Arizona's Vote Count vs. California's, and Maricopa County Has 109,000 85,300 66,550 Ballots Left

Abel Baker

Friggin ridiculous! This is one of our basic rights...where's the outrage folks?

fairymagic13

I heard a rumor that Helen Purcell, Karen Osbourn, Betsy Bayless and the Sea Hag all booked a child prostitution tour of Southeast Asia and that's why the vote count was taking so long!

ChiliFreshnEasy

@fairymagic13 okay, so what's california's excuse? over a million? makes AZ look small time.

Elba Villa

I know there's a process counting those votes, but c'mon!

dennis20 topcommenter

1 Like

HA! Now this is sure to get an eye roll or two but as long as we are looking at other states?

http://wonkette.com/489966/anonymous-claims-it-stopped-karl-rove-from-hacking-the-election-by-hacking-orca-we-think

Anon,

If you did. Thanks. If you didn't...well thanks anyway.

Flyer9753 topcommenter

1 Like

@dennis20

HAHAHA !!! That is great and I would not put it past anon for a second...

dennis20 topcommenter

2 Like

This is the first election where voter problems have come to surface enough to push real change and that is only because of one reason: WE PROTESTED IN MARICOPA COUNTY AND WE WERE HEARD BY THE ENTIRE NATION!

We are now having discussions and politicians are paying attention to the people instead of ALEC pushing more suppression laws.

People everywhere identified with our protests for a number of reasons and thats what is pushing changes and improvements.

We've had voter suppression since this nation was founded and any change only came after people raised hell. How long it takes to count votes, in my opinion is the least of many problems. Instant gratification should not get in the way of accuracy. Had the supreme court agreed-GWB never would've been elected and the entire world might look differently today.

So not only did these protests help Arizona-they helped the Nation. That is what will be remembered. It wont be that some protesters or even organizers didn't always have the numbers right on their signs or even know all the facts, laws and regulations.

They aren't historians or journalists and none were even running for office.

The protesters were angry voters jacked around, people who registered about 50,000 new voters in Maricopa County. Also, people who couldn't vote because of age or status but were involved anyway in this election.

Voters across the Nation related to it for their own many reasons. The media and politicians took serious notice. I cannot think of a more successful protest in recent Arizona history.

Voter suppression is like racial profiling. It's damn hard to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt in court and it takes years to build a case of systematic or institutionalized profiling as is the case with Arpaio and MCSO.

I also think its a wonderful thing that we keep pressure and a closer eye on SOS Ken Bennet the rest of his term. After all, he was the man in charge of securing Arizona for Mitt Romney (after Sheriff Babeu got caught as a bathroom male model) and did spend at least some of our tax dollars on Obama's Birth certificate. Call me crazy if you'd like for taking issue with that or national media finding it a bit smelly.

We sometimes accept things others find disturbing here for some reason and it aint the Arizona heat that causes it.

leonardclark

1 Like

@dennis20

Wow ! Thanks Dennis ! Excellent and informative words !

Leonard :)

dennis20 topcommenter

@leonardclark Thanks Len. There is a also differance between counting all the votes and having every vote count. That info seems lost

on those that attack the protesters.

No one should be surprised that Ken "Birther" Bennet extended the counting. But notice how he did not extend it even one day past last wednesday for conditional/provisionals? Instead they tossed out about 950 votes last wednesday. (so much for counting all the votes)

Every vote matters in this election. Right now Arpaio won the popular vote by slightly less than 2%.

On election night he announced he won by around 12% AND CLAIMED HE ALWAYS WINS BY 12.

After all all 66,550 left are counted he may even lose the popular vote. Granted-he still won but when you figure Stooge Stauffer in, thats where the numbers are.

JohnfromMesa

@dennis20 Penzone lost. Carmona lost. Notcause of trix at the polls. Cause AZ is a Nazi county and state. The voters support the Nazis. Vote for them. 50,000 new voters is not a lot when you have 51% voting for asshole Arpaio.

wherewasi

2 Like

Regardless, I am thrilled to see that even after spending more than $7 MILLION (80% of that from outside of Arizona) Arpaio is reduced to (currently) 51.17% of the vote. Based on the last week of updates, if and when they finally finish counting, he may well be under 51% which must be pretty humiliating to him and his campaign staff. Not that he needs more things to be humiliated about. He just needs to start feeling the humiliation he has so rightfully earned.

Also thrilled to see Kielsky taking more than 27% in the County Attorney race even though Montgomery ran pretty much "unopposed" for all intents and purposes. Kielsky just needed to show up and put his name on the ballot so that people had that "someone else" Punk Montgomery told us to vote for if we didn't like him. It's too bad that Montgomery didn't make that arrogant proposal a few months earlier so that we would have had time to actually campaign for Kielsky before the election.

LD25

1 Like

I am not saying this did happen but wonder if there are provisions to keep it from happening. Who has access to the tabulations of the early ballots? Suppose a recorder from county A is from party B and sees that party B's candidate is close but trailing. What's to keep the recorder from calling that candidate and saying you need to pump up the volume on your campaign? Could it lead to robocalls to party C candidates with wrong poling location information?

danzigsdaddy topcommenter

1 Like

@LD25 i think that the counting of early ballots is just HOW MANY, not who they are for. i am not sure 100%, just offering a suggestion. i dont think tabulation is done till last minute

Flyer9753 topcommenter

@danzigsdaddy @LD25

You are correct.

Mail in and early voting ballots are held in secure warehouses and left sealed in the original envelopes until the actual tabulation where the envelope is opened and the vote read.

Prior to that they can only count how many ballots they have and compare the names on them to the voter registration lists to determine/count D or R according to the registration of the voter, not the actual vote.

That DOES mean that yes, the scenario LD25 puts out can happen based on that extremely inaccurate comparison of voter registration to party, but as this election showed, that is extremely inaccurate since many people are registered in one party but that does guarantee they voted for that party.

leonardclark

3 Like

Let me make one thing clear....Mr. Lemons is a kick ass investigative journalist but....as a friend I still agree to disagree with him. I have to in this case agree with danzigasdaddy and flyer. I still agree that (which I find hard to believe) there is a good chance huge mis-calculations and mistakes were mader but these mistakes are still of major negligent proportions and the two entrenched officials....Helen Purcell (who finds Jon Kyl her most admired politician according to a republic biol) the Maricopa county Recorder (Republican) and Karen Osborne (who works for Helen Purcell the republican) the Maricopa county elections chief are entrenched in these critically important and crucial county postions and have been for decades. They need to go and be replaced...not in the next election but NOW....

Here is my video that I made of how I feel on this. Again, thank you Mr. Lemons for constantly putting your neck on the line with fascists like Joe Arpaio and Russell Pearce.

Leonard Clark 11-16-12

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrjQnPHe5gE

danzigsdaddy topcommenter

2 Like

what really shocked me is that they knew tons of people would be provisional, and still screwed everything up. this whole ordeal makes the "Hanging Chad" deal seem like a flawless situation. someone on another article brought up a good point. maybe if Bennet wasnt dealing with retarded stuff like Joe and the tea parties birther crap he could have been doing his job right so we wouldnt have this problem. they misprinted a couple dates, the changed voting districts around, they didnt have enough provisional envelopes etc etc etc. this state is looking like the special olympics of government.

danzigsdaddy topcommenter

2 Like

and now they are saying the pickled pig, Jan the Sea Hag can run for a 3rd term even though our constitution says she cant.... on a technical argument of "what they intended when they wrote the law....." well, it doesnt say what they intended, so maybe they should have worded it that way. dont forget, Jan is the one always crying "the letter of the law" not "the intention of the law"

wherewasi

3 Like

@danzigsdaddy

Actually, I think it says exactly what they intended it to say. Any term or any part of a term. What is it about these words that Governor Glug Glug can't understand? What does she think is vague? What does she think they mistated about the intention.

It's just not what she wants to hear. I agree - the courts had better stand up to her and wag a finger in her face...

danzigsdaddy topcommenter

2 Like

@wherewasi the law is niether black or white, its grey, the law will favor whoever can translate it best. if the pickled pig can get a lawyer who can spin words well enough, she can claim the law is in her favor. the law needs to be more defined, although in this case, i believe it is, and does not favor her (kind of like sobriety or good looks dont favor her either). but the funny part is how she claims we need to follow the law, yet she is trying to redefine a already clearly stated law. seems to me the old Sea Hag isnt all about "the letter of the law" like she claims

BeerBackMountain

1 Like

@wherewasi @danzigsdaddy she just wants attention and to seem like she's not a lame duck, when she is. her backer chuck coughlin is behind scott smith's campaign for governor. and NO ONE, not even Jan, will be gettin in the way of that

Flyer9753 topcommenter

2 Like

@danzigsdaddy

It's not official yet, she and her people say it but it will take the courts to rule on it for it to happen.

danzigsdaddy topcommenter

3 Like

@Flyer9753 i do hope you are right and the courts shout a resounding FUCK NO to her

arizonaeagletarian

2 Like

Obviously, ONE of the problems is the size of Maricopa County, as it is in Los Angeles County in California. However, a number of things could and should have been anticipated by elected Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell.

stephen.lemons writer

1 Like

@arizonaeagletarian right on. but failure to anticipate is not voter suppression

Flyer9753 topcommenter

4 Like

@stephen.lemons @arizonaeagletarian

I beg to differ.

The officials knew the amount of people in the county and knew the expected turnout. It's an election officials job to anticipate what is needed to make sure the vote happens in a timely and orderly manner.

I used to be a network administrator for a global ISP. We new the potential number of customers in an area before we opened up service there and planned accordingly. If one of the people who planned the network did not plan accordingly and make sure the assets were in place to service those customers when they were told their service would be up, that person got reprimanded and in many cases, fired for not doing their job.

Election officials have the same responsibility, if not more since this is the foundation of our country we are talking about here, the vote, the peoples voice. If anything they should all (nationwide) be doing everything they can to make voting as easy as possible and have more than enough resources in place than what they think will be needed.

To not have enough polling places, to not have enough polling machines, to not have properly trained polling place workers, to put out misleading and flat out wrong information to a specific demographic not just once but twice, to not having enough people to process votes in a timely manner, sure sounds like voter suppression to me.

Was it deliberate voter suppression or not? We will probably never know but IMHO the question should never even be given the chance to come up and the only way to do that is to overcompensate on the side of the election officials - you expect 2000, plan for 2500 kind of thing.

The part I find interesting about all this is that across the nation, the vast majority of these problems are happening in Republican areas. Not saying they are not happening at all in democratic ones, but the vast majority are in republican areas and under the control of Republican election officials.

I don't believe in overwhelming coincidences and if none of them are deliberate voter suppression, that would have to be one hell of a coincidence.

Flyer9753 topcommenter

3 Like

@stephen.lemons @arizonaeagletarian

I in no way meant to imply that you are naive. I know better.

I also know that while these problems do happen in Democratic areas, when you look across the country the vast majority of the problems have been in Republican areas and under Republican Election officials. That is not prejudice against anything with an R after it, it's just a statement of fact.

I think your comparison was spot on and I am just as ticked at the problems going on in California as I am about them across the nation.

The whole election system needs to be standardized across the country in respects to Federal elections IMO, to as much as possible remove the potential for Voter suppression from a system that right now, realistically has zero protection in place regarding that, until after the fact which in many cases is too late, when the vote has already been suppressed.

You are entirely right, this has nothing to do with D or R which is why we need an election system that removes partisanship from the equation as much as possible.

The Federal Government has not done that, although there is talk about it now, so Arizona and other states could show a lot by putting that type of system in place on their own without waiting for the Federal Government to do it for them.

stephen.lemons writer

3 Like

@Flyer9753 @arizonaeagletarian Well, since the county recorder is an elected position, I would suggest that the Dems run someone against her next time.

These problems certainly did happen in Democratic areas, which is why I believe the comparison to California, and specifically its counties, is apt.

Why would Democratic counties want to suppress the vote? And if we accept that they encountered at least one of the problems people are complaining about here in AZ, then we have to look for solutions beyond a sort of knee-jerk hatred of the other guy because he's an R.

When a hurricane hits the NE coast, is that a D or R thing? Yes, Rs have a political interest in low voter turnout, Ds in higher. But sometimes the problems we encounter are actually practical and nonpartisan.

Is there anything partisan about reacting to a hurricane? There shouldn't be. And in an election, there should not be anything partisan about the administering an election.

Wishful thinking, I know...

I'm not naive, I know voter suppression is a reality; eg, Prop 200.

arizonaeagletarian

1 Like

@stephen.lemons A rose by any other name...

or, what difference does it make? A conspiracy of passive aggressive incompetence is effectively the same thing. I personally don't need to worry about what's going on in L.A. County, but using that example to suggest we give Maricopa County Elections a pass is, IMO, not acceptable.

stephen.lemons writer

@arizonaeagletarian No more than, you, senor.

arizonaeagletarian

@stephen.lemons condescend much?

stephen.lemons writer

@arizonaeagletarian That's not what I'm doing. If you don't care about what happens beyond the border of Arizona, then I can't help you. And as far as active and passive, look up the term mens rea.