The Republican Nomination For President: The Race For The Race For The White House

Do you have the option of officially refusing a ballot?

We can ask to speak to the returning officer, and then ask to have it noted that we are refusing the ballot. It has to be recorded as such.

Not a lot of people choose that option, but it is available.

No, I don't believe so, but that's a good way to register disapproval of all candidates.

We don't have the option of refusing a ballot and having that noted and counted. That makes more sense in places where voting is compulsory. I'm not sure we need to do that here, people can just not turn out to vote--low turn out reflects public sentiment too.

It almost never happens that people enter a voting booth, or hand in a paper ballot, without casting a single vote for any office or proposition. When that does happen, it throws the count off, and, if many people did it, it would suggest some irregularity in the voting process because it would register as more people voting than the total number of votes cast, for any office. So, I don't think it's an effective method of protest for people here to leave a ballot totally blank. I'm not even sure if some of the new computerized voting methods, where the ballot is scanned into a machine, would accept a totally blank ballot or whether they would read it as an error and just reject it.

I can't ever remember disapproving of every single candidate, for every office, on a ballot.

To refuse the ballot, or to refuse to vote for at least one office on the ballot, I think, is a rejection of the democratic process rather than just the slate of candidates.

I'm not sure how each district counts the votes, but here in Santa Clara County, there are cross-checks with home addresses, signatures, counters, and seals to protect the voting from fraud. When I volunteered with the county civil grand jury during 2002-2003, we inspected several voting places to make sure the voting area was secure before voting began, no tampering with the machines before or after the voting took place, how the workers at the voting places made sure about the identity of the voters, the signatures by their home address, and the count after the voting places were closed. They all had to match. We were satisfied that no fraud took place.

I think, in most places, the votes themselves are automatically counted by the voting machine.

The old lever style voting machines also counted the number of people that entered the booth as well as the number of votes cast. With those machines, if people entered the booth, but cast no votes at all, then exited the booth, the machine will register more people than votes cast--the numbers won't tally up exactly. If the discrepancy is large enough, it could require the machine to be impounded after the election to be sure it operated properly. But, since almost no one ever entered a voting booth of that type, and cast no votes at all, it wasn't really a significant problem.

American voting differs from that of most nations because of the regularly scheduled elections. Even in odd-numbered years when there are no national offices at stake, every voting district i've ever lived in uses the November voting day. In a presidential election year, we will vote for President, Vice President, Representative, usually Senator, state offices, county office, municipal offices, ballot initiatives, tax levies and bond initiatives. In many other countries, they are voting for a single office or a single party. So, for example, in a Federal election in Canada, the schedule of which is not necessarily predictable, they vote for their Member of Parliament--period. The Prime Minister is not voted on. Whichever party gets the most seats will name the Prime Minister. This will almost certainly be the party leader, chosen by the party in formal caucus well before the election, provided he or she wins in their riding, their voting district. In a situation in which you are casing a single vote for a single office, refusing a ballot makes sense. In the United States, you'd be throwing a nursery school full of babies out with the bath water.

We have a ballot measure on our local election, prop A, that lets the voters elect the mayor. For the past decade or so, the city council elected the mayor.

Thanks for explaining the difference in Canada. I can now understand why refusing a ballot makes sense.

We always have an election, of some sort, every November, because there are always some offices open, on the federal, or state, or county level, as terms expire.

Apologies to all those who come to this thread only to read posts about the republican nomination, but I need to address this meme of “Obama is a big disappointment” that seems so popular among some.

There have been groups that have always refused to acknowledge his legitimacy as a politician, or even as an American. These groups are characterized by those that don’t see any historic disrespect for the office of the presidency in the gun-wielding protests or the unending demands for citizenship papers or the exclamations shouted during a state of the union speech. They scoffed at him as a candidate; they sneered at his rhetoric. They called his supporters starry-eyed sycophants and him a deluded megalomaniac, or worse.

Those groups were easier for me to stomach than another type…
These are the ones who (some reluctantly, after Hillary lost) called themselves supporters of Obama, but who find that nothing he has done has measured up to what they expected of him. They mourn for the public option; they wept at the appointments of Geithner and other Wall-Street friendly execs to handle the nation’s finances; they grieve at the failure to close Guantanamo.

These are all issues I have against Obama as well, but just not to the same sort of ‘refuse-to-vote-and-have-a-hissy-fit-instead’ level of incoherence that I see being expressed. I am troubled by his apparent lack of ‘fight’ during the debt ceiling debacle, and with the Bush tax cuts. I have doubts about his willingness to fight, myself.

On the other hand, I think that some people underestimate Obama’s careful, persistent, low-key efforts. He was castigated for not fighting for the repeal of DADT fiercely enough, but if not for his firm efforts behind the scenes, it would not have been repealed and now the GLBT community credits him. I also happen to think that Obama is only now beginning to understand and appreciate that pushing for certain liberal/progressive positions or appointments can win in the long run, even if the effort loses in the short run.

I am disappointed in the things he has failed to accomplish as well, but not to the point that it completely blinds me to anything positive he has done.
The argument is unassailable that his rhetoric as a candidate for president far overshot what he has been able to accomplish as a president. But has there ever been a president who hasn’t, when running, used the highest superlatives about themselves and their ability to effect change in DC?

All that derision of him as “the chosen one” and wailing about how he hasn’t been able to singlehandedly change gargantuan mechanisms of finance and national defense and healthcare and sociology just sounds hollow to me. In my opinion, the sharpness and finality with which some have turned against Obama does not stand up to reasonability.

There are people – a whole hell of a lot of people – whose support of Obama may have begun with the emotionalism that came along with the historic “firstness” of his candidacy, but whose continued support is clear-eyed, pragmatic and realistic.

We admire the man for having the insight and vision that actually believed that a black man could be president of the United States. We admire the audacity with which he overtook Hillary Clinton and vanquished John McCain and persuaded a center-right country (at the time, I think) to elect a black liberal. We see the perseverance and realism and grit that allow him to shepherd important legislation against unprecedented obstructionism.
We believe that the core values of the man who compiled one of the most liberal voting records ever in the Senate over two years are still intact, and that he is doing the best he can to govern a massive and dysfunctional democracy. We can want him to do more, but we do not dismiss what he has done. To name a few…

He initiated or assisted with the passage of the Ledbetter Act which strengthened gender antidiscrimination legislation. He initiated the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that saved the country from possible economic depression. He initiated establishment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act which will continue to serve as a framework for healthcare reform. He pushed for science to be free from religious confinements to receive more government sponsoring. He has appointed liberal-leaning Supreme Court Justices.

For anyone who honestly compares Obama’s performance with those of preceding Democratic Presidents, these proclamations of “He’s incompetent!” and “I’ll vote for myself first!” seem bizarre and clownish.

I was never breathlessly in thrall to him – I was overjoyed a black man of his caliber rose to such heights, then after getting to know better what he was about, I felt he was the best man running for the job. I feel the same way about 2012.

That was a good post, snood.

But will it change CI's mind as to who he will be voting for in 2012?

Well put, Snood.
My thoughts exactly.

Joe(thank you)Nation

I could take issue with most of the points snood raised. He raised so many that his post is unanswerable. The reductions would have to be absurd the generalisations are so sweeping.

It's not so much the failure to close Gitmo as the insolence of the promise to do so. And "gender antidiscrimination legislation" is just patronising. Especially to women.

And this bounding up every set of steps he comes across is ridiculous. I saw another performance last night. What's that in aid of? From what deep flaw does it derive?

I think Mr Obama will win next year because he has nothing to beat and has the advantage of office.

Just for clarification (certainly not to answer Spendius, since my post was "unanswerable" by him ),

The Lilly Ledbetter Act made the 180 day limitation on lawsuits about discriminatory pay have to re-set to an additional 180 days with each new discriminatory pay lawsuit. It very directly strengthened the Civil rights Act of 1964, and very directly went against the Supreme Court decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, which had held that the statute of limitations began on the day the employer made the initial discriminatory wage decision, which severely limited women's (and anyone else's) ability to sucessfully sue about being unfairly paid.

snood, It's not based on "hessy fit," but his inability to see the real world of politics in trying to placate the GOP who have declared they will make sure Obama is a one-term president. All the signals were there to enforce their rhetoric; they became known as the No Party. That's been going on too long for Obama to continue his "let's negotiate meme." It's plain stupid, and I've written to Obama and his staff about this irreconcilable fence that the GOP has built. Rather than waste his time trying to compromise with the GOP - which is a total waste of time, Obama had to realize that the majority of Americans will support him if he communicated more clearly and often of what he was trying to accomplish. He failed to do that.

Obama has gotten a little tougher during the past week, but it's a little late; he wasted three years. He also didn't do anything about Gitmo, torture, or immigration. His bailout of banks without any strings attached and ObamaCare were sloppy at best. He's working on helping students pay on the government loans; but that ass backwards. They need jobs, not handouts to pay on their loans.

He's wasting his energy on the small stuff; the biggest message is about a) giving middle class workers a fair deal in their pay and benefits, and b) spend money on infrastructure and education which is the future of this country.

I'm still disappointed in Obama, but he still has one more year to turn this **** around.

Oh,,,,,, come on, Spendius, is your response to Snood's post really the best you can do?
He made too many points as to become unanswerable?

No, I think you are thinking of the questions of either the meaning of the universe or what can make love stay?

Those are both unanswerable.

Instead you reduce yourself to carping about how the US President bounds up stairs.

Really. (acid)
Joe(try again)Nation

Looks like snood bought Obama another year.

snood was udder milking on the fat teats of sentimental platitudes.

Employers don't discriminate against women. Not if they want to stay employers. They discriminate against people they can make the least money off. And they do that at the insistent behest of their customers who seemingly have a hypocritical need to pretend they are not discriminating when out hunting bargains.

snood "grieves at the failure" to close Gitmo. Aaaaaahhhhh! His grief is that of the crocodile. The promise was ridiculous and, as I said, insolent. As is bounding up short flights of steps to announce athletic excellence and phoney Jack-in a box get up and go. And he wears shorts playing golf which is, as everybody knows on his handicap, the opposite of athletic excellence.

And Mrs O wears the pants.

Next time snood has water pouring through the ceiling will he be calling a female plumber?

Again, the "Obama needs to fight!" and, "It's too little, too late!" attitude.

During the campaign in '08, a lot of people were complaining that Obama should be "brave" enough to articulate a more liberal platform. It was almost as if they were wanting him to run for the election not in reality, but just in gesture. If he didn't bring some flame-throwing proposals (that would, by the way, get him branded as an irresponsible radical) to the table as a candidate, then he was acting like he was a "sell-out" (I heard a lot of this from black liberals at the time - and mopes like Tavis Smiley and Cornell west are still doing it).

The kvetching I hear from CI and others sounds to me like the criticisms of people who would rather see protest than governance. I am heartened by the OWS protests, and I think that there is value in having people in the party like Kucinich who always espouse the ideologically pure progressive standpoint. But I prefer a president who doesn't just practice theoretical progressivism. I want one who is savvy and patient enough to employ strategy and (yes, although it has proven not to work with these republicans) compromise in the furtherance of progressive goals.