First significant Florida numbers that I’m seeing look a little weird to me. It’s only 2% of precincts reporting, but Obama has a nearly 200,000 vote lead. I’m suspicious.

The first CNN numbers didn’t add up to 100% or anything close to it either. I’ll need to check that again when we get closer to half the vote.

The first set of results are rolling in and they’re looking good. Indiana and Georgia are too close to call. The CNN “your races” widget updates with actual vote totals fairly quickly.

My first disappointment of the night is CNN projecting Mitch Daniels to keep the governor’s job in Indiana. Daniels is a privatization zealot. If Indiana Democrats were ever going to unseat an incumbent Republican governor, this would have been the year to do it. In the results coming in so far, he’s walking all over former congresswoman and Clinton administration official Jill Long Thompson.

About ten days ago, I saw Tim Robbins on Real Time with Bill Maher. Robbins started off his appearance by talking about voter suppression and how you would need to fight it if you showed up to vote and weren’t on the list.

Tim Robbins was not on the list at his polling place this morning. This is the same polling place where Robbins voted in the primaries. It is, he claims, the same polling place where he has voted for years and years. Robbins was forced to go to the main board of elections office to have his registration verified and then was able to vote.

Irony or retribution?

If you are going to vote in person at a polling place tomorrow, make damn sure your vote counts. A few weeks ago I said that if we had a free, fair election without a staged terrorist attack, coup, or other extreme circumstance that Obama would win this thing. I believe it.

Don’t for a second think that Republican operatives aren’t trying their damnedest right now to steal this election. We know that tens if not hundreds of thousands of voters have been purged from the rolls this year by Republican secretaries of state or equivalent Republican elections officials all across this country. We know that they have done this in spite of laws that forbid them from doing it. They don’t care about the law. The “this time only” decision in Bush v. Gore shows that even at the highest levles, they only care about power. They don’t care about democracy. They don’t care about seeing that votes are counted and the will of the people is respected.

If anyone tries to give you a provisional ballot, fight that like hell. Most of them are never counted in the total. If anyone tries to stop you from fighting, fight that like hell. If you think the touch screen voting machine that you find yourself using is playing loose with your vote, you raise a stink.

If all the votes are counted tomorrow, Barack Obama will win this thing. Let’s hope the margin is so large that they can’t steal it.

I recieved a request to chime in on the other ballot props. So, here we go.

Bond Measure Proposition 1A– Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act.
Weak No.I was convinced by a friend who knows more about these things than I that this ballot measure would do little more than subsidize business travel for a largely white, affluent class. It would serve my interests nicely. However, the structural issues in our statewide public transit systems mean that the people who really need good public transit wouldn’t benefit from this. I voted no, but came close to voting the other way.

Initiative Statute Proposition 2– Standards for Confining Farm Animals. Initiative Statute.

Yes. Factory farm conditions are deplorable. This statute would introduce a bare minimum standard for how the animals we consume would live their lives. The people opposing this are large, factory farms.

Initiative Statute Proposition 3–Children’s Hospital Bond Act. Grant Program. Initiative Statute.
I don’t have a strong opinion on this one, but voted yes based on the research that I did. There are some problems with the proposition, though. The most worrisome is that there appears to be a bit of a grey area as to what constitutes a “children’s hospital”. This could potentially be a giant bit of corporate welfare for a few heath care companies. Still, my first instinct is to want to see public money going for health care, especially children’s health care.

Initiative Constitutional Amendment Proposition 4–Waiting Period and Parental Notification Before Termination of Minor’s Pregnancy. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.
Strong No. This is a favorite tactic of the anti-choice bible thumpers. Parents like to think that they should be involved in these decisions. They don’t think about the cases where a teenager may be the victim of rape, incest or both. They don’t think about the abusive homes where revealing a pregnancy may get you a beating. They don’t respect the idea of “my body, my choice”.

Initiative Statute Proposition 5–Nonviolent Drug Offenses. Sentencing, Parole and Rehabilitation. Initiative Statute.
As I wrote two posts back, this one’s a definite yes.

Initiative Statute Proposition 6–Police and Law Enforcement Funding. Criminal Penalties and Laws. Initiative Statute.
Strong No. This is an awful, awful bill. It pushes us further toward being a police state in all sorts of ways. It builds the harassment of poor people that this and other states already do into the law. It diverts funding from schools and health care into building prisons. It’s just awful.

Initiative Statute Proposition 7–Renewable Energy Generation. Initiative Statute.
Weak No. This was another hard one for me. I like the goals of the bill, but the implementation was wrong. It mandates some things that help large scale generators of “green” power at the expense of small scale producers. It puts some seriously difficult requirements on municipal power plants.

Initiative Constitutional Amendment Proposition 8–Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry.
Strongest possible No. I think most folks know this one by now, especially if you’ve been reading my blog. This writes anti-gay discrimination into the California constitution.

Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute Proposition 9–Criminal Justice System. Victims’ Rights. Parole. .
No. More police state stuff, more attacking the poor.

Initiative Statute Proposition 10 Alternative Fuel Vehicles and Renewable Energy. Bonds. Initiative Statute.
Weak No. Again, I like the goals, but not this implementation. I think the government has a strong role to play in incentivizing the move away from traditional oil/gas fueled vehicles, etc. I don’t think that role has to include giant giveaways to the people funding the intitiative. In this case, that would be T. Boone Pickens and other corporate supporters of “The Pickens Plan”.

Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute Proposition 11–Redistricting. Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute.
Strong Yes. This would take re-districting out of the hands of the legislature and put it into the hands of a citizen’s board. That board would consist of Democrats, Republicans, and independents. One of the worst things in our political system is the process whereby legislators draw their own districts.

Bond Measure Proposition 12–Veterans’ Bond Act of 2008.
Strong Yes. This would provide a fund from which veterans can borrow money to purchase farms, homes, or mobile homes. California has done this exact same thing more than 25 times over the last 85 or so years. The fund is generated by selling bonds. The repayment of the loans pays for the bonds.

Like many of you, I’m thinking a lot about the election and plotting various potential maps. I won’t make a final prediction until tomorrow night, but I’ll give you two scenarios right now. The first is a rough estimate of what I think will happen. The second is my hope of what will happen and is still within the realm of possibilities.

I have been a little surprised to find out the extent to which the statewide Democratic politicians in California seem to be completely in the pocket of the prison guards union. It helps to explain why a state with so many progressive ideas floating around seems to be so insanely regressive on crime and criminals. If the supposed liberals in your state aren’t going to provide leadership, no one else will. You can generally expect the Republicans to call for public stoning and witch burning and little else on the topic of crime. Prior to last weekend when I filled out my ballot, I knew damn little about Prop 5. I had only seen negative ads where Dianne Feinstein and Jerry Brown call it a “drug dealer’s bill of rights” and otherwise bash it.

Based on what was in the ballot, I couldn’t see why they were treating it that way. It seemed like good policy to me. Sometimes these ballot initiatives have some fatal flaw that makes an otherwise good bit of public policy into an absolute terrible implementation of it. When I did my research, I couldn’t find a fatal flaw. This bill would greatly increase the number of non-violent drug offenders who get a shot at treatment instead of going to jail. This would mean spending less money on building new prisons and reversing the ugly trend in this state toward putting huge chunks of our population behind bars. This is a good idea. It’s a damn shame that the prison guards’ union can’t see past their own immediate pocketbook interest on this one. This is the equivalent of corporate CEOs who only look at this quarter. Ultimately, the prison guards themselves will be better off if we can reduce the number of people going into prison for non-violent drug crimes. We might someday be able to afford to restore the programs that actually rehabilitate other offenders. That would make the day to day job of prison guards a safer, better job and it would make the communities where they live safer, better communities.

If you’re in California and haven’t voted yet, I urge you to vote yes on 5.

It doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere near the coverage that the horrific response to Katrina got, but it seems like FEMA isn’t doing much better in their response to Ike. I had heard some of this from a couple of people I know in Houston. One is a co-worker and the other is a former co-worker. The devastation, especially on the islands, is a lot worse than what you’d think based on the national coverage.

The general counsel of the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs says “they don’t seem to care much if we lose these communities down there.”. I’ve heard many a smug, holier than thou conservative type say that we shouldn’t provide government aid to people who live in hurricane country (or earthquake country, or fire country or anything other than the snow and tornado country where they seem to live). You’ve got to wonder after a while: is it incompetence driving FEMA’s behavior or is policy? Maybe they really don’t care if we lose those communities.

I have nothing particularly original to say about the fact that Ted Stevens was found guilty on all seven counts. I am enjoying the chance to gloat. One would hope this means he won’t win re-election, but in a state where the populace is capable of giving Sarah Palin an 80% approval rating, I would imagine that anything is possible. I’m damn glad to see that vile, nasty old fucker not just convicted, but convicted on each and every count. How does it feel to be a felon, Ted?

In the last few days, the No on 8 forces have started winning the money game again. KTVU-TV reports that No on 8 has raised about $32 million, while the Mormons Yes on 8 people have raised about $28 million. Starting at least six weeks ago and as recently as ten days ago, the Yes forces were out-raising us. General, the side the raises the most money wins these California ballot props. Let’s hope our money has come in (and keeps coming in) in time to win this thing.