Election Liveblogging 2008

For the next 24 hours or so, I’ll be blogging about the results, the candidates and anything they’re going to throw at us in these desperate last moments. Why the liveblogging, you ask? Because quite potentially, 8 excruciating years are coming to an end. Because no matter what, history will be made by the first either black candidate or the first female VP to be elected. Because politics are exciting, and worth spending your time on.

I’ll be posting somewhat thought-out comments right here, at least every hour, and I’ll be chatting on Twitter. Join me in the discussion.

10:00: Just arrived at work the election headquarters. Very sad to hear that Barack Obama’s grandmother has died of cancer, just one day before the great day. I’m wondering whether this will have a positive, or negative effect on Obamas chances. I’m leaning towards thinking it’ll make him look more human, as if that was even needed.

10:16: I honestly think Obama can win, which is why this is exciting, but two things worry me. On one hand, there’s a minority of idiots, who think the country is “not ready for a black candidate”, idiots that say one in polls but vote for the other guy in the privacy of the booth (the Bradley effect). The other thing is teenagers staying at home and playing Fallout 3, thinking Obama has a huge lead in the polls anyway. Get off your ass!

11:01: The first results are in. Obama wins Dixville Notch in New Hampshire by a landslide. 15 votes for Obama, 6 for McCain.

11:46: 270towin.com has been thrown around in the media, favoring Obama in most configurations. What the site fails to depict, is the fact that for Obama to win, you have to actually vote for him.

12:20: I’m told it’s raining in the swing state of Virginia, and how rain may keep undecideds home.

13:44: The danish media has been covering the US election as much as, or even more, than danish elections. While the bias is less evident than it is on, oh say, Fox News, most danish media leans strongly towards Obama.

14:33: “Joel” gets interviewed by CNN. He voted McCain because he’s worried about Obama’s “liberal agenda” and thinks Obama will appoint liberal judges, thereby hurting America.

14:37: Obama votes in Chicago. He doesn’t seem to be standing in line, though. As much as I adore seeing a black man voting for—I would guess—himself, in a country that used to enslave his kind, I don’t think presidential candidates should be allowed to jump ahead in the polling queue.

14:47: The journalists at CNN discuss whether Obama shows signs of sadness at the passing of his grandma. To their credit, however, they show some taste and notes that Obama is a man in control of his emotions, referring to his steady handling of the financial crisis so far.

14:56: Joe Biden just voted. Those teeth! They blind me!

16:16: Richard Quest, the meth guy, tells me that we’ll see a record voter turnout tonight.

16:23: An odd piece of reporting. Obama, the city in Japan, is holding a Obama for Obama party, featuring hoola dancers.

16:30: “If you never vote, you’ll never know what difference you could have made”. Said by a blogger and mailed to CNN. Very apt, especially considering how close Florida has been these last two elections. So GO VOTE!

16:38: Bill Ayers, the infamous terrorist Obama “palled around with” was apparently in line to vote right before Obama. What are the odds.

16:47: McCain, about to vote in Phoenix Arizona, has a busy schedule today, speaking in several battleground states. As much as he’s had his age of 72 against him, you’ve got to admire such a travel schedule. He must have his stash of high-caffeine soda pops packed.

16:56: A danish newspaper has collected links to the most embarrasing events in US election history: Bush Sr.’s freudian slip, Joe Biden asks a wheelchair-bound man to stand up, Bush tries to escape press conference through a locked door, McCain tells Western Pennsylvania what he thinks about them and finally, Sarah Palin talking about the 700bn bailout.

17:10: Sarah Palin votes in Wasilla Alaska. Today she’s not wearing Jackie O outfits, rather something decidedly different. The wardrobe budget run out?

17:19: Sarah Palin thinks it’s very cool about America that she can exercise her right to privacy, and not tell anyone who she voted for (as quoted outside of her voting booth).

17:26: Sarah Palin has gone rogue! She keeps talking, and all the while I hear circus music playing. As my old grandfather said: silence is golden.

17:28: In the US, Google is showing a special election logo today. Lovely!

18:03: Long queues in Pennsylvania, CNN is reporting a record turnout. Very awesome. Very awesome to the max.

18:14: Was sent this image by a good friend of mine. I’m pretty sure it speaks to the undecideds.

18:34: CNN now reporting that Obama has an 8 point lead over McCain in the latest poll of polls. That’s 1 point of the undecideds that went to Obama.

19:02: UserFriendly chimes in with some perspective.

19:30: The danish news coverage of the US election starts now, and results won’t even trickle in until 23:00 GMT.

19:36: Danish news touts that McCains favourite band is Swedish ABBA. Go figure.

19:53: Danish “pundits” are discussing the intricacies of Obama’s ideologies and comparing them to danish political parties. On the topic of capital punishment (which has long since been abolished in Denmark), they note that no US candidate could be elected without being for the death penalty.

20:08: The financial crisis defined/will define the outcome of the election. Or so the pundits argue.

20:41: McCain holding his umpteenth speech right now, his voice sounding hoarse. I don’t blame him, considering his schedule.

20:43: Man, Joe Lieberman is a dick. Remember him on the Gore ticket in 2000? Now he’s standing right behind McCain. Now there’s a flip-flop for you.

20:58: Discussed with some friends, the possibility of gaining a 60 seat mandate in the senate to prevent any republicans filibustering bills. One guess is 58 with 2 or three moderate republicans supporting, but a 60 seat mandate would really shake things up.

21:00: Danish television shows the Barack-roll YouTube video. Well done!

21:43: CNN Europe is about to make the switch to CNN USA. The difference is more interface, more animated gradients, and more action. Coming up next: Wolf Blitzer, Unscripted! Now that’s an action name—Wolf Blitzer and his sidekick, Max Power.

22:05: What is it with CNNs new-found fascination with large touch-screens? You’ve had access to weather bluescreens for decades. They’re much more fun.

22:20: Wolf Ad-lib Blitzer and the US CNN has taken over the European TV screens. Whenever I see Wolf, I’m reminded by a computer virus scourge a while back when Blitzer, asking one of his experts, asked if the virus was so bad that people should turn off their computers and move away from their keyboards until a solution was found. No Blitzer. No.

22:33: CNN are about to show the first exit polls, following new laws to postpone them until … well, at this point in the US day. Danish television predicts a president elect can be decided already at 02:00 danish time. That’s less than 4 hours from now.

22:38: Framed pictures of Obama and McCain in the background of a danish television debate reminds me of a fun difference between Danish and American party colors. In Denmark, the conservatives are blue, and the liberals are red.

23:07: CNNs first exit poll places “The Economy” as the number one topic of this election, mattering to 62% of pollsters.

23:17: Discussed with my sister the meaning of the word Liberal, and how McCain is really the liberal of the two candidates; liberal meaning less government and focusing on individual liberties, exemplified for instance with McCains promise of 5000 bucks so you can choose your own healthcare.

23:31: Another CNN exit poll states that terrorism was the most important topic of the election for only 9% of Americans, to which Rudy Giuliani responds: “we’ve lost our brand”. That’s good! All we have to fear is fear itself.

23:45: Pundits discuss the historical significance of electing a black president and hope it “closes a chapter, a stain in American history”. Certainly I hope the inauguration will be not only for the president, but for an era of colour-blind can-do attitude.

23:59: Only a few minutes until the first polls close. Danish television discusses how McCain has changed from a moderate conservative to what he is today, someone who tried to unite what he thought was his republican base by appealing to the Bush supporters, the religious right with Palin and so on. It’s so sad. I really used to like him.

00:34: Results from Indiana and Kentucky are trickling in. Right now Indiana looks slightly democratic, which, if Obama carries it, will be a first in decades. Indiana has been red in the last ten elections.

00:43: The girlfriend asks why the election is on a Tuesday. Well thanks for asking! That’s because all the farmers have to get all the way to the county seat, by horse, spend an entire day voting, and then spend a day traveling back to their farms in time for the sabbath.

01:02: CNN projects that Obama takes Vermont, McCain takes Kentucky. Both Virginia and Indiana, previous redstates are now battleground states and could potentially be grabbed by Obama. Good stuff!

01:16: Wow, this is stupid! CNN is showing a fake hologram projection with asteroid field interference flicker and everything.

01:33: This is nervewracking. 1% of Florida counted gives McCain a lead. 2% counted up, and now Obama is in the lead.

02:02: Wow, the exit polls! With the polls closed, CNN is apparently allowed to reveal their exit poll results. If the margin of those results is large enough, they project a win for either candidate. Right now that gives Obama a favorable 77 electorals vs. McCains 34.

02:10: CNN points out that McCain is under performing Bush in rural areas, something which could carry states like Virginia for Obama which is performing very well in the suburbs. Put simply, McCain still has a farmer majority, but the margin is far narrower than it was in 2004.

02:42: Finally, CNN projects that Pennsylvania goes to Obama. This has been touted as a “must-win” state for McCain if he wants the magic 270 electorals. That means it bodes very, very well for Obama. So well, in fact, that I’m going to give in to my waning strenght and hit the hay. See you in 6 hours or so.

08:26: Woke up after an erratic nights sleep, only to find that Barack Obama is, in fact, president elect. Not only did he win, he won Ohio, Florida, Virginia. 338 electorals over McCains 160. A huge victory. It’s going to be such a historic moment to see the Obamas move into the White House January 20th. The real bad guy here is George Bush, and I can think of no-one better to kick him out.

08:36: Trying to find out whether the Senate has been decided yet. CNN shows it as 40/54 in favor of the democrats. It would be nice for Obama to move in with a 60 seat filibuster-proof senate.

08:52: It’s such a pleasure to be able to call this the next president:

Obama

09:00: That ends my live blogging. It’s been a pleasure to follow this election with you. Good job America.

I Will Be Liveblogging The US Election

Just one more day, and America elects a new world leader. As a first for me, I will be live-blogging the entire event from Tuesday morning danish time and right up until the election is called. I’ll be commenting on exit polls, results, CNN‘s vs. the danish TV news coverage and pretty much anything they’ll throw at us tomorrow.

Join me in the discussion, both here in my journal, on Twitter, and on your own blog. Bring coffee, energy-bars, Valium and wits. It’ll be great, even if the wrong guy wins.

I’ll be starting at 10:00 in the morning, danish time (Find out what time that is in your timezone).

Obama For President

Vote Obama

Download this poster as a full-size layered PSD.

In a little over four weeks, there will be a new tenant in the white house. This tenant will get the nuclear codes, so who you pick is of global interest. If you’re reading this and you’re undecided or going to vote republican, I’d like to try and convert you.

The US economy is screwed and the rest of the world is falling like dominoes1. The Dollar is the new Ruble, and I’ll wager only two things can save the US economy from total collapse; the conversion of the Dollar into the Petrodollar via the discovery of a ginormous offshore oil fields of such epic proportions that the natural beauty of Alaska pales in comparison. Or, more likely, a really steady hand at the wheel for the next 8 years or longer. The essence of the republican ideology is less government and freer market economy. This very ideology is what got Wall Street into the current mess—that and 8 years of arrogant war mongering and military spending of mind boggling proportions.

Really, why the aversion to more government? Why would you allow the government to wiretap your phone, but not give you free health care? Micromanagement is a waste of energy, why not let the government automate and socialize these things so you can stop worrying about them and focus on feeding your family? While neither McCain or Obama wants to socialize your health care, ponder their offerings for a second: McCain promises an immediate $5000 tax rebate. Obama promises a government plan to lower prices on health care, especially for the lower-income group. Tell me: which plan is more likely to give you actual health care and which is more likely to buy you a wide screen TV?

What happened to you McCain? You’ve changed man. You used to be cool. I remember back in the day when you spewed seething criticisms towards Bush on his absolute incompetence. Why the flip-flop? Why did you go to Karl Rove school? I used to prefer you over all other Republicans. I used think: if you must elect a republican, elect McCain. Now you remind me of Gollum or the Emperor from Star Wars. Old, decrepit and corrupted by the lust for absolute power.

And Sarah Palin? A hockey-mom? No seriously? Whenever I see her speak, clown-music starts playing in my mind, somehow hoping this is an elaborate joke of which the punchline is imminent. What if McCain dies while in office? After all, he’s a 72 year-old ex-cancer-patient, it’s not unlikely. Sarah Palin would be head of skate with barely enough experience to handle Putin rearing his ugly head over Alaska.

Who am I kidding, I know why you picked Palin, and I also know it wasn’t for her flute playing prowess. You picked her because your chances of getting into office by any other means than the religious votes are dwindling with every decision you revert. So you endorse the people who oppose abortion even in cases of rape and incest. You know what? Fuck the religious right! Let them wallow in their own pool of 6000 year old bile. These people are allergic to knowledge, a commodity that’s fortunately getting easier and easier to access these days. Jesusland is the last vestige of American idiocy, and they’re now on the McCain presidential ticket.

Barack Obama is different. Obama has a shot at it. Change your mind and help change the direction your country is facing. On tuesday the 4th of november, vote Obama. Not only for your sake or for the sake of the United States, but for the sake of the entire free world.

I’ll leave you to ponder your choice to the tunes of Donald Byrd and his song: Fallin’ Like Dominoes:

  1. Iceland just had to nationalize a bank to avoid total collapse  ↑

Register To Vote [Updated]

US unregistered voters now only have two days left to register to vote. If you’re one of them, get off your ass and register! According to Google, 10% of nonvoters in 2004 didn’t vote because they didn’t know where to go. What do we do when we can’t find our way? We find a map.

Another reason not to vote I’ve had thrown at me was that registering to vote is essentially registering for jury duty. Well fuck me. So the system sucks, does that surprise you? Do something about it!

Register to vote! Go now!

Update: Registering to vote does not register you for jury duty.

Stream of Consciousness #3

The last few weeks have been packed with exciting things, waves of (interesting) work, and lots of inspiration. Yet somehow, sometimes, life gets in your way. This sunday I got the flu, and it’s been years since I’ve been nailed to the bed quite like this for so long.

On the upside, I’ve been catching up on the latest season of Simpsons. Is it just me or did that train derail at season 14? I can’t remember any good episodes of late. Maybe it’s just welcome competition from Seth McFarlane’s Family Guy.

March installment is coming, and although it’s not looking quite as good as I’d have wanted it to, it’s statistically probable that you win some and you lose some. It’ll be interesting to see if I can keep up this “tiny monthly redesign”, or whether I should cave in and work on the real redesign which is in the cards. One positive thing is that I’m sticking tightly to the manifest I wrote a while a go. Indeed it seems I’m better at pressing pause.

Fauna Beta 3.1 was supposed to be out a few days after Beta 3. That didn’t happen, fortunately now it’s called Beta 4 and it’s going to be the best release of Fauna yet. I suspect this’ll be the final beta before I go RC.

Khaled has unveiled some screenshots of Shuttle, the admin redesign for WordPress. Shuttle has come a long way, and is a huge improvement over the 1.5 interface, and especially over the 2.0 interface. The work Khaled has done these last few weeks have blown my mind. Essentially he has taken all the hundreds of hours of chatter and mockups and combined it into something that a) works, b) we (the shuttle team) can all support.

Chris, my favourite ambassador of America, has unveiled his Canvas redesign. While simple on top, it’s scalable, and ready to be filled with more witty banter. I can’t wait for him to write a book, on stuff.

Speaking of America, the news is booming with news with the shortcomings of George W. I can’t say I’m surprised, and I find myself thinking about those who voted for him: do you now realise what a mistake it was? I wonder how this world would have looked today if Al Gore had been elected. I only hope the next president will be female; the White House is in desperate need of estrogen.

I should wrap this up and get back to bed. Have a nice day and stay in school.

US Election Rigged?

Bush

Ever since November 2nd, I hoped I would not revisit this category for a long time.

However, recent developments in the media shows mounting evidence that the 2004 US vote may have been rigged. While I personally find this unlikely, if by the slightest chance any of it is true, it is a major democratic problem.

I will try to be less partisan about this than I have been before, and I invite you to partake in a discussion on the matter.

It all started a few days ago, when a programmer by the name of Clinton Curtis publicly claimed to have been hired to rig the election. In fact, Curtis delivered this statement in a sworn affidavit, ie. under oath. The purpose of this software, he said, was to detect voting fraud initiated by the Democrats;

It was not until after the prototype was delivered that he says he got wind of its possible, more nefarious usage.

(Source)

Curtis goes on to elaborate on the “prototype”:

In the vote fraud prototype that I created things are not what they seem. Hidden on the screen are invisible buttons. A person with knowledge of the locations of those invisible buttons can then use them to alter the votes of everyone before them. By clicking the correct order of invisible buttons the candidate selected by the user is compared to other candidates within that same race. If the candidate they selected is leading the race nothing happens. If the other candidate is leading the race the vote totals are altered so that the selected candidate is now leading the race with 51% of the vote. The other candidates then share the remaining 49% in exact proportion to the totals they had previously.

(Source)

To put it quite simply, this software would be able to swing Florida or Ohio in favor of either candidate.

While it would be rather unusual, one could argue that this software was in fact being developed in good faith, to preempt possible voting fraud by “knowing how it could’ve been done”. However, Curtis’ affidavit clearly states that his prior employer, Yang Enterprises, informed him that this software might actually be used to “control the vote in South Florida”. Yang Enterprises is now under FBI investigation. (Source)

Is this true?

The proposed developers of this vote tampering software quickly and clearly replied:

Recently there have been several accusations against this corporation by Clinton Eugene Curtis. All of the allegations are 100% FALSE!! An official statement will be forthcoming. Thank you for your concern and God Bless America. (From the Yang Enterprises website, December 9th 2004)

Whether or not these allegations are true or not, one would ponder that the developers had interest in denying it, should it be the case.

Maybe of more interest, is it technically possible, at all? In the words of a programmer for IBM:

From a technical standpoint, it is perfectly plausible [...] Whether or not this turns out to be true, it?s a very good reason why we need the source code available for all of these voting machines. (Source)

An other programmer is skeptical:

Without more detail, and based on what I know so far, it?s hard to imagine that this could have really been used to change votes. It?s still embarrassing, to be sure, but it?s like he built a nuke out of a cardboard box and some wires?unless there?s some plutonium hiding in there somewhere, it might look good, but it isn?t going to blow up.

Whichever’s right, it seems to be cause enough for at least an investigation. In fact, a lawyer is now in the early stages of preparing a lawsuit, stating:

“We are basically going to make allegations that the votes, if properly counted, would reveal a different result then that which was certified by the Secretary of State not in the change in number, but a change in the outcome by which candidate won,” said Cliff Arnebeck, a Columbus lawyer who represents the group. He says that for this to happen, the December 13 meeting of the state electors should be postponed. “The Supreme Court has the power to order that the election outcome be determined differently than what was presented by the Secretary of State by a standard of proof and by clear and convincing evidence,” said Arnebeck.

(Source)

Thoughts

The 2004 US election has been the most emotionally valued election in the history I can remember. With emotions running high, there’s no telling what people will do, to change an outcome they didn’t approve of.

However, turn that thesis around 180°. What if the powers that be, found it so vitally important to win the election, that they chose to change the outcome? As unlikely as it may be, I find the very possibility that this might be just partially true, very disturbing, to say the least.

The biggest question of them all is, whether or not we will ever learn the truth about this. Judging from the articles referenced in this entry, most programmers agree that analyzing the code of the voting software for clues to tampering is virtually impossible.

Still, what if it was true. What if Kerry would have won the election, should the votes have been fairly counted. No matter who you voted for, this matters. It is basically the difference between a tyranny and a democracy. Is democracy worth the price tag of an in-depth investigation into this?

I think so. If Ukraine can demand the truth, so can any democracy that belongs to its people.

What do you think?

References