Where there's a Will, there's a way

I recently made my first trip to Chicago since starting my vinyl record collection. I went for the Steve Earle and Tom Morello concert at the Vic Theater, which was incredible.

This is the fifth time I've seen Steve Earle and he always puts on a great show. He was mostly solo acoustic except for a guy in the background with two turntables and a microphone. The man in back allowed Earle to mix his acoustic folk with subtle hip hop beats and scratch. It worked.

For a few songs he brought out his wife, Allison Moorer who also played as opening act. They sound great together. Some Statler and Waldorf wannabe at the Sun-Times panned Earle's newer songs but "Steve's Hammer", from his latest album, is now my favorite.

Tom Morello is the guitar player for Rage Against the Machine and this was the first time I heard his solo act, The Nightwatchmen. He's from Libertyville Illinois and his proud mother introduced him on stage. Nothing says "angry, politically charged, bad-ass metal/punk guitarist" like being introduced by your mom.

He started out on his "arm the homeless" electric guitar with a full band, moved to acoustic guitar with the band, and then played solo acoustic a while before bringing the band back for a plugged-in "This Land is Your Land" sing-a-long with the two missing subversive verses included. Between Morello and Earle, I haven't heard so many Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger references at a concert since the Woody Guthrie folk festival.

I was close to the stage so I saw Morello do things I've never seen anyone do with an electric guitar and other things I've only seen in Jimi Hendrix concert footage. I can't even describe it. I'm convinced he's the greatest and most creative guitar player in modern rock.

Both guys had similar comments about how exciting it is to see Barack Obama elected President, but as activists, the next step is to make sure he lives up to his better campaign promises and improves on his lesser ones.

Morello spoke about the lack of media coverage of the gestapo-like crackdown on protests at the Republican convention in St. Paul. He said Rage Against the Machine was told they would be arrested if they even stepped near a stage to play and believes there would have been an international outcry if China had used the same tactics to censor and suppress dissent. It shows how little the corporate press has changed since they failed to challenge Bush's lies during the lead up to the Iraq War.

While I was in Chicago I took the opportunity to visit two record stores in the Loop. I went to Reckless Records because I read great reviews about their vinyl collection. I don't think it lived up to the hype. Their selection was small and overpriced. Maybe their other stores are better but I wasn't impressed. Besides that, they wouldn't let me set my by bag behind the counter and they kept blaring an unidentifiable noise on the stereo that made me want to leave quickly.

But, I did pick up a Black Keys album.

They released Magic Potion in 2006. I saw them play at Lollapalooza for the past two years and they're one of the best new bands of the past decade. If you're familiar with the Black Keys there are no big surprises on this album but its everything you'd want. You can spy my CD box sets in the pic.

Jazz Mart Records claims to be the greatest Jazz record store in the world and it lives up to the hype. I'll write about that soon.

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I created a music category because I write about it often enough and I'm going to write more posts about collecting vinyl records. I decided that my new vinyl hobby is better for the environment than buying CD's. Yes, the decision to buy records preceded my green rationalization, but its still most likely true. Buying used vinyl has a lower environmental impact than a new CD and at least some people think that, despite the problems with PVC, a new record is less damaging than manufacturing a new CD. Digital downloads have the lowest environmental impact, but I actually care about sound quality.

Anyway, back to the music. I was in Bloomington/Normal and headed for Waiting Room Records after reading about them online. But, I found that North Street Records down the block is the real place for vinyl.

I spent a while browsing around their huge collection and found several albums by New Riders of the Purple Sage. I remembered that one of my favorite local musicians Bill Laymon was a member of the band at one time so it caught my attention. They're a California country/roots jam band that sometimes included Jerry Garcia. Bill's not on this album but its still pretty good. The inside cover has a cartoon about the Adventures of Panama Red.

I also found an album I never heard of by borderline country star John Prine. Any Prine is good Prine and I wasn't disappointed when I got it home. Modern folk legend Steve Goodman plays on most of the songs too. Excellent album from start to finish.

North Street had several MC5 albums re-released on vinyl. They're one of those influential bands popular with music lovers that aren't as well known as they should be. I first heard of them when Rage Against the Machine covered their song Kick Out the Jams on their last album. I should have heard them years earlier on WYMG if syndicated classic rock radio wasn't so determined to drive the same 100 songs by the same two dozen bands into the ground over and over again.

After much thought I picked "Babes in Arms" which claims to have only been previously released as a hard to find cassette tape. Its an album of "rare out-takes, mixes, re-mixes, uncensored versions, private demos" that make up a kind of "best of" collection. What finally sold it for me was the white vinyl pressing. How could I resist that?

Someone accused me of listening to a lot of what she referred to as "stoner music." I really don't know what that's supposed to mean. Is that a red oak leaf on the MC5 album cover? Next time I'll write about getting jazz records in Chicago.

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I'm often disappointed that coverage of state politics rarely mentions large rallies and lobby days at the Capitol building. If 500 people care enough about something to show up at a lobby day doesn't it deserve as much attention as the latest gossip about who snubbed who and who might run for what next year?

Apparently someone at the Illinois Times thinks so too because they have a story about the SEIU lobby day I mentioned last week. They were in Springfield to "call on state lawmakers to restore $425 million slashed from hospitals and nursing homes."

When I pick up a new IT I usually see something I could blog about. Then I see another article I'd like to blog about. Then another. Eventually I decide that anyone in Springfield who reads my blog is probably already reading the IT so why bother blogging it?

I don't get their running beef with bloggers though. I didn't care that their 2007 best Springfield blog was just an advertisement for a local business. I suspect they enjoy riling up bloggers to get a reaction, but not even naming a runner-up blog for their Best of '08 issue was just gratuitously rubbing it in. I never thought the SJ-R would be the paper with the more forward thinking approach to their relationship with blogs.

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I read at the Wonk Room that Massey Energy CEO Don Blakenship thinks his efforts to destroy America's natural heritage are part of the good old cold war fight against domestic terrorists, communists and atheists. And by the way, everyone else is too stupid to get it. The Williamson Daily News reports his comments.

“It is as great a pleasure for me to be criticized by the communists and the atheists of the Charleston Gazette as to be applauded by my best friends,” he said. “Because I know they are wrong. People are cowering away from being criticized by people that are our enemies. Would we be upset if Osama Bin Laden was critical of us?” he asked.

“Totally wrong. Nonsense. Absolutely crazy.”

Those are the words Blankenship used to describe Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid as well as environmental groups. He said he felt simple terms were the only ones the country could understand, that more sophisticated language was over the head of the general public.

“When we talk about it in more articulate ways, the American public doesn’t get it,” he said.

You know what Don, you don't have to be a communist, or even be all that smart, to see what's wrong with the mountain top removal mining methods that your company is so fond of using.

You can see more pictures at the site I stole this one from. Massey has discussed expanding its operations into Illinois.

It so happens that the Sierra Club has an online petition to Massey Energy about their mountain top removal mining methods and violations of the law.

Blakenship represents his reactionary cold war mindset on the board of the national Chamber of Commerce. I appreciate all the good that local Chambers do in the community but their national political agenda is vile.

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I'm a little surprised that the SJ-R did a story about CWLP's study on energy efficiency conducted by RLW. They even put the full 108 page report on their website. I don't image that headlines about energy conservation make papers fly off newsstands.

The study is meant to provide direction for CWLP to enact the most cost effective efficiency and conservation programs as part of the agreement with the Sierra Club. Projects will be paid for by sales of excess power from the new Dallman 4 power plant.

(Dallman 4 under construction in October 2007)

I didn't see it mentioned in the news stories, but the Mayor's blue-ribbon committee on city finances acknowledged the commitment to new efficiency and conservation projects in the city's agreement with the Sierra Club. In writing about wholesale power sales, the report stated:

Along with the purchase of wind power, CWLP will invest $4.8 million in energy conservation efforts as part of the City’s agreement with the Sierra Club. Effective conservation efforts will constrain growth in retail demand and preserve CWLP’s ability to sell into the wholesale market. Although the energy conservation component of the Sierra Club agreement expires in 2015, which will free up revenue for other uses, the Committee recognizes that it is good public policy to promote energy conservation in and of itself, but also to the benefit of electric customers and taxpayers. Residents of Springfield should be well aware of the value of CWLP’s generating capacity and the usefulness of electric conservation in minimizing energy costs and tax burdens in Springfield.

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I was briefly in the Capitol building yesterday and found myself surrounded by people in purple shirts. It was another SEIU lobby day! I got jealous when I saw union members with very cool SEIU/Obama bags and buttons.

The head of the union I once worked for, SEIU Local 880, makes a compelling case over at Progress Illinois for the federal Employee Free Choice Act.

As workers started building their union inside the three local franchises, top-level corporate executives watched closely. It quickly became clear that the McDonald’s Corporation would take extreme measures to prevent their low-wage, part-time workforce from coming together to demand better jobs and working conditions.

A few weeks after we began, a team of psychologists rolled in. They quickly went to work, systematically interrogating each employee in a not-so-subtle attempt to intimidate them out of joining the union.

In the weeks that followed, McDonald’s brought in a high-powered corporate law firm that filed motion after motion to delay the union election that would give these McDonald’s workers an opportunity to unite. As the lawyers buried us in depositions, motions, and labor board charges, they were purposely slowing down the election process and buying McDonald’s more time to run an anti-union campaign built on spreading fear and misinformation among its workers. 

One by one, the strongest pro-union voices in the three franchises were either demoted, forced out, or fired. 



For those keeping track, ACORN in Chicago helped found Local 880. You know, the ACORN that was supposed to be stealing the election. I like to do my part to help the talk radio conspiracy theorists embarrass themselves so there's another nefarious connection for them to explore.

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Both parties in the Illinois state Senate picked new leaders with better environmental records than their predecessors. Democrats picked John Cullerton as Senate President and Republicans picked Christine Radogno to lead their caucus. Both Senators were endorsed for re-election by the Sierra Club this year.

The Illinois Environmental Council gave Cullerton an 86% rating on their 2007 scorecard. He scored better with 100% in both 2005 and 2004.

Christine Radogno received a 71% rating in 2007, 83% in 2005 and 75% in 2004. That's unusually good for a Republican.

Both Cullerton and Radogno are co-sponsors of the Clean Car Act. That was one of the top priorities pushed by environmental groups this year and they will continue to advocate for it next year.

Hopefully, the change will result in the Senate passing more pro-environment legislation and maybe Radogno will encourage the rest of her caucus to move in the right direction.

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2008 was the first statewide election for the Greens as an official established party in Illinois. None of their candidates for Illinois House or Senate won, but state Democrats experienced the spoiler effect for the first time. I've heard a few people talk about it but I haven't seen it mentioned in the news or blogs yet.

In the 96th district State Representative race, Republican Darlene Senger beat Democrat Dianne McGuire by 646 votes. Green candidate Jennifer Witt won 1,818 votes.

It isn't safe to assume that all the Green Party votes would have gone to the Democrat had a Green not been in the race. My guess is that many of the Green voters wouldn't have voted for either candidate. But, with the Green votes being more than double the margin of victory, this is likely the first time the Greens played the spoiler effected in an Illinois race.

Oddly enough, this was the only election in Illinois where the Sierra Club made a double endorsement of both the Democrat and Republican candidates. Statewide, every Republican candidate for Illinois House or Senate who was endorsed by the Sierra Club won their election.

I think the Greens would build more support, and annoy potential liberal allies less, if they focused on races where one party wasn't running a serious candidate or had no candidate at all. There are plenty of those races at the state level. But, they didn't ask my opinion. The Green Party website breaks down their other losses throughout Illinois.

I wonder what strategy Democratic leaders will use against Green opponents in 2010...

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The city press release puts it this way:

CWLP COMMUNITY ENERGY FORUM TO COVER COOL CITIES & ENERGY STUDY RESULTS

City Water, Light and Power’s November 20th Community Energy Forum will include an update of the City’s Cool Cities activities, as well as the results of a city-wide energy consumption and conservation study of its business and residential customers.

The forum will be held at 6 p.m. at Illinois National Bank’s Downtown Conference Center at Fourth and Jackson Streets.

CWLP Community Energy Forums are designed to provide updates to the public on progress made regarding environmental and energy saving activities and to solicit suggestions and ideas from the community regarding energy programs and related issues. CWLP is using the input received from these meetings to enhance existing programs and develop new energy efficiency and conservation programs.

Public participation is encouraged to help CWLP develop the most effective and practical programs for its customers. CWLP customers wanting more information on this forum may call 789-2070.

Posted by Will at 4:00 PM | Permalink

Rev. Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping just released an album, The Shopocalypse. In a recent interview he linked the current financial crisis to a culture of rampant consumerism.

Q: You claim that the current financial crisis is an actual apocalypse, a sort of cleansing from on high, or from down low, from the masses as it were. Do you think a new era is to come?

A: Absolutely. The culture of shop-til-you-drop was king to all of us. After 9/11, when Bush said if you love your country you’ll go out shopping, that affected everybody—from the average American family who’s $100,000 overdrawn to the head of a hedge fund who’s buying and buying… It’s a fundamentalist religion that controls us as surely as the holy roman empire in the 10th century.

Consumerism fills up our days. It makes us stand in line. In the case of my friends who are stockbrokers, they’re working till 11 o’ clock at night. They’re dragging to the limo.

Rev. Billy is the topic of this month's Liberty Brew & View movie What Would Jesus Buy? showing this Tuesday, Nov. 18 at 7:00pm, Capital City Bar & Grill.

And to answer the question posed by the film, Jesus would probably buy something at the Alternative Holiday Fair happening in Springfield December 5th & 7th.

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The Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Appeals Board made a ginormously significant ruling that the EPA must regulate CO2 emissions from new coal power plants. Up until now, CO2 emissions that contribute to global warming were not considered during the permitting process for new coal plants, which requires them to use the Best Available Technology (BACT) standard to reduce polluting emissions.

The decision was requested by the Sierra Club, which issued a press release today.

“Coal plants emit 30% of our nation’s global warming pollution. Building new coal plants without controlling their carbon emissions could wipe out all of the other efforts being undertaken by cities, states and communities across the country," said Bruce Nilles, Director of the Sierra Club’s National Coal Campaign. “Everyone has a role to play and it’s time that the coal industry did its part and started living up to its clean coal rhetoric.”

Part of the Sierra Club agreement with CWLP over the new Springfield power plant called for monitoring CO2 emissions, even though it was not yet required by law. Once again, the agreement puts CWLP ahead of the national curve.

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I got an email from the Springfield Bicycle Club about their proposal for a Springfield Bicycle Advisory Council (BAC). They're advocating for a council that would be created by the city with representatives from the public, plus the Springfield Park District, the Springfield-Sangamon County Regional Planning Commission, the University of Illinois Springfield or Lincoln Land Community College, and the Public Works Department. Lynn Miller's email says,

The BAC will promote cycle commuting routes on city streets as well bike trails, safe routes to schools and other infrastructure for cycling and pedestrians. The duties will include a comprehensive plan and is part of Springfield’s ‘Cool Cities’ initiative.

(Bettie P. Bike)

This is badly needed. I live near the new Walmart on South 6th Street. There are bike trails in the area around UIS, Lincoln Land, and further south to Chatham. The bike lane on 11th Street heading toward the city center goes right up to the newly built roads and stops.

The fact that they didn't extend the bike lanes along with the new roads in order to connect existing bike lanes with the city center irritates me on a weekly basis. It seems like it should have been an obvious thing to do. The BAC is needed to make sure that making room for bicycles in city planning isn't treated like a nuisance or distant afterthought.

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US News & World Report has an article today about veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and some of the challenges they face getting treatment. A group for Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan has a Drowning Pool video campaign in support of a bill to make sure veterans get the mental health benefits they need. The bill is named after former Illinois Congressman Lane Evans.

I'm having a little trouble getting the video to play so hopefully that means a lot of people are watching it today. Just as I was writing this post I got an email from Survivor Corps asking me to blog about this issue. So, here's their link too.

Politicians love to thank veterans during a campaign or on veterans day, but that doesn't always translate into support when the federal budget is passed. After you thank a veteran today think about signing the petition and calling your member of Congress and asking them to do something more than talk about supporting veterans this year.

Posted by Will at 1:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I complain about conservative talk radio often enough. There's a quasi-fascist movement in this country egged on by conspiracy theorists like Glenn Beck and Michael Savage. And no, I don't think that describes their entire listening audience, but they try to move people in a destructive direction by appealing to the worst aspects of human nature.

With conservative talk shows and books calling liberals godless traitors and terrorist sympathizers, we saw Barack Obama attacked as a radical Muslim who "palls around with terrorists." It shouldn't surprise anyone that poeple started shouting to kill Obama during McCain rallies. It wasn't just a few isolated crazies. It was the natural result of people being egged on by hate-mongers who characterize liberals as a treasonous threat to America, rather than calling them decent people with whom they disagree.

We take it for granted in America that there's no violence after an election, but that's not the case in many other countries. We just elected our first black President after years of the talk radio movement inciting hate in mein-kampfesque rants against liberals. There truly could have been violence after this election and the fact that people started buying up guns by the truckload isn't comforting.

Here's the part where I write something nice. The few talk radio shows I briefly listened to right before and after the election were talking people down. They presented a picture of how conservatives could bounce back in a future election and how Obama could fail, then leading to a Republican comeback. That's important. People turn to political violence when they feel there's no other option, and the talk radio hosts reminded people that there's still hope through the normal electoral process. John McCain deserves credit for his gracious concession speech as well.

Things could have gone differently if some talk radio shows had turned up the rhetoric and incited people to violence. The most extremist talk radio hosts may be egomaniacal hate mongers in the pockets of a corporate fascist agenda, but at least they aren't advocating the violent upheaval of society. That would be bad for business.

I didn't think post-election violence was likely. But I have to admit it was possible when you consider that it happens elsewhere, that we have a long history of racially motivated violence in this country, and that there was recently a shooting at a Unitarian church by a devoted talk radio listener who wanted to kill liberals because he believes they're the horrible enemy his favorite conservative commentators make them out to be.

The fact that things are transitioning smoothly is a reminder that most Americans are pretty level headed. And regardless of your ideology, there are plenty of reasons to be proud of our country.

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I'm giving the Clean Car powerpoint presentation for the SAGE meeting at UIS Wednesday November 12, 4:00pm, UHB 1004.

The Sierra Club along with other statewide environmental groups made the Clean Car Act an issue in close elections for state representative and had a lot of success getting new clean car supporters elected. There will be another push to get it passed next year.

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After Bill Clinton was elected President, Arkansas elected only its third Republican Governor since Reconstruction, a Republican US Senator, and saw a resurgence of the state Republican Party. Despite trending more Republican in Presidential races, in the past two years Arkansas elected Democrats for Governor, all statewide offices and a super-majority in the state legislature.

Why did the Arkansas Democratic Party suffer in the years following Clinton's election only to come back stronger than ever a few years after Clinton left office?

I asked that question to a politically savvy friend who worked for ACORN when I lived in Little Rock. He thought Democrats suffered for several reasons, including the Whitewater scandal, but most of all because Bill Clinton took so much of the Democratic Party leadership and staff with him to Washington. The absence of many of the state's top organizers and elected leaders created a vacuum that Republicans filled.

Obama already picked an Illinois Congressman to be his Chief of Staff. If he taps more state leaders could the same thing happen to Illinois? I don't think so.

Here's why.

1) After years as Governor, Arkansas state politics revolved around Bill Clinton. Illinois state level politics never focused on Obama. He was never the head of the party or even one of the most powerful leaders in state level politics. His three years as US Senator was too short to make him a statewide fixture.

2) Illinois has a deeper backbench than Arkansas. If there's one thing Illinois is good at its electing a lot of politicians, good or bad. We're a lager state with more leaders, more political talent, and a deeply competitive political environment.

I tried to think of a way to write that without insulting the entire state of Arkansas, since I know plenty of great people form there. That's the best I could come up with. I like Arkansas but let's face it; they're the Southern state that other Southern states make fun of. I think they only stopped accepting beaver pelts as currency sometime in the 1980's.

(How much you want for this Arkansas beaver pelt?)

But that doesn't mean things won't change for Illinois at the state level. If you're an elected official or political staffer looking to advance your career, you're going to see a lot of positions open up in the next two years. If anything, Democrats will grow stronger by making room for new leaders and ideas. Also, will Obama's chief strategist David Axelrod become a creature of Washington or will he help increase Obama's influence in state politics?

This will be an interesting time in Illinois politics.

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I'm getting a lot of traffic from google searches for Jehan Gordon this week so I might as well write about her successful election to replace Aaron Schock in the Illinois General Assembly. The Peoria Journal-Star covered the result.

I don't follow Peoria politics closely but I occasionally asked friends there about the race because she was endorsed by the Sierra Club. Things got pretty ugly and it was one of the most expensive legislative elections in the state. I met her for a Sierra Club candidate interview in the primary, and even though her primary opponent had a stronger background in environmental issues, I was very impressed by her answers.

I like the idea of having a young, energetic, smart and enthusiastic African-American woman in the legislature from central Illinois instead of another middle aged white man like most of our Representatives from the area. I have nothing against middle aged white men (in fact I plan to be one in the not too distant future) but its nice to get different perspectives in government.

So congratulations to Jehan Gordon! I look forward to seeing her in Springfield.

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Sometimes I'm happy to be wrong. I never thought Obama would get above 51% of the popular vote but he won 53%. That's the largest popular vote margin for a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. This is a once in a generation election, and the 2/3 of people under 30 who voted for Obama made a clear statement about what the youngest generation wants for the future of their country.

Conservatives are trying to downplay the significance of the victory and that message is creeping into the mainstream press. They want people to believe that Obama doesn't have a liberal mandate, that it was really a narrow victory despite the numbers, and that he needs to move to the center. They would be arguing the same thing if he won 50 states and 60% of the vote. It's ridiculous.

I was also wrong about Missouri and Indiana. I thought MO would go with their Illinois neighbor (I guess that's still up in the air) but that he had no chance in Indiana. Again, I'm more than happy to be wrong on that one.

I was already saying "Yes we can!" pretty often before election day and now I've gotten a little out of control with it. The difference now is that other people are saying it too instead of just laughing at me.

The Dixie Chicks have a song on their last album called "I Hope" that I've been listening to a lot since Tuesday. Someone put it on YouTube with parts of an Obama speech. This is how I feel about the election.

I won't say "Yes we did!" Things are just getting started.

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Many of the ways a partisan election official can influence the outcome of an election are within the law. We saw that this year in Sangamon county.

Last year Sangamon county used Populex voting machines that alerted a voter when they skipped voting in a race, also known as an undervote. This year we used a new ballot counting machine that has the ability to give a similar message alerting voters that they skipped a race. An ES&S fact sheet for the ballot counting machines used in Sangamon County states:

In the event of overvoted and undervoted situations, the Model 100 can immediately return the ballot to the voter, displaying the specific race in question in the LCD display. Voters may then instruct the Model 100 to “Accept” or “Return” the ballot through the simple push of a button.

The ES&S machine turned out to better communicate residual votes to voters by displaying the number of undervotes that appeared on the ballot. After scanning his or her ballot, if the machine found undervotes, the voter is prompted to either eject the ballot to make corrections or continue on leaving the undervote as is. In addition, the machines can be programmed to go through each of the undervotes on the ballot, allowing the voter to eject it or continue on. This feature allows voters to select to undervote on a specific race without unintentionally undervoting on other races that may follow.

That was good news but after getting two different answers I wasn't sure what to expect on election day. I raised the question with the other election judges before the polls opened. One remembered being told that there was no alert for undervotes and another thought that there would only be a message if someone cast a blank ballot with no votes in any race at all. The others weren't sure.

During the day it became obvious that the ballot counting machine was not alerting voters who skipped voting in a race. It never happened once. Apparently, the County Clerk had the option of programming the machines to alert voters when they skipped a race but chose not to.

This has obvious implications in a year when large numbers of new voters were expected to cast their vote for Obama. A Democratic Presidential candidate won Sangamon county for the first time in many years and the tide of new Democratic voters was sure to have an impact on other races down the ballot.

Looking at the voting results I don't see any races where the margin of victory was less than the number of undervotes. Thank goodness. But, no one knew that would be the case before election day, and there were several close races. It easily could have made the difference in a close race this year or in future elections.

The biggest undervotes were in uncontested races, which is normal. There were large undervotes for races on the back of the ballot, including retention of judges, and 6,337 people didn't vote on the proposition to reduce the size of the county board.

Some people didn't like that the old Populex system alerted people when they undervoted. The decision to not have the new system do the same is defensible. There are reasonable arguments to make for that decision. What's indefensible is the lack of effort to inform the public about a significant change and the failure to clearly emphasize that change to election judges who also could have informed voters.

The only news coverage I saw about the change was a single line in passing buried near the end of one SJR article. There was no mention that this was an optional programming decision made by election officials. I found no mention of the change on the county website or anywhere else that was likely to be seen by many voters. I saw no attempt to ask voters in advance if they would like the undervote feature programmed into the machines this year. That's hardly the level of attention called for by a major change in the voting process that could have altered the result of a close election.

I don't know that this was a deliberate attempt to influence the outcome of closely contested local races. I'm not going to engage in mind-reading accusations. It's just as likely that this happened because it's standard operating procedure for county Republican leaders who like to keep things "under the radar." Distributing information on a "need to know" basis is typical for Sangamon county government from rate increases by the Sanitary Board to the selection of the Populex voting system by a committee of insiders who made no effort to seek public input.

A majority of voters didn't vote for change in Sangamon county government this year. I suspect local Republicans will keep getting re-elected as long as local new outlets continue to let them do most things under the radar. It would be nice to see a news article telling us who approved this decision and why voters weren't better informed. I won't hold my breath.

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All the newspapers and blogs are writing about who Rod Blagojevich might appoint to replace Obama in the US Senate so I might as well weigh in with my suggestion that I've only written in the comments of other blogs until now. I'd pick Carol Moseley Braun.

The US Senate is a body based on seniority and relationships. It means better committee assignments and getting more done. Braun is the only Illinois Democrat who could walk into the Senate with six years of seniority and personal experience with how the Senate works. That's no small advantage and appointing another African-American to replace Obama would be appropriate.

It would be a controversial choice since she narrowly lost her re-election and even some Democrats had complaints about how she performed as Senator. It would be less so if she announced she won't run for re-election to finish the term. People like picking their elected officials without appointments anyway. But even if she did run in 2010 to finish out the term I bet she would win this time.

I haven't seen her mentioned in any of the press articles which makes me wonder if she's telling people she isn't interested. I don't have her phone number so I haven't asked her.

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This year Sangamon County switched from one of the most obscure voting systems to one of the most common. The new voting machines in Sangamon county were popular with voters. Many people feel that having a paper ballot is simpler and more secure.

Judging by local press reports from the last election you would think that the Populex voting system used in the last few elections was a big hit with voters. But I heard about two dozen people say how much they prefer this year's paper ballots over the electronic voting machines. I didn't hear anyone say the old Populex machines were better. Many voters asked why we weren't using the Populex system again this year.

The one complaint I heard about the new system is how difficult it is to keep your vote private. Throughout the day an election judge was near the ballot counting machine to instruct voters and make sure each ballot had the initials of another election judge. I did that for the last few hours of voting. Judges were supposed to stand a "few feet" from the machine and try not to look at people's ballots while the voter fed them in to be counted.

On the one hand it was important to be nearby because some people had trouble inserting the ballots without a little encouragement to keep sliding it into the machine. Also, it's important to be nearby in case there's an error reading the ballot.

Sometimes a ballot would come back with an error message and had to be re-inserted. The most common message said that no image was detected on one side of the ballot, even though the voter had filled in ovals on both sides. In those cases we inserted the ballot again and no message popped up. A few people actually hadn't voted on both sides and went back to finish after realizing that there were more races to vote on.

The problem for an election judge standing nearby is that people had difficulty keeping their ballot covered with the oversized "voter privacy" folder while inserting the ballot to be counted. Most people ended up opening their folder, or they struggled to push their ballot in while keeping it inside the folder.

It was difficult for me as a judge to instruct people who were having trouble inserting the ballot while also allowing them to feel that no one could see their vote. A number of people said they didn't care if I saw their ballot but one woman told me I wasn't supposed to be standing so close when I thought she was having trouble inserting the ballot.

Smaller voter privacy folders without a side tab or more detailed instructions for voters might solve the problem.

The only effort I saw to unduly influence the election was a perfectly legal decision by the County Clerk to not have the voting machines alert voters when they skipped voting in a race. I'll probably write more about that in another post.

Posted by Will at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I've done Get Out The Vote work in many elections but Tuesday I got to experience things from a new angle as an election judge. There are all kinds of things you see as an election judge that most people don't usually think about.

I enjoyed the experience and the other judges of both parties were all nice to work with. I didn't like getting up at 4:15am to arrive at the polling place by five. The last time I was awake at 4am I had stayed up all night with a roller derby team. That was much more fun.

The most exciting moment was seeing a line of people gathered outside the polling place when we opened at 6:00am. For the first three hours we averaged about a voter a minute in my precinct. There were lines during parts of the day but I don't think anyone had a long wait. Things went smoothly.

In the late afternoon we reached 1,000 voters between the two precincts in that polling place. I let everyone know and all the judges cheered for lucky voter number 1,000. I told her she won a free parking space but mostly she just looked embarrassed.

Two people in my precinct who wanted to vote were purged from the voter rolls. In at least one case it was determined to be an error and he was allowed to vote after we spoke with the election office.

The most obvious barrier to voting I saw Tuesday is a perfectly legal one: the voter registration deadline. The most common problem I witnessed was people who didn't update their voter registration when they moved. In some cases they can still vote, although it might be on a federal-only or provisional ballot. I wonder how many more people who wanted to vote weren't aware of the deadline until it was too late?

I'm more convinced than ever that we need election-day registration. In every election uncounted numbers of people are denied the right to vote because of needless deadlines, and that's disgraceful. In a way, I'm glad John McCain brought up ACORN because it made more people aware of how the bogeyman of voter fraud is used as a voter suppression tactic.

People fraudulently voting multiple times isn't a real-world problem in modern elections. Disenfranchising people with early registration deadlines is.

I'll write about the new voting machines in another post.

Posted by Will at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I heard the county had trouble finding election judges the last time we switched to new voting machines so I decided to sign up this year. The new system has paper ballots scanned on electronic vote tabulators. I don't think the SJ-R reported the specific model of the new machines, so for the curious you can google ES&S Model 100.

ES&S has a page about the machine and you can easily find old articles about various problems with them in past elections. Sangamon county is leasing previously used machines so let's hope those old problems were fixed. It would be nice if the County Clerk released public information about those issues to reassure the public, but as we learned in the Populex debacle, they would rather suppress public concerns than address them.

ES&S model 100 precinct vote counter

There are additional machines for voters with disabilities. I was impressed by how many different ways it allows people to vote despite any challenge you can think of. Two of them broke down with paper jams during the training, but I'm sure they'll be ready to go on election day.

During the judges' training I was struck by the way that each part of the voting process is monitored and double checked to provide complete transparency. Multiple people check to make sure the ballot box is empty at the beginning of the day. Each voter name is checked and judges from both parties are a check on each other throughout the entire process. Unfortunately, those safeguards are designed for a 19th century voting process that had nothing to do with electronic voting.

Who double checks to make sure there are no programming errors with the ballot counting machines or storage devices? Shouldn't independent computer programmers get to look at the system on election day? We don't have those kind of safeguards for modern elections.

With paper ballots we can verify that votes were counted accurately but only if there's a manual hand re-count of randomly chosen precincts. Running ballots through a machine a second time only proves that they were counted the same way twice. It doesn't guarantee that they were counted accurately either time. So, it's good that we have a voting system with a verifiable paper trail but there's no guarantee of a fair election without a recount by hand.

Posted by Will at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of my blogging pet peeves is when I have a thought I want to blog about that I think is a good, original point, but before I write it down, I see a major columnist or TV pundit make the same point. I might make a few posts about the election since today is the last day for procrastinated thoughts.

For the past few months when friends were sounding pessimistic about Obama's chances of winning I'd point out that he'll probably do better than polls predict due to an unusually large turnout among young voters and African-American voters. All polling is based on estimates of how many people in each demographic (party affiliation, age, race, gender etc.) are going to vote. A large influx of new voters makes accurate polling more difficult.

At the same time, when friends sounded confident about Obama winning I cautioned that the Republicans still hadn't launched their ugly attack machine (obviously, that has since happened) so don't get too overconfident. All along I've thought that Obama will probably win but that this will be a very close election.

No Democratic Presidential candidate has won at least 51% of the vote since Lyndon Johnson in 1964, and I don't believe Obama will break that streak. Even Bill Clinton won with less than a full majority in his '96 re-election.

I've heard people make a good argument that it could be an electoral college landslide for Obama even if the popular vote is very close. That's possible, but too many of those swing states where Obama is ahead only show a small lead. Maybe I'm being overly cautious given the recent polls but it's hard not to be only cautiously optimistic after seeing Bush put in office twice.

One last thought on this ramble. I've felt since the primary that one of Obama's biggest strengths was his appeal to Midwestern voters. After winning the Iowa caucus he made Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin safely blue states, which forced the battleground into traditionally Republican territory.

Democrats need to remember this advantage the next time people start talking about nominating another candidate from the east or west coast. I've got friends from the Northeast who are still convinced that Kerry didn't do well in middle America only because it's full of "uneducated hicks." They just don't get it.

I lied. One more thought. There are very few times in history when the public is ready for major change and a capable leader emerges to deliver that change. Obama spoke in the primary about wanting a transformative Presidency that has a more lasting, profound impact on politics than someone like Bill Clinton.

I'm hopeful that this is one of those rare moments in American history when we make a significant and badly needed change of course. I'm hopeful that this will be one of those times that will be referenced years from now as a major turning point, like the Presidencies of Franklin Roosevelt, LBJ's Great Society, or Ronald Reagan. We live in interesting times.

Happy voting!

Posted by Will at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)