elections

The Right* to Vote

June 2, 2012

Last month I vacationed for 14 glorious days in the Bahamas, dividing my time between the islands of Exuma and Eleuthera. During my week on Exuma, the Bahamians voted in national elections, held every five years. Their fervor was inspiring. Nearly every car was festooned with flags of one of the four main parties. Many […]

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Signs of the Times

November 14, 2008

I’m waiting for numbers. As in how my Portland precinct voted in the presidential election. Only county-by-county totals are available, though I know Barack Obama’s tally will be staggering. During the campaign, I saw only one John McCain sign in the neighborhood, and it was homemade. Obama signs, including this one in my yard, spread […]

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Democracy Under Seige

October 29, 2008

Four years ago on Election Day, I saw the face of voter intimidation. It belonged to a tall thick-chested man standing outside the elections office in Portland. He glowered at the people waiting in line, looking them over head to toe. He was among Republicans dispatched to “protect” us against voter fraud. Of course there […]

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Voting Like the Bear

October 23, 2008

No presidential election has consumed my life like this one. And it will soon be over, creating an emotional and intellectual gap that I’m not sure how I’ll fill. What will I read about incessantly? What will I talk about with family and friends? All signs point to Barack Obama winning. Unless something momentous happens […]

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Votes lost in the ether

August 22, 2008

After reading this account of programming errors plaguing touchscreen voting machines in Ohio, can anyone have any confidence in a free and fair election? Too bad the story doesn’t detail if there’s any pattern to the dropped votes. For example, how do they correlate to the party registration of voters whose ballots aren’t counted? And […]

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Rippling Over Time

May 3, 2008

News flash: A Civil War cannonball kills a relic collector 140 years after it was fired near Richmond, Virginia. Analysis: Wars don’t end when peace is declared; the weapons fight on. Would the soldier who lit the cannon’s fuse done so had he recognized the potential consequences rippling out over Time . . . consequences […]

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