Temple Kids Get Valuable Civic Lesson

You voted a few weeks back, no? I can see you now: All bright, chipper, cheery-eyed, if such a term exists. You have your “I Voted for Change” sticker on and you’ve put your Obama hat back on after you left the building, now that Pennsylvania election officials have ruled wearing a shirt of a candidate you like to the polls is highly illegal. (The best is that the argument for this is, “Think of what COULD happen!” What follows is some ridiculous hypothetical situation that would never in a million years happen.)

Anyway, voting. Yes, some Temple kids voted for Obama (wild guess) on Nov. 4, and — whoops! — now they’re realizing their votes won’t count. Only this time it’s not just an existential question about democracy, as they cast provisional ballots and nobody’s going to count all of them. Obviously.

Don’t feel too bad for Kristina Jones, though. She got to vote twice!

Jones filled out four voter registration applications in both Pennsylvania and her home state of New York, but she never received a voter registration card. She registered for the first time in Pennsylvania more than a year ago but “got nothing back,” she said.

After applying for a second time, she said her application was returned through the mail with the word “rejected” stamped on it in red ink. She then cast an absentee ballot in New York.

As it grew closer to Nov. 4, Jones said she feared an absentee ballot might not be counted. She registered once again in Pennsylvania, just in time for her application to be processed before Election Day.

Jones was told she would be on the polling place’s list of supplemental voters, but once she arrived, her name was not found. Though she filled out a provisional ballot, she has some doubts about whether it was counted.

Yeah. We God-fearing Americans have the right to vote in as many states as we want, as many times as we want, for whatever candidate we want! (Because it doesn’t matter. You see how hating politics can quickly lead to “plans for massive electoral fraud?” I bet this is how Nixon got started.)

Students cast doubt over their provisional ballots [Temple News]
Photo by Post406 used under a Creative Commons license

N.J. To Ban Insane From Voting

Now that the election is over, politicians can forget everything they said and get back to more important things, like barring the criminally insane from voting!

It happened again Tuesday, as it does in most every election: Howard Unruh, the man who killed 13 people in a 1949 Camden shooting spree, voted and the Mercer County Board of Elections declared his ballot invalid.

Though his ballot was not counted, the possibility of voting by Unruh and other people who have committed heinous crimes but have not been convicted either because they were found not competent to stand trial or because they were not guilty by reason of insanity sparked outrage among some officials this week.

State Sen. Shirley Turner, a Democrat from Lawrenceville, said that she is drafting a bill that would bar the criminally insane from voting. “These are the people who have been determined not to know right from wrong — which is why they’re in a psychiatric facility,” she said.

Cue the jokes about barring Republicans from voting and faux academic blog posts about why, yes indeed, being a Democrat is a mental illness. Ugh, I know. But we can all agree on one thing: Howard Unruh definitely cast a write-in vote for Ron Paul.

Criminally insane would be denied vote under bill [Bergen Record]

Locals Try Futile Attempts At Voting

Philadelphians put their best feet forward yesterday and attempted to vote in the Most Important Election Ever Between A Black And A Woman. Only problem: Pennsylvania’s primary isn’t until April 22.

But, still, the city’s most informed residents lined up to vote yesterday, apparently confused by the media into thinking their votes counted. They usually don’t count anyway, but this time nobody could even get a chance to pretend it did.

It was among the first of more than 400 calls from people who thought it was Election Day in Philadelphia, according to workers in the city commissioners office. “We’ve been telling people the only way they can vote is to get in their car and drive to Jersey,” joked Tim Dowling, a campaign finance specialist in the office.

“We were very patient and explained [that] there was a primary in New Jersey but not here,” said another worker who asked not to be identified…. Most people were very polite; they apologized for calling. But some of them insisted, they knew it was Election Day and they were going to vote. So we told them to go over the bridge.”

Unfortunately, those who attempted to cross the bridge into New Jersey accidentally drove off the bridge. Election officials were counting a jump off the northern side as a vote for Hillary, and a jump off the southern side as a vote for Obama.

Don’t feel bad, though, Philadelphians: This happened all over the country.

Sometimes voting ‘don’t come easy’ [Daily News]

Pa. To Be Attacked By Terrorists Next Week

On Friday, an Associated Press article revealed Pennsylvania wouldn’t be revealing the list of polling places to voters (except online) due to fears of terrorism inspired by the 2004 Madrid train bombings.

On Friday, everybody laughed and laughed and laughed at Pennsylvania for not even trying to come up with a good excuse to attempt to get fewer Democrats to vote.

And then Ed Rendell decided the state was going to release a list of polling places. But nobody really cares, since everyone already laughed at Pennsylvania and moved on.

I’d wear a bulletproof vest on the first Tuesday in November, since terrorists are now going to be able to find out where you vote. The Taubenberger-Nutter election must not go off without a hitch!

In About-Face, Pa. to Release List of State Polling Places [KYW 1060]

Register To Vote For Exciting Already-Decided Election

We are now less than a month away from the most exciting time of the year — i.e. the election between midterms and presidential. Could those odd-year elections be any more exciting?

Oh, yeah, there’s also a mayor’s race in Philadelphia between the guy who’s going to win (Michael Nutter) and the guy who’s going to lose (Al Taubenberger). And don’t forget the third-party candidates John Staggs (Socialist Workers, eligible to run for mayor, actually on ballot) and Larry West (independent, not eligible to run for mayor, not on ballot).

If you are very excited to vote for Mayor Al or meatpacker Staggs, be sure to note: Today is the last day you can register for the election in Pennsylvania. If you don’t vote, nothing will happen, but you lose your right to complain about the guy you voted for who’s not paying attention to your stupid pet causes.

This Time, Your Vote Might Count

There is a tragedy in this year’s This Year In Baseball Awards, and it is that Sal Fasano’s incredible play of throwing the ball directly into the ground is not up for the award.

But we all know that Sal will win the award in spirit, and there’s a chance to turn this baseball award show into something incredible. On a game that started at 11:05 and pretty much knocked the Phillies out of the playoffs, two baseball writers — Dennis Deitch of the Delco Times and Ken Mandel of Phillies.com — got to run in the President’s Race.

The race features four presidents with giant heads who, uh, race around the baseball field. (Like the sausage race in Milwaukee, if you will.) And Ken Mandel, dressed as Thomas Jefferson, managed to fall, becoming the first person in the short history of the race to fall.

This is up for blooper of the year. I don’t usually do much activism here, but this is something you can effect: Your vote might actually count. The other bloopers suck anyway. Vote for Thomas Jefferson’s fall. Not doing so would just be un-American.

Full-size videos after the jump.

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Leftovers: Bianca Ryan Well On Way To Catching Tupac

• Jonathan Takiff checks in with America’s Got Talent winner Bianca Ryan today and finds her hard at work on her second album. Wait, how many albums did Janis Joplin record when she was alive? [Daily News]

• Live in Pennsylvania? All your road taxes are going up. And think, this report on transit was released just after the election. Who knew? [AP/6 ABC]

• Some voting machines in Bucks County and Montco featured a “No Vote” button, showing that you were all into the civic process, but all of the candidates running had the governing ability of a snail. Hey, can we get these for Philadelphia? [KYW 1060]

• Cherry Hill lands a deadly blow in the Cherry Hill vs. Smut war. Money quote: “They tear down the moral and spiritual fiber of America and should be banned.” [Camden Courier-Post]

Leftovers: Eagles 38, Cowboys 24

• So, the big story this afternoon is that… after losing the biggest game of the year so far… Cowboys wide receiver was upset and yelling! No! Never! [NBC 10]

• All the photos you need from yesterday’s Biggest Game To Ever Happen, Ever. [The 700 Level]

• Public service announcement: You have to postmark your voter registration form before tomorrow night. So if you want to choose between Bob Casey and Rick Santorum — oh, am I excited to make that decision! — you better get to a state store, post office or library to get a form. [KYW 1060]

• Why is 10-time Congressman — I like to refer to it as if they were winning something respectable, like a wrestling belt — Curt Weldon having trouble in his re-election big? Gee, I dunno, I wonder what Curt Weldon could have done to make him unpopular. But, y’know, he does have it on good intelligence that Osama is dead, so you’d better vote for him. [Salon]

• Oh, yeah, and there’s a giant hole in Broad Street at Lombard. So, uh, avoid that area.

Leftovers: Philly Don’t Get Your Gun

• Oh, the gun rally has made it to Harrisburg! Well, the people on buses. The people who tried to walk there are currently under arrest for attempting to get on the turnpike without a vehicle. [Inquirer]

• Speaking of gun violence, does the Inquirer have a hard-on for anti-gun advocates? I don’t know. Will the paper’s circulation increase if the editors do? [Classical Values]

• Penn students ask: Will Jannie Blackwell run? By the end of this mayoral race, there’s going to be 270 people vying for the Democratic nomination. [Daily Pennsylvanian]

• There’s not much time left to register to vote! But, don’t worry, if you don’t register in time, here’s the little secret about voting that nobody wants you to know about: It doesn’t matter if you do or not. Yes, PWD will be strongly against voting this year. I think it’s the important issues that count. [Metroblogging]

• There’s a 110-year-old man living in Florida who played Negro League baseball. And where was he from? Philly, naturally. Rock on, dude. [NYT]

Del. Primary Is Democracy In Action!

Yesterday was Delaware’s primary for Republican and Democratic nominees to the November elections, and, hot diggity dog, what a day it was!

The primary was moved from its usual Saturday time slot to a Tuesday one to allow Jewish voters to vote. But, apparently, there aren’t many Jews in Delaware — who knew? — or they (and the rest of the state) decided that voting was for tools, because, well:

Despite clear skies and temperatures comfortably in the high 60s, most Delawareans didn’t venture to the polls.

For statewide offices, Democratic voter turnout averaged 6 percent and Republican voter turnout was 8 percent, according to state election officials.

Sitting at a booth in Pike Creek’s the Crossroads restaurant Tuesday morning, registered Democrats Jeannette and James Truax, of Newport, said they didn’t know there was an election taking place.

But, hey, nobody lost or won by one vote, so it’s okay, people.

Few bother to cast ballot in primary [Wilmington News-Journal]