Truthiness for All

Lets leave NCLB behind, shall we?

2009-05-12T13:01:00.003-05:00

Seeing Texas Talk blog on House Bill 3 and Senate Bill 3 Relating to public school accountability, curriculum, and promotion requirements, I too thought Hallelujah! Though I am not a teacher, I have many family members and friends who are teachers. One in particular has talked about having to ‘teach to the test or TAKS’ and how it puts undue stress on 3rd graders and the teachers. I really don’t believe that you should be stressed out in 3rd grade. The only thing you should be stressed over if you are 8 is when the next Harry Potter movie is coming out.

Besides the students being stressed, the teachers are run ragged trying to get the kids prepared for the TAKS testing and aftermath. Because after the TAKS tests are over, you only have a short time to actually get down to being able to teach everything that should have been teaching throughout the school year. Also if the students, as a whole percentage wise, consistently do make the acceptable range on the tests the teacher’s job may be on the line. If this teacher is in a poor district with little resources and the students’ home life is not conducive to learning, poor scores over all may not reflect on that teacher. More stress….

In talking with a high school teacher friend of mine, he said that most of the kids he sees in his classes are not ready for college level courses even though they may have passed the TAKS testing. A Houston Chronicle article on the HISD schools progress in improving overall students testing scores also had some that worried that many schools put way too much emphasis on the TAKS testing.

I am hopeful that this bill that has now passed both House and Senate committees and is on the intent calendar will be passed and put into place soon. I think it is very important for everyone that we place more emphasis on teaching and learning and less on standardize testing.

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Texas HB 2094

2009-05-05T23:26:00.006-05:00

After reading through several articles and getting madder or depressed or being reduced to only thinking of one or two expletives to write about any of them, I had to step back and go have a beer. As Homer says, “Ummmmmm….. Beeeeeeeeeeer” But not just any beer but a fine craft brewed beer from an independent brewer. Much more flavorful and deep than mass market beers out there. Each brewer adds something of themselves to the process.

Back to being disgusted with the legislatures (Yes the federal and state) and thinking that it’s ALL rigged and there is no way to stop bills or move other bills ahead based on public opinion. Then something happens that makes me set back and think, well maybe it’s not ALL rigged. One was an OSHA proposed regulation that would have had an effect on availability of ammunition and reloading supplies. There was a public comment period in which both my husband and I sent in one of those pre-written letters to OSHA. I really did not think that anything would come of it but because of the comments sent in, the regulation was amended. One of the first times in recent memory that something like that had actually worked out the way that I wanted it too.

Now I can chalk up another bill that made it out of committee in the Texas House. This is one that is near and dear to my heart , HB 2094 that would allow small brewers to sell beer on premises. For some small breweries such as Live Oak this means if I wanted to me could go to the brewery directly and purchase some very fine pale ale or HefeWeizen or maybe even Big Bark.

This bill that had been introduced the first time in 2007 died in committee and this year’s version seemed doomed to meet the same fate. However last Thursday things started looking up. The Houston Chronicle ran a story on it last Friday and had been calling around to committee members to see how they would vote. So a bill that had been doomed because of, most likely, back room power brokers had new legs. By shedding the light of day on the bill with people going on record about it, this started this bills own ‘call in’ to let your legislators know how you feel about it. The bill made it out of committee today. I am kind of hopeful it will make it to the floor this session.

It’s not a big deal bill, nothing really earth changing but it reminds me that the system does work. This shows however that if you just set back and grouse about whatever the legislature did or did not do and you did not say anything thing about it to them, you have no room to complain. Also it shows that newspapers still can be powerful and most of all that people can get around a cause and bring it before our elected officials to effect change. But you have to speak up!

Focus on Texas .... not GOP

2009-04-21T12:55:00.004-05:00

In reading getting back to our roots, I was reminded that lately it does seem like that Mr. Perry is trying his best to be the biggest right wing, most conservative, makes Ms. Palin look liberal and be in Rush Limbaugh’s top 5 favorite people than to focus on his job of governor. He really should remember that he won re-election after having almost 61% of the voters vote AGAINST him.

It sounds like to me as though Mr. Perry is running for a presidential or vice presidential nod and maybe trying to show up Kay Bailey Hutchinson, his rival for the republican candidacy for governor in 2010. Perry appears to be talking out of both sides of his mouth however in that after Hurricane Ike he wanted FEMA to pay 100% of clean up costs, rather than the normal 75/25 spilt, and also wanted FEMA's help with the recent wildfires but yet wants the federal government ‘out of Texas hair.’

Historian Tory Gattis writes that Texas is primed to be the next big wave in growth in the US, following the growth waves of the East Coast, Midwest and West Coast. Texas should be preparing for that wave by strengthening our public schools, grow our research universities and finance the state’s water plan now. Those are just some of the big decisions legislators have before them in this session. That’s what Perry should be focusing own in my opinion, to grow our state and not his political right wing clout.

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Gay Marriage Commercial

Maybe Disney came come up with a plan....

2009-04-14T22:44:00.007-05:00

While reading about the Texas legislature wanting to do something about roads but not wanting to do the unpopular thing and raise taxes to pay for it I was reminded of when we lived in Pflugerville. At the time Pflugerville still had just a volunteer fire department and a small police force operating out of an all in one police station-city hall –jail in beautiful downtown P-ville. But P-ville had grown from a little spot in the road back in ’86 when I moved to Austin to a full fledged bedroom suburb in early 2000’s, It was time to raise taxes and pay for a full time paid fire department, new larger police force and station with a larger jail because of all the new ‘Otis’s’ in town. (If you get that reference you have told someone recently to turn the music down too)

But it was time as the town had too many citizens for a small police force and volunteer fire department to handle and so I cast my ballot to raise my property taxes to pay for the police, fire and ambulance in P-ville. Growing up is hard and owning a home is part of that and all that goes along with that such as property taxes. But those were services that were needed and had to be paid for in part by me the taxpaying citizen. It would be nice to never grow up and live in ‘Neverland’ and not have to think about nearly everything that you own or do being taxed to pay for something and that something’s upkeep. However the legislature seems to think that there are fairies and elves that will build and repair Texas roadways and rail systems. Not raising the state gas tax that helps build new roads and bridges in the last 18 years has put a real burden on the system. It is estimated that the funds that are coming in by 2012 will all be used to maintain and pay debt incurred in building existing roads. With all the new people driving in Texas we need new roads and bridges to be built so that we can zip around and not have to leave hours early just to get to where we are going.

I am not a fan of paying more for gas but also understand that everything costs more to do over time. Why there has not been a system in place of incrementally raising the state sales tax on gasoline that way you do not have to endure a drastic hike all at once? Is it just the legislature wanting to live in ‘Neverland’ so that they can say they never raised taxes? That is the Texas thing to do it seems, low taxes and lower services.

Hightower said it first it seems

What we will drive on if the ledg does not act soon

State Board of Education says its Beer:thirty

2009-04-03T15:24:00.004-05:00

This blog is by Dave Mann the Texas Observers reporter who got stuck with the assignment of setting in a Texas State Board of Education meeting that turned into a 6 hour debate over the final version of science textbook standards and curriculum. Textbook companies who produce science textbooks will have to publish the results of this as content in their products which is used throughout the U.S. Also it sets the curriculum for the next decade on what will be taught in Texas in Science classes. This is interesting to me, as I worked for several years for a textbook publishing company. I worked with bids and contracts, having to meticulously make sure that every I was dotted just so because if it was not, the local level Board of Education’s would toss the bid out. I find it both extremely funny and quite sad that most of the proposed amendments to the standards were submitted hand written in the same format and neatness as my grocery list. I have had a bid thrown out because of an incorrect font yet proposals on the state level, that it takes 10 minutes just to decipher what the amendments were saying , are ok?

I think Mr. Mann does a good job of reporting what went on from a pro evolution leaning stand point. That the State Board had a year to hammer this out and was still debating topics as low level as word choice and handing in substantive amendments that were hand written is worrisome. His reporting -- though pro-evolution-leaning -- showed that even on the Education Boards level there need to be some cause for concern as it seemed throughout this meeting, that should have been more of a voting and signing party, it was a tedious “insert the word ‘all’ here” affair.

A Teachers View

The AP news story

2009-03-24T23:50:00.004-05:00

Redistricting commission

Bill to take partisanship out of redistricting gains force in Legislature.

Texas House should support redistricting reform

The citizens of the state of Texas need a non partisan approach to the job of Congressional redistricting. Too often the State legislature is unable to get the job of redistricting done due to partisanship. A very messy power grab in 2003 by the new republican majority in the State legislature that lead to eleven Texas Senate Democrats fleeing the state for Oklahoma and New Mexico for 46 days in a quorum busting effort to prevent the passage of the redistricting legislation. This ultimately failed, however the U. S. Supreme Court did throughout the District 23 as in valid citing a Section 2 violation of the Voting Rights Act.

State Senator Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, has been introducing legislation to create an independent redistricting commission since 1993. This commission would have 4 Republican and 4 democratic appointed members plus a none voting chairperson that would be chosen by the members. The members of this commission would hold no elected office or be involved in party of electoral politics while serving on the commission.

I think that Texans would benefit from a bipartisan redistricting commission such as the one proposed. It would remove one of the most overt demonstrations of partisan power by taking it from the political parties in the Legislature. The commission should, being bi-partisan, create more sensible congressional districts for the state. Our present congressional map is considered by many gerrymandering at its worst.

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Bye-Bye, Boys' Club

2009-03-05T22:53:00.002-06:00

In all honesty, I did not spend a lot of time looking at the Texas legislature candidates up for election for the November races. I live in Williamson County and it has been a VERY Republican strong hold forever. I was shocked to find out on November 5th when I bothered to look at the Texas races that Williamson County of all places elected a DEMOCRAT and a woman at that. Had to place a call to my UT-ex poly sci major buddy that used to live in my neighborhood that had moved out of state to tell him, I heard the phone clatter to the floor as he dropped it in shock.

I was excited to find this article in Texas Observer about the ‘old boys club’ having a chuck taken out of in the legislature. A grassroots organization, Annie’s List, is helping women to run for and win office. These women are pro choice but after that they are a progressive diverse bunch and Annie’s List helps monetarily, personnel and training wise for the campaign trail.

Reading about this got me excited about following the Texas legislature because of with more women in house we are looking at a bigger push for issues that are close to home, improving education, pay equality, health care and combating domestic violence.

Annie's List
Diana Maldonado

Are we safer yet?

2008-12-11T14:20:00.014-06:00

I have worried about another terrorist attack happening here in the U.S. or overseas. What will the terrorists do next? They have gotten more and more sophisticated while the authorities have not seemed to keep up – as in Mumbai. It has been reported that the police there were vastly out gunned by the terrorists. Also 9/11 was not the first time that terrorist activity has graced our shores, domestic terrorist attacked on April 19, 1995 with the bombing of the Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City. Details came out after that, the perpetrators had visited several federal buildings in different cities in deciding which one to bomb. At the time I was living in Des Moines, IA which was one on the list and I worked near it. Then we have all the work place, shopping and school shootings all perpetrated by people carrying out their own little forms of ‘jihad’ not to mention drunk drivers on the road that could run you over. So are we ever really safe getting out of bed in the morning? (I won’t mention planes falling out of the sky onto your house now…)

In a post 9/11 U.S. it does seem that we have let our civil rights slip away some, just so that we will feel safer. The Patriot Act gives the government sweeping powers to fight terrorism but many of the provisions run counter to the Constitution. Things like innocence until proven guilty, limits on government’s power of search and seizer of property and separation of powers ect. Back in August 2003 the Bush administration released a report that detailed civil rights abuses committed in the implementation of the Patriot Act which got a lot of press coverage but at the time got very little public discussion. Although now I do hear more of a discussion and it seems that we as a nation are waking up and seeing that our fear might have been used against us in order to distract us from other things going on.

I agree with Lawrence in the hope that we do not give up our rights because of fear. We need to be vigilant because I can see that before 9/11 we had let our guard down but I think in some ways the pendulum has swept back to far the other way. "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

Author John Mueller explains how the terrorism industry thrives on exaggeration

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Lewis Black on why we are so safe....

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The New Poll Tax?

2008-11-30T17:00:00.004-06:00

This presidential election saw some of the same long lines in early voting that plagued some parts of the country the last presidential elections. Reports from Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Oklahoma and other states said that people where waiting up to 8-12 HOURS to vote EARLY. To me, and many others as I have been reading, that smacks of a type of poll tax.

Even though the poll tax was formally done away with in the 24th amendment to the constitution, a wait of that long is a type of poll tax. You have to consider the cost to you to wait for that long in lost wages or even if you have a job that would allow you to miss that much time at work. Then consider if you are in college (classes), elderly or disable (physical stamina) or have small children to take care of. The lost wages and time are enough to deter you from voting if the wait is that long, even though you are not paying cash at the door to vote you are paying via those things.

Also are the lines just a bureaucratic snafu or another way to disenfranchise certain groups of voters? I saw a very interesting graph of news reports of long lines vs. the state population of African-Americans based on the Election Day news articles referring to long lines at polling places.

Long lines are a deterrent themselves because for every person in line who waits the 5, 6, 8 hours it takes to cast their ballot there are how many that cannot for the above mentioned reasons or simply are discouraged from doing so.

To help fix this problem a Florida Congressman Alcee L. Hastings, authored the Critical Election Infrastructure Act of 2008 that would spend $1 billion dollars over the next four year to eliminating long lines by supplying more workers and voting machines. Also he authored the Voter Outreach and Turnout Expansion (VOTE) Act, which would make Election Day a national holiday and allow for no excuse early voting as well as same day voter registration nationwide. I believe this would go a long way in helping to increase voter turnout over all and decreasing the wait time in lines.

">">Poll Tax?

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Ohio 2006

Yes Americans should vote

2008-11-13T14:35:00.004-06:00

After reading iGov editorial on why we should vote, I thought about the same responses that I received from my friends as to why some of them would not vote. They ran down some of the same excuses that she stated. My personal favorite that she did not list was “I will go vote if that will shut you up.” My response was “Thank you.”

I agree that we should vote. Even if you live in a state that has gone one way or the other for years, if enough people decided that this is the time to change, then your vote will be important.

In this historic election several states did in fact change color. The electorial college only applys for the presidential contest, the other offices that you are voting on are on a straight popular vote count. The Minnesota Senate race is looking like it is coming down to a few hundred votes. So is Alaska, at the moment, the Democratic candidate is ahead by a FEW votes but “Alaska, determined to continue in its role as the vortex of all things politically strange, still hasn’t counted tens of thousands of ballots” (1) The state of Georgia is having a run off on its Senate set on December 2 this year as well.

There are other countries that face incredible hardships just to cast a ballot. For example, in the Southern African nation of Zimbabwe, there were reports of armed militias attacking sometimes killing political opponents. Also this type of political harassment included assaults, abductions and forced attendance at President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party rallies of the Zimbabwean citizens.

Americans tend not to turn out if the weather is bad, or if it inconveniences them in any way. If the lines are too long, i.e. would have to wait more than 10 minutes. My favorite excuse this year was that they did not know enough about the candidates. Pardon? How could you NOT know SOMETHING about the candidates? With the wealth of information out there on most all of the people running for office, I find that hard to believe.

Our democracy depends on an informed electorate that is our citizens being informed about public affairs. It does not take much to at least scan the paper, or go to a news web site or turn on the television to a news channel while getting dressed. This will at least keep you in the loop to what is going on. Go check out the League of Women Voters voter guide the morning of the election and read up on the candidates if nothing else. Just go and vote and thank your lucky stars, God, Allah, Buddha, Odin, Gluskab, Ehecatl, Bhagavan , Radha or that rock in your garden that you are able to vote freely.

1. The Election Lives!

Photo caption and credits:

Opposition party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters from the rural south of the country show their broken limbs from an assault in the capital Harare May 3, 2008.

(Howard Burditt / Reuters)

Voter Suppression in the 21st century

2008-10-31T22:34:00.004-05:00

Hearing about the uproar over the voter registration efforts by the Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now, i.e. ACORN, made me just a little more ‘fearful for the republic’ as they say. Republicans allege that ACORN is engaged in voter fraud. There has been no proof of any systematic effort of this by ACORN. In some states there have been registration cards turned in with Mickey Mouse or the starting line for the Dallas Cowboys as new voter names, and since most every state they are required to turn in all computed applications, ACORN workers flag such cards.

The Constitution, along with the other supporting amendments, says that if you are 18, a U.S. citizen, and not declared mentally incompetent (as I might be soon if this election season does not end) you are eligible to vote. Early in our country's history it was not this way, the vote was limited to adult white males who owned property, in other words people who where well off financially. But even now the low income and minorities face disenfranchisement.

Congress did pass the National Voter Registration Act in 1993 that requires states to register voters at the state welfare offices. Many locations it seems are not complying with this law as shown by the numbers of people registering. When the law was first enacted 1995-96, the program registers 2.6 million people. The numbers for 2005-06, last year which data was available, showed only 500,000. Some locations do not have registration forms or trained staff onsite to assist with filling those forms out. You are able to register online or at motor vehicle offices but for lower income people, many do not have cars and or computers, so the welfare offices are often the only opportunity to register.

ACORN holds voter registration drives by going out into the community, either door to door in low and moderate income neighborhoods or at shopping centers, libraries and talking to high school seniors who are of age to vote. ACORN in the Houston area has had no big issues with registrations and the Harris County voter registrar says they have a healthy relationship with ACORN. Any problems that have come up have been minor or have been addressed - sometimes even before the registrar’s office has contacted the group.

Last Friday the U.S. Supreme Court overruled an attempt by Republicans to challenge the validity of 200,000 voter registrations in Ohio. They wanted to force the Ohio Secretary of State to provide county election officials with lists of registrants whose personal information did not exactly match Social Security or driver’s license data. This would leave those voters open to challenges if for example their address had street rather than drive or if a middle initial was on one and not the other yet the rest of the information matched. They might have to vote on a provisional ballot and those ballots are notorious for not being counted.

However now even with the Supreme Court ruling, President Bush forwarded a letter from House Minority Leader John Boehner requesting that the Department of Justice look into if the Ohio state voter rolls comply with the Help America Vote Act passed in 2002 after the 2000 presidential election debacle. Also today five former high ranking DOJ lawyers urged that the DOJ continue to look into ACORN activities. Yet there has been another letter to the DOJ a week ago from SIX former DOJ lawyers to make sure that the investigation does not keep eligible minority voters from the polls because the investigations would have a “chilling effect” (1) on voters.

This all comes down to in my opinion voter suppression on the part of the Republicans as traditionally low – moderate income people, young people and minorities tend to vote for the Democratic party.

(1)Former Justice Officials Press ACORN Investigation

Go VOTE " with your stupid... stupid heart" or "Die"

2008-10-18T15:11:00.016-05:00

I read ‘How an IED got me to Vote’ and thought about how many friends that I know, that still are not voting because neither party speaks to them or they do not have the time to read up on the candidate and issues. Even with this year’s election, the one that one would think would spur everyone to get out and vote, I have close friends who still don’t know who they will vote for. It amazes me that anyone has this attitude in the U.S. after all that is going on in our country today with any one of the critical issues there are at this point in time. How could you not have some opinion and want to find candidates to vote for.

The Vanishing Voter Project was based at the Shorenstein Center at the JFK School of Government at Harvard. Through research it explored an understanding of the factors that influenced public involvement in the Presidential election process in 2000 and 2004. The study released a book in 2002 of their findings that concluded current campaign techniques had turned some citizens off that would have potentially otherwise held an interest in public affairs. Attack journalism had eroded trust and soft news had reduced levels of election coverage which in turn reduced the frequency that Americans thought about the election and the front loading of the nominating system. Electoral college strategies also tend to depress turnout in both primaries and the general election in non battleground states. These were the findings of the 2000 election in which they did 99 surveys at least once a week and collected data of 97,797 respondents from November of 1999 to January of 2001.

When I was in junior high (middle school for you young whipper snappers) and high school, the courses I really enjoyed and excelled in where history and government. While my girl friends were busy in "Home Ec." (oh barf), I took world history and honors government. As I moved along in life, busy trying to make rent and meeting Mr. Connell, my interest in closely following public affairs and government fell off. I still voted, but really did not know much about the candidate except some brief reading through a voter’s guide. Around the 2004 elections an extremely issues involved friend of mine got my interest renewed in finding out more about what was going on with our government.

The Vanishing Voter Project showed in 2004 as with the Broken Skull, author of the blog, that a large majority of both first time voters (92 percent) and repeat voters (86 percent) said that election issues was the important factor in the decision to vote. The first time voters cited not a ‘civic duty’ in the reason to vote but a personal contact of friends or family that encouraged them to vote.

NSFW or R-rated South Park:

Paper Trail

2008-10-02T16:55:00.003-05:00

The editorial from the New York Times editorial board ' Certified but Not Guaranteed' made the argument for a backup paper trail as well as better testing of electronic voting machines. Having read this piece, reminded me of other articles that I had read on the very same subject.

After the debacle of the 2000 presidential election and the stories coming out of Florida in which Volusia County had major issues with a memory card that seem to take away votes from Gore and redistribute them to Bush and the other candidates on the ballot there were calls then for a paper trail.

In the documentary “Uncounted; The New Math of American Elections’ brought to light a big issue with electronic machines. There was a rush to ‘fix’ the problems of the 2000 election. Electronic touch-screen and push button “DRE”s that are easy to manipulate in so many ways because of the proprietary coding of these machines, were purchased around the country. No one could easily check the programming of these machines to make sure that it was functioning correctly and reliably.

One study done by National Election Data Archive Project gave this graph to show the discrepancies on various types of voting technology:

It shows that touch screens have almost the same rate of discrepancies as the punch cards they were replacing. Optical scan was only slightly better. The paper ballots that are hand counted have the lowest instance of discrepancies according to this graph.

Since the 2004 elections there have been several well-research reports that have documented the deficiencies with paperless electronic voting. The Brennan Center Task Force on Voting System Security at NYU School of Law found that the three most commonly purchased electronic voting systems in the nation are vulnerable to software attacks. This can threaten the integrity of a state or national elections that use these machines with out verifiable paper trail.

The Government Accounting Office, a nonpartisan research branch of Congress, found flaws in all areas of the electronic voting machines; security, access, and hardware controls in these systems along with weak security management practices by the machine vendors. The GAO report also identified operational failures in real elections.

On August 15 this year the New York Times ran an article saying that the flaws in voting machines used in many parts of U.S. will not be fixed in time for the vote in November. The backlogs at the testing laboratories that the Election Assistance Commission uses are to blame. The commission is the federal agency that oversees voting for the U.S.

As a result of the backlog the manufacturers and state election officials are saying that many jurisdictions will forgo important software updates meant to address a variety of issues, namely security and performance. Not only will the commission officials not be able to certify that flawed machines are repaired, they cannot provide software fixes and updates by the November election. In some cases, election officials have no choice but to buy machines that lack the current innovations and upgrades in order to have enough machines for the high turnout on election day that is predicted this year.

With the many issues still hampering electronic voting systems, it only seems to be logical that with electronic systems you would have voter verified paper records of some type. Anyone with any electronic gadget knows that there is a good chance at some point it will blue screen, kernel panic, or some snafu will cause data corruption. With a paper trail back up in the elections, when that happens, the election officials could then do a hand count and get a accurate voting tally. Also you as a voter would have peace of mind that your vote has been cast as you intended.

The Right to Vote

2008-09-17T12:18:00.011-05:00

The Right to Vote ,a New York Times Op-Ed column, is a subject that I guess most of us don’t really think about. We are taught that all U.S. citizens have a right to vote. There are a few exceptions, if you are a convicted felon or declared mentally incompetent by a court you are not allowed to vote. However the past few elections have brought to light that there is still in modern day 21st century voter suppression being committed against American voters.

In the 2000 presidential elections there were many stories of voter irregularities and outright voter disenfranchisement. Long time registered voters suddenly not on the voter roll, poll workers themselves reporting many inadequacies. Polling places closing early or moving without notice, absentee ballots not counted, letters signed by then Governor Jeb Bush encouraging a vote by mail –except that is not allowed in Florida and reports of State Troopers parked in the sight line of polling places or even conducting unauthorized vehicle checkpoint within a few miles of a polling place. Again the Florida Election Code restricts the presence of law enforcement at polling places.

Again in 2004, I was one of those holding my breath, to see if we would have a repeat of the 2000. It seems that we did, however Senator Kerry conceded the race the next day after the general election. In Ohio however, more irregularities were brought to light. Obstacles to voter registration, improper purges of voter lists, practical impediments to voting – such as excessively long lines with hours long waits, and more problems with absentee ballots and provisional ballots. Also a new issue was thrown into the mix, hacking of the new DRE voting machines, optical scan voting systems and punch card voting system (it seems that the 'hanging chads' in the 2000 election headaches in Florida came back for a repeat performance) and good old fashioned not counting the votes properly all came into play.

I believe that in this general election, as we should for all elections, it is imperative that we all exercise our right to vote. Some say they don’t know enough about the issues to vote. It does not take a lot of research or hours to find out basic information about the candidates or the issues especially with all the choices available to get your information from. Most newspapers and their websites have side by side comparisons of the candidates and where they stand on the major issues.

I have included some sites on election protection, sites to check to make sure that you are registered and if not how to register (you have until Oct. 6 to register for this election) and a video with Thea Brodkin with the League of Women Voters who answers basic questions on voting.

Who Can Vote? Video

Can I Vote?

Arm yourself with knowledge about voter ID requirements and your voting rights with our voter ID toolkits

Election Protection

Testing .....

2008-09-03T13:12:00.002-05:00

Those would be my "children" on vacation...