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Don’t Let Them Steal the Election
with a 1-point lead instead. Nevada, Colorado and Florida are particularly sensitive to such polling errors among swing states. All the above factors indicate that Romney is in a very weak position and that his “winning!” narrative is much like Charlie Sheen’s, which is all the more reason why voter suppression looms large as an electoral concern.
Voter Suppression
There are three main prongs to voter suppression efforts, each of which has already had an impact, but will also play a potentially significant role up to, including, and even beyond, election day. These are: State action. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, 41 states have introduced 180 restrictive laws since the 2010 midterms, but in the end, only 16 laws and two executive orders in 13 states survived to take effect this year. Two laws in two states were “seriously blunted” by the courts. GOP partisan/professional activism to block, intimidate and suppress Democratic voters, primarily in low-income and minority communities, but also among younger voters as well. The central figure in such efforts within the last three election cycles has been consultant Nathan Sproul, former chair of the Arizona GOP. Workers
The post-election battle between George W. Bush and Al Gore over Florida’s electoral votes in 2000 was influenced by a false narrative of Bush’s winning big. “Bush’s Brain,” Karl Rove told the conservative Washington Times that Bush would win “in the vicinity of 320 electoral votes,” picking up “50 to 51 [percent] versus 44, 45 percent” for Vice President Al Gore in the popular vote. Gore actually won the popular tally by half a million votes.
employed by Sproul have been caught destroying or discarding registration forms in swing states such as Florida, Virginia and Colorado, leading to a high-profile firing of his firm—after which he was quietly rehired by parties unknown to do get-out-the-vote organizing in at least 30 states. Conservative ideological activism articulated as “protecting the vote,” but definitely not the votes of low-income and minority voters, whom they spend a great deal of energy harassing and intimidating. Tea Party activists aligned with True the Vote are not under GOP direction, but have strongly overlapping goals in terms of practical politics. Ever since the 2000 election, voting rights advocates have recognized the proliferation of new threats, and organized a national network of “Election Protection” teams, which are going to be crucial in fighting back against the combined effects of these three different sorts of threats. For a closer look at the challenges they face and how they are fighting back in the most populous swing states—Florida, Ohio, Virginia and North Carolina—please see the online version of this article at www.randomlengthsnews.com/blogs/Notebook/. If you see or experience any problem with voting, you can call the Election Protection hotline at: 866our-vote. Their website is 866ourvote.org and they have a smartphone app available.
Medical Marijuana Petition Approved For Circulation
LOS ANGELES—On Oct. 26, the Los Angeles City Clerk announced the approval for the “Medical Marijuana Collectives Initiative Ordinance” to collect signatures for the May 2013 ballot. The ordinance would regulate associations of six or more qualified patients and/or primary caregivers who cultivate, process, distribute, deliver, or give away marijuana to an unlimited number of members for medical purposes. It exempts associations of five or fewer qualified patients and/or primary caregivers who process or cultivate medical marijuana onsite for themselves, their qualified patients or for those with medical marijuana cards. The ordinance prohibits medical marijuana clinics, but provides limited immunity from enforcement of the ordinance for all clinics that operated as of Sept. 14, 2007, are registered with the city and have not ceased operations for 90 days except to relocate or in response to federal action. The limited immunity from enforce also applies to clinics that provide no ingress/egress from adjacent residential zoned lots, pass annual LAPD background checks, and after 300 days, maintain a certain distance from schools, parks, and other designated places. The ordinance establishes operating standards, enforceable as infractions. If the city adopts permit regulations for medical marijuana clinics, the ordinance requires the city to issue permits to all clinics immunized by this ordinance. Proponents have a 120-day window to collect 41,138 valid signatures. Dec. 7, 2012 is the recommended last day for proponents to file the completed petition.
GOP Opposes Disaster Relief, Preparedness
Reckless budget-cutting has consequences, as noted by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee in a recent action alert: In March 2011, the House Republicans passed a continuing resolution that included a cut of $450.3 million to the (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) as compared to President Obama’s requested budget. It also cut the National Weather SerNews Briefs/ to p. 10
“And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.”
the 290 to 300 range, mostly toward the lower end. In crucial battleground states, Obama retains his lead in enough states to win. Using averages from Real Clear Politics—a conservative site that featured a 446 electoral vote Bush landslide prediction in 2000—Obama was ahead 2.3 or 2.4 percent in Nevada, Iowa, Wisconsin and Ohio on Oct. 26, which would give him 277 electoral votes versus 270 to win. Obama never trailed in any of them during Romney’s surge. Obama’s lead is probably underestimated, particularly in crucial battleground states, due to higher support among cellphone users who can’t legally be called by automated polls. An Oct. 26 story in Talking Points Memo reported, “Since early September, live polls have shown Obama with an average lead of 4.5 percent in Ohio, while robo-polls show him with an average lead of less than 2.” The battleground states themselves have shifted significantly since 2000 to 2004. Virginia and North Carolina, which no Democrat had won since 1964 and 1976, respectively until 2008 are now hotly-contested battleground states. In 2004, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and New Mexico were all battleground states, but Romney isn’t seriously contesting any of them—even though Pennsylvania’s voter identification law was expressly intended to deliver the state to him. Obama’s electoral blue-state base is much larger than Romney’s red-state base. More safe states mean Obama needs fewer battleground states to win and has more paths to victory; 436, compared to 76 for Romney. A similar calculation in 2004 showed 143 paths for Kerry, versus 358 for Bush. Latinos are still being widely undercounted and miscounted in polls—a major reason for Harry Reid’s surprising 5-point victory in 2010. In a recent article, Matt A. Barreto, of Latino Decisions used the example of a national Monmouth poll showing Romney leading 48 to 45, while losing Latinos narrowly, 42 to 48. Substituting more realistic figures, from an average of nationwide polls of Latinos, Obama emerged
November 2 - 15, 2012
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