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Saturday, November 1, 2008
Handel: Certain (Democratic) politicians ‘grandstanding’ on early voting
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Secretary of State Karen Handel, a member of the GOP, is extremely ticked off by the likes of U.S. Rep. John Lewis, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, and other Democrats who publicly pressed Friday for emergency extensions of voting through the weekend — and engaged in well-publicized trips to various overflowing precincts.
The following came from Handel’s office today:
Secretary Handel is extremely pleased with early voting turnout and how the overwhelming majority of Georgia’s county election offices prepared for and managed the early voting process. Two million Georgians voted early, nearly 90 percent in person with photo ID. This historic turnout will ease pressures on the state’s 3,000 precincts on Election Day. County election officials will now spend Saturday, Sunday and Monday making critical final preparations for Election Day, and the Secretary of State’s office will deploy election monitors and technicians to assist them.
At the same time, Secretary Handel is disappointed that a handful of elected officials, political party organizations, activist groups and media outlets used this occasion to politicize the early voting process. Their failed attempts to find fault with the Secretary of State’s role in election oversight through grandstanding, patently false allegations and biased reporting revealed their desire to create confusion and chaos among voters to further their political agendas.
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Legends of the vote
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Voting in Georgia has reached mythical proportions — by many measures, including the legends that have jumped up on the Internet and elsewhere.
For instance, there’s the tale about cops forcing voters to scrape political bumper-stickers off their cars before they park near polling stations. No eyewitnesses on that one yet.
Nor did Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama really hold a surprise rally on the Marietta Square on Saturday. Which, with the Georgia-Florida game in the offing, would have been foolish.
But some of these legends are passed along with a good deal of authority. Ben George, a Democratic staffer for the state Senate, jotted down a few notes on his voting experience Friday. Sent a photo, too.
Voters, he said, were warned to turn their cell phones off — or else electronic voting machines would go haywire:
9:47: Got to the back of the line at Pryor Street polling place. Line was out of the building, up the MLK Street hill, and wrapped at that time almost all the way down Peachtree Street to Mitchell Street.
Ballparking it, I’d say that the composition of folks in my sight were 70 percent or more African American, and median age around 30 to 35. Stunned at the number of young folks.
11 a.m.: Standing atop the street vents next to the building. Smell is a bit dank. Shortly thereafter, a poll worker makes her way up the line, making sure everyone knows that to vote on site they must be registered in Fulton. One person who is registered in Cobb leaves the line. It was the only person I saw leave the line the entire time.
11:50 a.m. “Students for Obama” bus parks and lets people out — I think they got in line. A man hands out flyers advertising a “voter special” at a local restaurant. Then two women dressed in Dentyne shirts and caps pass out free gum samples to folks in line.
At the switchbacks, a poll worker tells us to “turn off all cell phones, BlackBerries, BlueBerries.” She really had her speech down pat. She said that they had discovered that cell phone usage caused the voting machines to slow or stall.
When in the auditorium, a poll worker would occasionally make an announcement asking folks to be quiet so voters could concentrate. One announcement included a statement that claimed one person had shut down the machines for two hours by turning on his cell phone.
Noon-ish: The food court set up a lunch stand in the atrium. Fellow line-mates saved space for those who went to fetch food.
1 p.m.: We have to show I.D. The man in front of me, and the woman behind, both have [cards] that say “I.D. only.”
1:55-ish: Voted, and savored the experience. Wore my medal (the “I voted” sticker”) out.
Just to be clear: Voters are required to turn off their cell phones before casting a ballot, but there is absolutely no reason to suggest that the devices would interfere with the operation of electronic voting machines.
This comes from Rob Simms, the deputy secretary of state, who said that the intent of the law is to make sure that the voter is free from outside interference or intimidation. Also, it’s harder for poll workers to direct human traffic while you’re chatting with your BFF.
Photo credit: Ben George
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Who owns ‘Saxby economics’? And what does it mean?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As the two leading candidates for U.S. Senate pound each other through TV ads, a pair of very basic arguments shine through.
First, we have a fight for control of the phrase “Saxby economics” and its meaning.
Democrat Jim Martin, through the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, employed the phrase first, in a series of TV attacks on Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss that coincided with the debate over the federal package to salvage Wall Street.
This weekend, Chambliss has an answering ad up, alleging that Martin is a congenital tax-hiker. But in the same 30 seconds Chambliss also attempts to reclaim his own name. “Saxby economics is about cutting your taxes,” he says at the outset. See the ad below.
The second thread that winds through the latest ads in the Senate race is a theme borrowed from the presidential contest. Martin and Chambliss both have taken on the topic of supply-side economics, an article of faith in Republican quarters since the administration of Ronald Reagan. That tax cuts for job providers stimulate the economy, and the benefits trickle down to the populace.
Like John McCain, the man at the top of his ticket, Chambliss attempts to regain traction via the tax issue. Martin, echoing Democrat Barack Obama’s mantra of change, challenges the presumption that tax policy over the last eight years has benefited most Americans. “He’s for tax breaks for the middle class. Jim Martin will stand up for us,” say a pair of faces in the Martin ad below.
Martin doesn’t use the phrase “Saxby economics” in the above ad. But he does employ it in that country music jingle, paid for by the DSCC, we told you about on Friday:
The middle-has had it, with all his policies.
Saxby economics don’t trickle down on me.
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