter Approaches
- Andrew Cuomo
- Barack Obama
- Martial Law
- National Weather Service
- NBC
- New York City
- recovery
- Reuters
- Wall Street Journal
First the flood, now the freeze (and the lack of fuel and gas and heating just making it much worse). And for tens of thousands of residents of New York and New Jersey this means that as many as 40,000 will need to find alternative housing, especially ahead of Wednesday when a Nor'easter formation is expected to hit the Tristate area and bring even more freezing rain and cold to the region. From Reuters: "Tens of thousands of people affected by superstorm Sandy could soon need housing as cold weather descends on the state of New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Sunday. Cuomo, in a televised press conference nearly a week after the storm hit the U.S. East Coast, said the fuel shortages are improving but problems will persist for "a number of days."" Elsewhere, and also from Reuters: "Victims of superstorm Sandy on the U.S. East Coast struggled against the cold early on Sunday amid fuel shortages and power outages even as officials fretted about getting voters displaced by the storm to polling stations for Tuesday's presidential election. Overnight, near-freezing temperatures gripped the U.S. northeast. At least two more victims were found in New Jersey, one dead of hypothermia, as the overall death toll from one of worst storms in U.S. history climbed to at least 112. Fuel supplies continued to rumble toward disaster zones and electricity was slowly returning to darkened neighborhoods after a storm that hit the coast last Monday. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it would be days before power is fully restored and fuel shortages end."
All of this will be exacerbated as a Nor'easter moves along the Eastern Seaboard and is expected to hit New Jersey and New York in several days:
A "significant" nor'easter is likely to hit Sandy-battered areas of the Northeast by Thursday, the National Weather Service said in an update Sunday.FEMA and Red Cross officials have ordered more resources ahead of the storm, while New York City is dealing with a shortage of fuel oil and steam to heat buildings as temperatures began dipping into the 20s and power remained out for hundreds of thousands.At the very least, the service's prediction center stated, there is "a very real possibility of heavy rain and strong winds along the coast from Virginia to Maine."
Snow is likely in the interior and some models "do bring some snow all the way to the coast as far south as Virginia," it warned.
That all of this is happening two days ahead of the presidential election is merely adding to the chaos:
President Barack Obama, neck-and-neck in opinion polls with Republican challenger Mitt Romney, ordered emergency response officials to cut through government "red tape" and work without delay to help affected areas return to normal.Officials have expressed concern about getting voters displaced by Sandy to polling stations for Tuesday's election. Scores of voting centers were rendered useless by the record surge of seawater in New York and New Jersey.New Jersey is allowing voters displaced by Sandy to vote by email. Some voters in New York could be casting their ballots in tents.
An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released on Sunday found that 68 percent of those surveyed approved of how Obama handled Sandy and just 15 percent disapproved."I'm not thinking about the election too much right now," said Frank Carrol, 59, a retired New York City transit worker who lives in Staten Island. He planned to vote, but did not know if his local polling station would even be open. "We'll stop by and see what happens," Carrol said.New Jersey Governor Chris Christie ordered county clerks to open on Saturday and Sunday to accommodate early voters and ensure a "full, fair and transparent open voting process."
And while most appear content with the crisis response to date, with the apex being Mayor Bloomberg's cancellation of the marathon due to massive popular outcry (we are confident all those who spoke up are now taking part in the recovery efforts), the DOE just announced that 25% of New Jersey is still without power. This led to Martial Law being declared in the town of Seaside Heights which has been totally destroyed, as we showed in the Hurricane Sandy before and after satellite pics.
We expect more regions of NJ to be declared uninhabitable in the coming days as the situation continues to deteriorate.
and.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/04/us-storm-sandy-hurricane-idUSBRE89N16J20121104
(Reuters) - Victims of superstorm Sandy on the East Coast struggled against the cold on Sunday amid fuel shortages and power outages, two days ahead of an election that polls suggest is a dead heat between President Barack Obama and his Republican rival.
Fuel supplies were rumbling toward disaster zones and a million customers regained electricity as near-freezing temperatures descended on the U.S. Northeast overnight. But New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned the city that it would be days before power was fully restored and fuel shortages ended.
Obama, neck-and-neck in opinion polls with Mitt Romney, ordered emergency response officials to cut through government "red tape" and work without delay to help ravaged areas return to normal as quickly as possible.
The power restorations relit the skyline in Lower Manhattan for the first time in nearly a week and allowed 80 percent of the New York City subway service to resume. But some 2.5 million homes and business still lacked power across the Northeast, down from 3.5 million on Friday.
The power outages combined with a heating oil shortage meant some homes would be cold as unseasonably frigid weather set in. [ID:nL1E8M2DQD] Forecasters saw temperatures dipping into the upper 30s Fahrenheit (around 3 degrees Celsius) on Saturday night with freezing temperatures expected next week.
Bloomberg urged those without power and heat to head to shelters where they could keep warm and receive food.
"Right now it's starting to really get cold," he said.
Officials across the storm-ravaged U.S. Northeast are increasingly worried about getting voters displaced by Sandy to polling stations for Tuesday's election. Scores of voting centers were rendered useless by the record surge of seawater in New York and New Jersey.
New Jersey is allowing voters displaced by superstorm Sandy to vote by email, while some voters in New York could be casting their ballots in tents in an 11th-hour scramble to ensure voting in Tuesday's elections.
The post-storm chaos in the region has overshadowed the final days of campaigning, making voting an afterthought for many.
"I'm not thinking about the election too much right now," said Frank Carrol, 59, a retired New York City transit worker who lives in the hard-hit borough of Staten Island. He planned to vote, but did not know if his local polling station would even be open. "We'll stop by and see what happens," Carrol said.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie ordered county clerks to open on Saturday and Sunday to accommodate early voters and ensure a "full, fair and transparent open voting process."
New Jersey authorities also took the uncommon step of declaring that any voter displaced from their home by superstorm Sandy would be designated an overseas voter, which allows them to submit an absentee vote by fax or email.
RUNNERS WON'T STUMBLE
The storm's death toll rose to at least 110 with nine more deaths reported in New Jersey on Saturday, raising the total in that state to 22. Bloomberg put New York City deaths at 41.
Sandy killed 69 people in the Caribbean before turning north and hammering the U.S. Eastern Seaboard on Monday with 80 mile-per-hour (130-kph) winds and a record surge of seawater that swallowed oceanside communities in New Jersey and New York, and flooded streets and subway tunnels in New York City.
As the biggest U.S. city slowly returns to normal, Bloomberg said the "vast majority" of New York's 1,750 public schools would reopen on Monday.
New York City's overstretched police got a break with the cancellation of Sunday's marathon, a popular annual race that became a lightning rod for critics who said it would divert resources.
Hundreds of runners in New York City are refusing to let the canceled marathon spoil their Sunday plans and are channeling months of preparation into a series of informal runs intended to benefit victims of superstorm Sandy.
Police said that New York City crime dropped by a third in the days after superstorm Sandy, but there was a slight increase in burglaries after at least 15 people were charged with looting empty businesses and homes blacked out since the disaster.
The police said a man wearing a Red Cross jacket was arrested for burglary on Staten Island after being seen checking front doors of unoccupied houses. Police presence at gas stations was increased on Saturday after at least 10 people were arrested on Friday for various disputes over line jumping.
The weather forecast remains bleak. An aggressive early-season "Nor'easter" storm was expected to hit the battered New England coast next week with strong winds and heavy rain.
FISTFIGHTS AT FUEL LINES
Bloomberg praised utility Consolidated Edison for making significant progress in restoring power to customers. But he had sharp words for the Long Island Power Authority, LIPA, which he said "has not acted aggressively enough" in its power restoration efforts, above all in the Rockaways, a beachfront community in the borough of Queens.
In New Jersey, Christie ordered rationing that allows only half of all cars to buy gasoline each day. Obama won praise for the federal storm response but the devastation was so widespread that angry storm victims continued to appear on television.
Tight gasoline supplies have tested the patience of drivers - fistfights have broken out in mile-long lines of cars - but a reopened New York Harbor meant fuel was reaching terminals.
To alleviate one of the country's worst fuel chain disruptions since the energy shortage in the 1970s, some 8 million gallons of gasoline and other petroleum products have been delivered since Friday, with much more expected this weekend, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said.
Bloomberg said the fuel shortages would be easing soon, and the U.S. Department of Energy confirmed on Saturday that most filling stations in the metro area had fuel. Cuomo said there were would be free gas available to motorists though the New York National Guard later said emergency personnel and first responders would have priority.
The Obama administration directed that supplies of gas and diesel fuel be trucked to New York and New Jersey. It also waived rules barring foreign-flagged ships from making U.S. domestic fuel transfers.
Consolidated Edison, battling what it called the worst natural disaster in the company's 180-year history, has restored electricity to most Manhattan neighborhoods. The company said 246,000 customers in New York City and Westchester County still had no power, down from nearly a million cut off by the storm.
and....
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/11/02/nys-board-of-elections-its-possible-voting-may-be-permitted-beyond-tuesday/
ALBANY, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) — New York state law allows for an extra day of voting if turnout is drastically suppressed because of a natural disaster like Superstorm Sandy. That could potentially postpone state, congressional and even presidential election results beyond Tuesday’s Election Day.
State Board of Elections spokesman John Conklin confirmed Friday that the law permits election commissioners to create a second day of voting if the turnout in any county is less than 25 percent of the total number of registered voters.
The commissioners, two Democrats and two Republicans, would make that decision after Election Day. Any second day would have to be scheduled within 20 days.
Something like this has never happened before, but due to the extraordinary circumstances currently hitting New York, it could.
Officials were checking polling sites Friday to make sure they can open Tuesday.
Typical turnout is about 60 percent in most areas.
With every state along Sandy’s destructive path using electronic voting machines, election officials were pressing local electric companies to make restoring power a priority to places that were to serve as polling places.
“We’ve provided lists of poll sites to local utilities, and some of the voting machines do have battery backup,” New York State Board of Elections spokesman Tom Connolly said. “We are also planning to get generators to polling sites, but it’s not like we have an unlimited supply of generators.”
Elected leaders across the states affected by Sandy were taking different approaches to the impending vote tallies.
In hard-hit New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg referred all voting-related questions to the city Board of Elections. But he said recovery crews were working hard to restore electricity to schools, many of which serve as polling places. Voting should proceed smoothly in those places, he said.
“There are some where there were transformers in the basement that were damaged — the Board of Elections will have to find alternative locations,” Bloomberg said at a news conference.
Elections spokeswoman Valerie Vazquez said officials were determining the condition of polling places around the five New York boroughs even as the storm stripped power from the agency’s headquarters, forcing workers into temporary office space.
“Our trucks are loaded and ready for delivery of all voting materials and equipment once we know that sites have not been damaged,” Vazquez said. Elections officials, she said, “will be working around the clock and through the weekend to make sure that all voting sites receive everything they need to be up and running on Election Day.”
and......
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/where-we-are-with-three-days-left/2012/11/03/b8176532-25b2-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_blog.html
Nate Cohn looks at all the most recent polling in Ohio, Wisconsin and Nevada — three states that would put Obama over 270 — and concludes:
As of today, there is not a single non-partisan survey showing Romney ahead in any of these three states.
The RCP averages show Obama leading in those states by 2.9, 5.4 and 2.7 points respectively. This comes after two polls yesterday — fromCNN and NBC/WSJ — put Obama up three and five points in Ohio. Meanwhile, Cohn notes there is evidence Obama is edging ahead in Colorado.
And in Florida, an NBC/WSJ poll last night put Obama up two points. In the averages, Romney’s lead in Florida ranges from 0.2 points to 1.4 points. For all the talk about his “expanding map,” Romney is still fighting to hold Florida. Cohn concludes:
Obama is far better positioned in Florida than Romney can claim in any of the states along Obama’s path of least resistance to 270.
And in Virginia, the race is within one point, too.
Unless Romney can pick off Pennsylvania, where he trails by 4.6 pointsor more in the averages, he very likely has to win Florida, Ohio, andVirginia to win the presidency. That’s especially true if he doesn’t win Colorado.
And so, in the three Romney states likely must win, Romney is behind in one, tied in the second, and holds the most tenuous of leads in the third. He is leading meaningfully in none of them.
Meanwhile, Obama only has to win one of those three to virtually assure his path to 270. And he is leading meaningfully in one, tied in the second, and seriously contesting the third. With three days to go.
As always, the polls could be wrong, and Romney could still win. But the polls would have to be overwhelmingly, systematically, catastrophically wrong in multiple states for that to happen.
and.....
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203707604578090962267200892.html
Henninger: Romney's Secret Voting Bloc
Mitt Romney's margin of victory in Ohio could be evangelical Christians.
You've heard about Mitt Romney's problems with the women's vote, the black vote, the Hispanic vote, the union vote and the young Democrats vote. But there's one major voting group that's fallen off the map since the primaries.
The evangelical vote.
When Mitt Romney's 2012 candidacy was gaining traction in the primaries, the conventional wisdom instantly conveyed that the evangelical vote, skeptical of Mormonism, would sink him.
What if in Ohio next week the opposite is true? There and in other swing states—Wisconsin, Iowa, North Carolina, Florida—the evangelical vote is flying beneath the media's radar. It's a lot of voters not to notice. In the 2008 presidential vote, they were 30% of the vote in Ohio, 31% in Iowa and 26% in Wisconsin.
Back in April, the policy director of the Southern Baptist Convention, Richard Land, predicted that evangelicals in time would coalesce behind Mitt Romney. Yesterday he endorsed Mr. Romney, the first time he has done so for any presidential candidate.
Ralph Reed, the president of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, has been spending a lot of time in states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in the belief that evangelical support for Mr. Romney could be decisive. He notes that when George W. Bush won Ohio in 2004, the Kerry camp thought their dominance of Democratic Cuyahoga County around Cleveland had the state locked up. But Mr. Bush's solid support in evangelical-dominated counties from Cincinnati to the West Virginia border carried Ohio by two percentage points.
Before the first presidential debate on Oct. 3, Mr. Romney was eight points behind the president in Ohio. In the past week, the Cincinnati Enquirer/Ohio News Organization poll had Mr. Romney even with Mr. Obama, and a few days ago the Rasmussen poll put him up by two points.
Mr. Reed notes that in several opinion polls—NBC, Pew and ABC—the percentage of evangelicals claiming to support Mr. Romney has been in the mid-70s. "We estimate that in 2008 there were 350,000 evangelicals who didn't vote in Ohio," Mr. Reed says. "Obama carried the state by 260,000." If that support of 70% or more holds for Mr. Romney in Ohio, and if the share of the evangelical vote increases by a point or two, then the challenger could carry the Buckeye State.
Also worth noting is that one of the biggest events of the 2008 election—the Saddleback Church interviews that evangelical Christian leader Rick Warren did with Barack Obama and John McCain—didn't happen this year despite an offer from Mr. Warren. Mr. Obama's effort in 2012 to reach out to these folks has been minimal. Mr. Romney met three weeks ago with the Rev. Billy Graham, who is actively supporting the governor. In May, Mr. Romney gave a well-received commencement speech on religious values at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.
Perhaps Mr. Obama concluded that the evangelical vote was his 47%. It's generally thought that the president burned any remaining bridge to them with the gay-marriage decision that Joe Biden made for him. But it's more complicated than one issue.
Four years ago, evangelicals mainly supported former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. When John McCain became the nominee, he and the evangelical community never connected, and many evangelicals stayed home. This time they are in motion.
The president of Ohio Christian University, Mark A. Smith, says, "The intensity of voters in the faith community is as high as I've seen it in the last 12 years." The driver of that intensity is religious liberty. "We took a direct hit with the Affordable Care Act," he says. Evangelicals watched the Obama administration's big public fight with Catholic hospitals and charities. What they concluded is that the health-care law was a direct threat to their own private outreach programs.
Mr. Smith says that if evangelicals in Ohio's rural communities repeat their turnout levels from 2000 and 2004, they will offset the Obama advantage in Cuyahoga County. "Six different faith groups are out there" for Romney in Ohio, he says. "That didn't happen the last time."
Mr. Smith and others I spoke to this week cited one more reason for their enthusiasm: Paul Ryan. Steve Scheffler, a longtime GOP activist in Iowa, says it was "the best possible choice" Mr. Romney could make for the ticket. "It galvanized evangelicals."
Of course all this is also the reason Barack Obama can drill millions of campaign dollars out of Hollywood and Manhattan. This paranoid political money is missing a deeper issue in the 2012 campaign. In his campaign and his presidency, Barack Obama has been explicit about a historic enlargement of the nation's public economy. For anyone whose life consists of making a living in private work and donating off-hours to private charity and private worship, there is a sense of being squeezed by this president. And among these are evangelical Christians.
http://news.yahoo.com/up-in-smoke-how-gary-johnson-and-a-colorado-marijuana-initiative-could-cost-obama-the-election.html
( May Gary Johnson be the Ralph Nader of this Election cycle ?? )
Up in smoke: How Gary Johnson and a Colorado marijuana initiative could cost Obama the election
BOULDER, Colorado—Dressed in a sports jacket, a faded peace-symbol T-shirt and blue jeans, the Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson was playing to a rapturous overflow crowd at the University of Colorado. The man who could be the Ralph Nader of 2012 beguiled his largely male, mostly student audience with his views on the second-biggest issue on the Colorado ballot this year: Amendment 64, which would legalize marijuana.
“I’m the only candidate running for president of the United Stateswho wants to end the drug war now,” Johnson, a former Republican governor of New Mexico, said Monday night to cheers. “Colorado has the opportunity to change worldwide drug policy by voting for Issue 64.”
Johnson, who first endorsed marijuana legalization in 1999, is a Ron Paul libertarian with a deep toke of social permissiveness. Even though he was an asterisk in the 2012 Republican presidential primaries, Johnson and his pro-pot stance could be a surprise factor in a swing state where all the polls point to a tie. As Jeff Orrok, the Colorado chairman of the Libertarian Party, puts it, “We’re getting a fair amount of synergy around Amendment 64.”
Like Nader in Florida’s hanging-chad 2000 election, Johnson will draw only a small percentage of the presidential vote in Colorado. A new CNN/ORC poll gives Johnson 4 percent of the vote in Colorado. But many other Obama-vs-Romney poll questionnaires in Colorado do not mention Johnson by name, instead lumping him with other minor-party candidates (including comedian Roseanne Barr) under a vague designation called “Other.”
But it’s not blowing smoke to believe that Johnson could corral enough support from tepidly pro-Obama younger voters to make an electoral difference in a state as evenly divided as Colorado.
Confronting the curse that haunts all third-party candidates, Johnson stressed to his supporters that they’re not disenfranchising themselves by voting for him. “Wasting your vote is voting for someone you don’t believe in,” Johnson said Monday night as his acolytes demonstrated a libertarian disdain for fire-marshal rules about blocking the aisles in the college auditorium where he spoke.
In an interview backstage after the speech, as fans clamored for autographs, Johnson impatiently waved off any comparisons to the third-party candidacy of Nader, who Democrats blame for costing Al Gore the 2000 election in Florida.“I think that voting one’s conscience is how you change the system,” he said. “If I get a certain number of votes it affects Romney in ways that he…”
Here, Johnson broke off the thought to mention the pressure that his “hero” Ron Paul is already putting on the Republican nominee. “Romney pays a bit of lip service [to libertarian principles],” Johnson said, “but maybe he goes beyond paying lip service.”
At moments like this, Johnson’s Republican roots are showing. But in both his speech and the interview, Johnson claimed to have been beguiled by Obama’s rhetoric, even though he voted for the Constitution Party presidential candidate in 2008. “I was very optimistic on gay rights, very optimistic on the war and I was very optimistic on the drug war,” Johnson told me. “Those were three categories that definitely were going to improve under Obama. And they haven’t.”
Johnson is, by no means, a one-issue candidate, and his supporters in Boulder roared when he proclaimed, “I would have vetoed the Patriot Act.” But even if Johnson waffled a little on the immediate legalization of cocaine (“We will not go from A-to-Z overnight”), this is a candidate firmly on the side of the stoners. If Colorado passes Amendment 64, Johnson said in his stump speech, pumping for the allure of reefer-madness Colorado vacations, “it will send a message when everyone in the country wants to go Denver for the weekend to chill out.”
Polls suggest that Amendment 64 is likely to pass. Introducing Johnson in Boulder on Monday night,Denver shock jock Uncle Nasty (a.k.a. Gregg Stone) said, “I truly believe 64 will pass and we’ll go to war with the feds.”
While war is undoubtedly an exaggeration, the Obama administration (and, needless to say, a potential Romney presidency) has shown scant sympathy for the medical marijuana programs that are legal in some form in Colorado and 16 other states.
Coupled with a deadlocked presidential race in Colorado, Amendment 64 adds a dazed and confused element to Campaign 2012. “What Gary Johnson does is make the winning margin for president in Colorado 48.5 percent,” said Democratic political consultant Rick Ridder, who has advised the Amendment 64 campaign. “It’s unclear at this point who Johnson takes votes from. Traditionally, the Libertarian candidate draws from Republicans. But this year, it’s uncertain because of 64.”
It seems ludicrous that a state referendum on marijuana could influence who gets the codes to America’s nuclear weapons next Jan. 20. But it once seemed unfathomable that Jewish voters in Florida’s Palm Beach County mistakenly punching Pat Buchanan’s name could, in effect, elect George W. Bush president in 2000. That’s the hallucinogenic wonder of American politics—anything can happen, and all too frequently does.
http://www.dickmorris.com/in-the-last-few-hours-sudden-danger-signs-in-polling/
As Election Day approaches, we must be very sensitive to last minute changes in the polls. Remember that President George W. Bush fell from a 4 point lead into a tie over the last weekend in 2000 and Clinton rose from a tie to a 5 point win in the last weekend of 1992.
With that caution in mind, a danger signal comes from the latest Rasmussen Poll reflecting a two point gain for Obama. Whereas before the storm, Rasmussen showed Romney two ahead, he now has the race tied at 48-48.
That is troublesome.
And, in Pennsylvania, Romney led on Wednesday night by two points but on Thursday night’s polling, he was tied.We have also seem slippage for Romney in Michigan.
More troubling, Rasmussen shows a two point gain for Obama in job approval rising from 48% to 50% in the current poll.
All of these changes are, no doubt, related to hurricane Sandy.
Nobody really knows what the impact of hurricane Sandy will be on the election. Until its waves crashed into the New Jersey shore, the election was well in hand for the Romney campaign.
Coming off strong debate performances in which he debunked Obama’s negative attacks on him, the former Massachusetts governor was doing very well. Obama was reeling, unable to regain his footing, in search of a message, and bedeviled by questions about his increasingly obvious coverup of the Libyan attacks.
But after the storm? Who knows? We have never had a storm so close to a national election, much less one as close as this is.
Many a governor or mayor has recovered from political oblivion by actively running around his state seeming to coordinate storm relief. And just as many have fallen apart because of a failure to clean up promptly.
It may be that Obama’s visit to New Jersey and the high profile (figurative) kisses bestowed on him by nominal Republican Mayor Bloomberg of New York and real Republican Chris Christie of New Jersey might have helped him.
Perhaps he is erasing the image of a nit-picking, petulant president deep into negative charges against his opponent and replacing it with the image of an executive handling a tough situation for our country.
This race is not over yet! And with a media determined to re-elect Obama, we may see the president’s recovery continue unless we step up our own efforts to thwart it.
We are still likely to win. The undecided vote always goes against the incumbent and all the polling suggests we will be more successful than they will be at turning out our vote. But, early warning signs must be headed.
and Ohio could be a nightmare - once again.......
With the presidential election expected to hinge on Ohio, the state’s former secretary of state, GOP stalwart Kenneth Blackwell, is warning that a little-known change in the Buckeye State’s absentee-ballot process could lead to a “nightmare scenario.”
And that scenario could force the entire country to wait 10 days after the election to find out who will be the next president of the United States. It’s a complicated situation, to say the least, but one that could have a far-reaching impact on the Nov. 6 election process.
For the first time in the key swing state’s history, Blackwell says, virtually all Ohio voters this year were mailed an application for an absentee ballot. In previous elections, most Ohio voters had to request an application for an absentee ballot to receive one.
The concern is that thousands of Ohio voters may complete the absentee-ballot application and receive an absentee ballot, but not bother to complete and mail in the ballot.
Anyone who is sent an absentee ballot — including those who do not complete it and mail it in — and later shows up at the polls on Election Day to cast their ballot in person will be instructed to instead complete a provisional ballot.
And under Ohio election law, provisional ballots cannot be opened until 10 days after an election.
“I would just say that this is a potential nightmare-in-waiting,” says Blackwell.
Blackwell believes that could result in an unprecedented number of provisional ballots being filed – some 250,000 or more. Such a large number of ballots being held, presumably under armed guard, for 10 days until they can be opened, would bring to mind the historic 2000 post-election battle in Florida. That recount was marked by ballot disputes — and inevitably, lawsuits.
“You’re talking about craziness for 10 days,” Blackwell tells Newsmax in an exclusive interview. “They won’t even be opened to be counted for 10 days.”
According to a report by Barry M. Horstman of the Cincinnati Enquirer, absentee-ballot applications were mailed to 6.9 million of Ohio’s 7.8 million registered voters.
As of Oct. 26, Ohio election officials had mailed out 1.3 million absentee ballots. Of those absentee ballots, 950,000 had been completed and mailed back in.
That leaves some 350,000 absentee ballots that had been requested and sent to voters, but had not yet been received.
Ohio voters who requested an absentee ballot, but did not complete it and mail it back in, will not be allowed to vote normally.
Explains Blackwell: “So they go to the polls and say, ‘I want my ballot.’ And [poll workers] say, ‘Oh, we see you applied for an absentee ballot.’ The voter says, ‘Oh, I changed my mind.’ And they say, ‘That’s well and good, but we have to guarantee that you don’t vote twice. You have to fill out a provisional ballot.’”
Provisional ballots are used whenever someone shows up at the polls whose eligibility to vote cannot be immediately verified. Their name may not show up on the voter rolls, for example.
Rather than turn them away, state election officials typically have those individuals indicate their voting preference with a provisional ballot. Once their eligibility to vote has been established, the vote can be counted.
The use of provisional ballots is intended to prevent any voter from casting one ballot by mail, and then a second ballot at the polling place.
Ohio’s current secretary of state, Republican Jon Husted, pushed for the absentee-ballot applications to go out to all voters, according to Blackwell.
In previous Ohio elections, a few counties would automatically send out absentee-ballot applications to all their residents, while the vast majority of counties would not. Husted sought to make the absentee ballot process uniform across Ohio’s 88 counties.
In a news release, Husted said the new system would “help reduce the chance of long lines at the polls during the presidential election, and voters in smaller counties will have the same conveniences as voters in larger counties.”
No one can say how many absentee ballots will remain outstanding as of Election Day. Ohio voters have until Nov. 3 to request an absentee ballot. Election officials will accept and count absentee ballots as long as they are postmarked by Nov. 5, the day before the election.
Ordinarily, the number of provisional ballots outstanding in Ohio probably would be inconsequential. In 2008, according to the Enquirer, only about 70,000 were actually cast.
But uncertainly over perhaps a quarter-million votes would be a serious concern in Ohio, given the historically close margins of victory there.
Democrat Jimmy Carter carried Ohio by only about 11,000 votes over incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford in 1976. In 2004, GOP President George W. Bush carried the state by 118,775 votes over Democratic Sen. John Kerry, in a controversial finish that occurred during Blackwell’s tenure as secretary of state.
As of Wednesday, the RealClearPolitics average of polls in Ohio showed President Barack Obama leading GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney by 2.4 percent. That site, and many others, rate the contest as a toss-up.
No Republican has ever won the presidency without carrying Ohio. The Obama campaign has rested its re-election hopes on a firewall strategy that hinges on winning Ohio’s 18 Electoral College votes. Doing so would greatly complicate Romney’s path to garnering the 270 Electoral College votes needed to capture the presidency.
If the voter turnout in Ohio matches the 2008 level of 67 percent, some 5,226,000 votes would be cast. Under that scenario, 250,000 provisional ballots would amount to 4.8 percent of the entire vote — well over the current difference between the two candidates, according to RealClearPolitics poll average.
Other than Horstman’s report in the Cincinnati Enquirer, Ohio’s provisional ballot issue has largely flown under the radar of the national political press.
Blackwell tells Newsmax that given the uncertainty over how voters may respond to the widespread, unsolicited invitation to obtain an absentee ballot, the potential for a 10-day delay “is a major concern in terms of the management of a process that is perceived as being free, fair, and as unsuspenseful as possible.”
Hamilton County Board of Elections director Amy Searcy echoes Blackwell’s concern. She told the Enquirer that a 10-day lag while the entire nation waited for Ohio to declare who won its election “would be called my nightmare scenario.”
Matt McClellan, press secretary for the Ohio Secretary of State’s office, tells Newsmax it will be late Tuesday or early Wednesday morning before a final tally is available of how many absentee provisional ballots have been cast.
He confirmed that 2012 marks the first election year in which virtually all registered voters in Ohio were sent absentee ballot applications.
He said the department has not made any projections on how that change might impact absentee and provisional ballot voting trends. However, he emphasized that the vote-counting process in Ohio will be reliable, secure, and in accord with the state’s election laws.
“I disagree with the Enquirer story,” said McClellan. “There is not a nightmare scenario for Ohio.
“If the margin is too close, and we’re just not able to tell definitely at that point, that doesn’t mean anything bad has happened in Ohio. It means the process is proceeding as is required under law. So, will we have outstanding absentees and provisional ballots? Yes. We don’t know how many yet; we won’t know until Election Day.”
McClellan emphasized that every legal ballot will be counted.
Blackwell agrees there is no way to know yet how many provisional ballots Ohio will ultimately have to count, or if the nation might have a 10-day cliffhanger before the winner of the presidential election is known.
But he adds, “It is not an unreasonable scenario to plan against, given that this is the first time in the history of the state that every registered voter got mailed – unrequested – an absentee ballot [application].”
No comments:
Post a Comment