(no subject)

In case you haven't heard:

Voting machine error in Columbus, Ohio, gave Bush 3,893 extra votes

"Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct."

For sheer peace of mind, let's hope that was an isolated glitch and an innocent error.

(no subject)

Ta to hothead for permish to share this emailed comment:
__

Although I'm not convinced that Ohio would have gone for Kerry had all the votes been counted, I can attest to the fact that thousands of votes DID go uncounted in Ohio.  I worked the "Voter Protection" circuit in a minority precinct in Akron where I witnessed confusion and disappointment as voters were unable to find their correct polling locations and found themselves somehow purged from the rolls.  Republican "challengers" indeed sat behind the election judges' tables and while some simply sat there and wrote down the names of all the voters, others actively challenged every single voter in Democratic precincts.  

Something everyone must remember is that this has been going on since voting has been going on.  Minority voters in this country have always been intimidated and downright disenfranchised; the Democratic party has only just begun to care.  Again, I don't know whether the uncounted votes in Ohio would actually change the outcome of the election, but we deserve to know.

__

(Emphasis added to give you-all a subject line experience.)

ETA: Commentary on the discrepancy between exit polls in Ohio and Florida and the actual vote: Kerry won.

(no subject)

A response to that Guardian article decrying religious freedom for the UK navy's sole Satanist, but Julia Baird in the SMH: Evil really is out there, but not under pointy hats. The Guardian's piece worried this neglected the underlying power of symbols such as the Devil. Baird responded:

"...perhaps part of the reason we dismiss symbols is because we have learnt that popular representations of religion can be a distraction, and distort the idea of what good and evil is. Evil is not usually dressed in pointy hats but is often banal in presentation, if horrific in consequence. It is, for example, found in acts committed by people hunched over computers distributing child pornography, those who profit from the sex slave trade, or in corrupt institutions which fail to punish pedophiles."

She gives the example of newspapers in Wollongong so busy hunting non-existent Devil-worshippers that they failed to notice a paedophile ring right under their noses. Thought-provoking stuff.