Wow. Here's one I missed from ABC News that was published on Election Day (Nov 2, 2004).

Electronic Voting Machine Woes Reported
By ABC News.

Voters nationwide reported some 1,100 problems with electronic voting machines on Tuesday, including trouble choosing their intended candidates.

The e-voting glitches reported to the Election Protection Coalition, an umbrella group of volunteer poll monitors that set up a telephone hotline, included malfunctions blamed on everything from power outages to incompetent poll workers.

But there were also several dozen voters in six states - particularly Democrats in Florida - who said the wrong candidates appeared on their touch-screen machine's checkout screen, the coalition said.

In many cases, voters said they intended to select John Kerry (website - news - bio) but when the computer asked them to verify the choice it showed them instead opting for President Bush (website - news - bio) , the group said.

After 10 minutes trying to change her selection, the Pinellas County resident said she called a poll worker and got a wet-wipe napkin to clean the touch screen as well as a pencil so she could use its eraser-end instead of her finger. Harvey said it took about 10 attempts to select Kerry before and a summary screen confirmed her intended selection. Election officials in several Florida counties where voters complained about such problems did not return calls Tuesday night...

The Election Protection Coalition received a total of 32 reports of touch-screen voters who selected one candidate only to have another show up on the summary screen, Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a coalition member.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.whtm.com/news/stories/1104/184856.html

Electronic Voting Machine Woes Reported
UPDATED - Tuesday November 02, 2004 11:23pm
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Voting Goes Smoothly for the Most Part103-Year-Old Has Been Voting Since 1920Update On Absentee BallotsFlorida Fixes Voting Machines, Recount RulesPoll Watchers to Crowd Voting Venues
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - Voters nationwide reported some 1,100 problems with electronic voting machines on Tuesday, including trouble choosing their intended candidates.

The e-voting glitches reported to the Election Protection Coalition, an umbrella group of volunteer poll monitors that set up a telephone hotline, included malfunctions blamed on everything from power outages to incompetent poll workers.

But there were also several dozen voters in six states - particularly Democrats in Florida - who said the wrong candidates appeared on their touch-screen machine's checkout screen, the coalition said.

In many cases, voters said they intended to select John Kerry (website - news - bio) but when the computer asked them to verify the choice it showed them instead opting for President Bush (website - news - bio) , the group said.
abc27 -
Electronic Voting Machine Woes Reported (source: AP)

After 10 minutes trying to change her selection, the Pinellas County resident said she called a poll worker and got a wet-wipe napkin to clean the touch screen as well as a pencil so she could use its eraser-end instead of her finger. Harvey said it took about 10 attempts to select Kerry before and a summary screen confirmed her intended selection. Election officials in several Florida counties where voters complained about such problems did not return calls Tuesday night.

A spokesoman for the company that makes the touch-screen machines used in Pinellas, Palm Beach and two other Florida counties, Alfie Charles of Sequoia Voting Systems Inc., said the machines' monitors may need to be recalibrated periodically.

The most likely reason the summary screen showed wrong candidates was because voters pushed the wrong part of the touch screen in the first place, Charles said.

He said poll workers are trained to perform the recalibration whenever a voter says the touch screen isn't sensitive enough.

"Voters will vote quickly and they'll notice that they made an error when they get to the review screen. The review screen is doing exactly what it needs to do - notifying voters what selections are about to be recorded," Charles said. "On a paper ballot, you don't get a second chance to make sure you voted for whom you intended, and it's a strong point in favor of these machines."

The Election Protection Coalition received a total of 32 reports of touch-screen voters who selected one candidate only to have another show up on the summary screen, Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a coalition member.

David Dill, a Stanford University computer scientist whose Verified Voting Foundation also belongs to the coalition, said he wouldn't "prejudge and say the election is going smoothly just because we have a small number of incident reports out of the total population.

"It's not going to be until the dust clears probably tomorrow that we have even an approximate idea of what happened," Dill added.

---

AP Technology Writer Matthew Fordahl in San Jose, Calif., contributed to this report.

And we're not just talking about "in spirit."

Kerry Won
By Greg Palast for Common Dreams.

I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.

Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state...

First and foremost, Kerry was had by chads. But the Democrat wasn't punched out by punch cards alone. There were also the 'challenges.' That's a polite word for the Republican Party of Ohio's use of an old Ku Klux Klan technique: the attempt to block thousands of voters of color at the polls. In Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida, the GOP laid plans for poll workers to ambush citizens under arcane laws—almost never used—allowing party-designated poll watchers to finger individual voters and demand they be denied a ballot. The Ohio courts were horrified and federal law prohibits targeting of voters where race is a factor in the challenge. But our Supreme Court was prepared to let Republicans stand in the voting booth door.

In the end, the challenges were not overwhelming, but they were there. Many apparently resulted in voters getting these funky "provisional" ballots—a kind of voting placebo—which may or may not be counted. Blackwell estimates there were 175,000; Democrats say 250,000. Pick your number. But as challenges were aimed at minorities, no one doubts these are, again, overwhelmingly Democratic. Count them up, add in the spoiled punch cards (easy to tally with the human eye in a recount), and the totals begin to match the exit polls; and, golly, you've got yourself a new president. Remember, Bush won by 136,483 votes in Ohio...

Already, the election-bending effects of spoilage are popping up in the election stats, exactly where we'd expect them: in heavily Hispanic areas controlled by Republican elections officials. Chaves County, in the "Little Texas" area of New Mexico, has a 44 percent Hispanic population, plus African Americans and Native Americans, yet George Bush "won" there 68 percent to 31 percent.

I spoke with Chaves' Republican county clerk before the election, and he told me that this huge spoilage rate among Hispanics simply indicated that such people simply can't make up their minds on the choice of candidate for president. Oddly, these brown people drive across the desert to register their indecision in a voting booth.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1104-36.htm

Published on Thursday, November 4, 2004 by TomPaine.com
Kerry Won
by Greg Palast

Kerry won. Here's the facts.

I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.

Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.

So what's going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don't ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don't know.

Here's why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted. [See TomPaine.com, "An Election Spoiled Rotten," November 1.]

Once again, at the heart of the Ohio uncounted vote game are, I'm sorry to report, hanging chads and pregnant chads, plus some other ballot tricks old and new.

The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don't you believe it ... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.

And not all vote spoil equally. Most of those votes, say every official report, come from African American and minority precincts. (To learn more, click here.)

We saw this in Florida in 2000. Exit polls showed Gore with a plurality of at least 50,000, but it didn't match the official count. That's because the official, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, excluded 179,855 spoiled votes. In Florida, as in Ohio, most of these votes lost were cast on punch cards where the hole wasn't punched through completely—leaving a 'hanging chad,'—or was punched extra times. Whose cards were discarded? Expert statisticians investigating spoilage for the government calculated that 54 percent of the ballots thrown in the dumpster were cast by black folks. (To read the report from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, click here .)

And here's the key: Florida is terribly typical. The majority of ballots thrown out (there will be nearly 2 million tossed out from Tuesday's election) will have been cast by African American and other minority citizens.

So here we go again. Or, here we don't go again. Because unlike last time, Democrats aren't even asking Ohio to count these cards with the not-quite-punched holes (called "undervotes" in the voting biz).

Ohio is one of the last states in America to still use the vote-spoiling punch-card machines. And the Secretary of State of Ohio, J. Kenneth Blackwell, wrote before the election, “the possibility of a close election with punch cards as the state’s primary voting device invites a Florida-like calamity.”

But this week, Blackwell, a rabidly partisan Republican, has warmed up to the result of sticking with machines that have a habit of eating Democratic votes. When asked if he feared being this year's Katherine Harris, Blackwell noted that Ms. Fix-it's efforts landed her a seat in Congress.

Exactly how many votes were lost to spoilage this time? Blackwell's office, notably, won't say, though the law requires it be reported. Hmm. But we know that last time, the total of Ohio votes discarded reached a democracy-damaging 1.96 percent. The machines produced their typical loss—that's 110,000 votes—overwhelmingly Democratic.

The Impact Of Challenges

First and foremost, Kerry was had by chads. But the Democrat wasn't punched out by punch cards alone. There were also the 'challenges.' That's a polite word for the Republican Party of Ohio's use of an old Ku Klux Klan technique: the attempt to block thousands of voters of color at the polls. In Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida, the GOP laid plans for poll workers to ambush citizens under arcane laws—almost never used—allowing party-designated poll watchers to finger individual voters and demand they be denied a ballot. The Ohio courts were horrified and federal law prohibits targeting of voters where race is a factor in the challenge. But our Supreme Court was prepared to let Republicans stand in the voting booth door.

In the end, the challenges were not overwhelming, but they were there. Many apparently resulted in voters getting these funky "provisional" ballots—a kind of voting placebo—which may or may not be counted. Blackwell estimates there were 175,000; Democrats say 250,000. Pick your number. But as challenges were aimed at minorities, no one doubts these are, again, overwhelmingly Democratic. Count them up, add in the spoiled punch cards (easy to tally with the human eye in a recount), and the totals begin to match the exit polls; and, golly, you've got yourself a new president. Remember, Bush won by 136,483 votes in Ohio.

Enchanted State's Enchanted Vote

Now, on to New Mexico, where a Kerry plurality—if all votes are counted—is more obvious still. Before the election, in TomPaine.com, I wrote, "John Kerry is down by several thousand votes in New Mexico, though not one ballot has yet been counted."

How did that happen? It's the spoilage, stupid; and the provisional ballots.

CNN said George Bush took New Mexico by 11,620 votes. Again, the network total added up to that miraculous, and non-existent, '100 percent' of ballots cast.

New Mexico reported in the last race a spoilage rate of 2.68 percent, votes lost almost entirely in Hispanic, Native American and poor precincts—Democratic turf. From Tuesday's vote, assuming the same ballot-loss rate, we can expect to see 18,000 ballots in the spoilage bin.

Spoilage has a very Democratic look in New Mexico. Hispanic voters in the Enchanted State, who voted more than two to one for Kerry, are five times as likely to have their vote spoil as a white voter. Counting these uncounted votes would easily overtake the Bush 'plurality.'

Already, the election-bending effects of spoilage are popping up in the election stats, exactly where we'd expect them: in heavily Hispanic areas controlled by Republican elections officials. Chaves County, in the "Little Texas" area of New Mexico, has a 44 percent Hispanic population, plus African Americans and Native Americans, yet George Bush "won" there 68 percent to 31 percent.

I spoke with Chaves' Republican county clerk before the election, and he told me that this huge spoilage rate among Hispanics simply indicated that such people simply can't make up their minds on the choice of candidate for president. Oddly, these brown people drive across the desert to register their indecision in a voting booth.

Now, let's add in the effect on the New Mexico tally of provisional ballots.

"They were handing them out like candy," Albuquerque journalist Renee Blake reported of provisional ballots. About 20,000 were given out. Who got them?

Santiago Juarez who ran the "Faithful Citizenship" program for the Catholic Archdiocese in New Mexico, told me that "his" voters, poor Hispanics, whom he identified as solid Kerry supporters, were handed the iffy provisional ballots. Hispanics were given provisional ballots, rather than the countable kind "almost religiously," he said, at polling stations when there was the least question about a voter's identification. Some voters, Santiago said, were simply turned away.

Your Kerry Victory Party

So we can call Ohio and New Mexico for John Kerry—if we count all the votes.

But that won't happen. Despite the Democratic Party's pledge, the leadership this time gave in to racial disenfranchisement once again. Why? No doubt, the Democrats know darn well that counting all the spoiled and provisional ballots will require the cooperation of Ohio's Secretary of State, Blackwell. He will ultimately decide which spoiled and provisional ballots get tallied. Blackwell, hankering to step into Kate Harris' political pumps, is unlikely to permit anything close to a full count. Also, Democratic leadership knows darn well the media would punish the party for demanding a full count.

What now? Kerry won, so hold your victory party. But make sure the shades are down: it may be become illegal to demand a full vote count under PATRIOT Act III.

I used to write a column for the Guardian papers in London. Several friends have asked me if I will again leave the country. In light of the failure—a second time—to count all the votes, that won't be necessary. My country has left me.

Greg Palast, contributing editor to Harper's magazine, investigated the manipulation of the vote for BBC Television's Newsnight. The documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes," based on his New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, has been released this month on DVD .

It seems only fair to document my own voting experience, since I've asked you to document yours and send it to me.

Here's video of me casting my vote for Kerry via the optical voting system used at my precinct in San Francisco, California.

These are the optical voting systems that need to replace the electronic voting machines that are currently in use throughout the country. I believe that electronic voting machines need to either a) implement voter verifiable paper trails or b) be replaced completely by the newest snazzy optical system models. Otherwise we have no control over the outcome. Period.

Also of interest is the Instant Runoff Feature for our local Representatives. I voted for Tom Ammiano, of course. That's why it says "first choice," "second choice," etc.

Lisa Rein's Voting Experience (Small - 5 MB)

This post goes with this one.

This is from the CNN election broadcast of 11/03/04 at about 12:30 am.

Wolf Blitzer actually did an OK job during the middle-of-the-night broadcast. I was surprised.

Here's Harvard Law Professor
Laurence Tribe explaining the nuances behind last night's Provisional Ballot situation.

CNN Legal Panel On Provisional Ballots

Quote from Laurence Tribe:

I'm told that as of now there was a Federal injunction that required that people who stood in the rain for five hours and learned that there were no machines there be allowed to vote on paper ballots and I'm told that they weren't.

My pal Maura just emailed me this list she put together of voter disenfranchisement cases that were being covered yesterday on KPFA Radio, in Berkeley, CA.

After listening to them for a good part of the morning, she started writing some of them down. The reports continued into the afternoon, and so did her note taking.

When she told me about this list today, I asked her to email it over so I could tell you about it.

Maura's List:

milwaukee-
people in minority communities recevied flyers saying
not to vote if they havent payed parking tickets or
child support cause they will be arrested.

madison, wi - flyers distributed saying if anyone in
your family has been convicted of a crime, youre not
allowed to vote. also, calls and doorhangers saying
"remember to vote nov 3rd"

ohio- people didnt receive absentee ballots. Some are
going to polls to get provisional ballot, on orders of
mr. blackwell, being denied provisional ballot saying
that they cannot use a provisional ballot.

restaining order eventually placed on polling
officials saying they cannot enforce mr. blackwell's order.

one woman, went to 3 polling places, had been trying
to vote since 6:30am this morning, finally voted at
2pm requesting a provisional ballot, said she wasnt
leaving until she received one, however, since she
didnt vote in her correct polling place, her ballot
too might be called in to question. this is happneing
all over.

florida -
people's names just arent on registrar's list, being
denied right to vote.

voters being told by election officials that their
provisional ballots wont be counted, therefore, why
bother.

south dakota:
republicans working for john thume writing down native
american license plates at polling places-intimidation
effort claimed to determine if
they're legal voters.

colorado -
one woman reported that she was called and told she
could vote early at a local baptist church. She went
there, voted, and was told today by her co-workers
that early voting ended last friday. what?

arizona-
reports of automated calls telling voters they're
polling place had changes. they drove 20 miles across
town to find out that it wasnt true.

alameda county - electronic machines
breaking all over, error messages, one woman was
denied a paper ballot and given a provisional ballot.
this in our county, not even a swing state, think of
how many times this could have happened to those who
were ignorant.

I just talked to Steve Shapiro again in Florida. He's understandably depressed and wasn't really in much of a talking mood.

Questions in bold are from me. Answers are from Steve.

Were there any problems yesterday?

None that were apparent or significant. There weren't even long lines. The pattern had always been crowded from 7-11am and 4-7pm and only half of that was true yesterday. Nobody showed up in the afternoon.

So your project was a success? They had all voted early?

Yes. When we got back tothe church that night. Everyone said it was the same pattern. I mean it was steady, but the early voting really seems to have made a big difference in reducing the number of mishaps.

Were there a lot of Provisional Ballots used that you could see?

No, actually. Not many Provisional Ballots that we could tell. But we weren't inside the polls, but we were talking to the lawyers inside the polls and they were sort of giving us updates. It didn't seem like there were many Provisional Ballots being used, or at least certainly not in numbers that were out of the ordinary.

There was only one "challenge," and it was a legit one. Somebody really did try to vote twice.

How exactly was it that all the lawyers were allowed to be inside the polls?

Each candidate, party, or ballot initiative is allowed to have one there on their behalf. In many cases, there were committies of lawyers there on behalf of the various campaigns.

We talked to some of them who noted that, for the most part, there didn't seem to be any kind of Republican strategy or anything. Conflicts between lawyers and citizens/poll workers/volunteers really seemed to depend on the personality of the lawyers.

For instance, at one of the precincts we were at, the Republican lawyer was a really nice guy, and the Democrat lawyer was really a jerk!

Ohio Takes Election-Night Spotlight
By Henry Weinstein and Elizabeth Shogren for the Los Angeles Times.

If it is necessary to count the provisional votes and the margin narrows, that could precipitate a recount. Under Ohio law, if the candidates are separated by one-quarter of a percentage point or less, there automatically would be a recount.

In Columbus, Daryll Judge, 44, a satellite technician, and his wife Michelle got in line at New Salem Baptist Church to vote at 5:30 p.m. It was raining steadily. By 7 p.m., they finally let the people wait inside the church. It wasn't until 9:50 p.m., more than four hours later, that he finally voted...

As the clock struck midnight in Gambier, Ohio, Lauren Gray, 18, waited in line to vote at a precinct near Kenyon College, where she is a sophomore. An electronic voting machine broke down earlier Tuesday, creating long, slow-moving lines of hopeful citizens waiting hours to cast their ballot.

"When it's coming down to having Ohio be the deciding state, everyone at the college and in the town knows we could be the next Florida," Gray said.

After a day of nerves wearing thin from mechanical delays, hurried legal challenges and the adrenaline fatigue that comes from dashed hopes, Ohio found itself in the unwanted spotlight. As the count of the presidential vote moved into this morning's early hours, Ohio emerged as the key big state to decide who becomes president.

Despite several projections that President Bush had defeated John Kerry in Ohio, the challenger's campaign insisted the count was too close to concede. In some areas, the voting was still under way.

"The vote count in Ohio has not been completed," campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill said in a statement. "There are more than 250,000 remaining votes to be counted. We believe when they are, John Kerry will win Ohio."

Mark Weaver, the chief Republican attorney in Ohio, said he was pleased that it appeared that Bush had prevailed in the Buckeye State. However, he quickly added that it appeared that the president's margin of victory would be less than the number of provisional ballots that have been cast, which would mean that the result would not be finalized for at least 10 days.

Both sides agreed it would take a while for Ohio to straighten out the vote.

According to Cincinnati attorney Phyllis Bossin, the southwestern Ohio legal coordinator for Kerry, there are still thousands of votes to be counted in Cuyahoga County, the state's largest county, where Al Gore trounced Bush in 2000. She said some polls had just closed in Columbus. Perhaps most significant, Bossin said, "The whole provisional ballot thing is a nightmare."

Cincinnati attorney Daniel J. Hoffheimer, the chief lawyer for the Kerry campaign in Ohio, said at 1:45 a.m. Wednesday that "this is the situation we all feared" - where the margin was the less than the number of provisional ballots, creating the possibility of further litigation.

Joe Rugola, the Ohio AFL-CIO's political chairman, said the outcome in Ohio could become clear in a couple hours or not for weeks.

"If Kerry's margin in Cuyahoga County is in line with historic margins, we could end up with a difference (between the candidates) that could be smaller than the number or provisional ballots outstanding."

The provisional ballots would then become a "supercharged" legal issue because there was so much legal wrangling over who could cast a provisional ballot and where they could cast it leading up to the election.

Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell said on CNN that if the margin of victory in Ohio is less than the number of provisional ballots, "everyone should take a deep breath and relax" because those provisional ballots won't be counted for at least 10 days under Ohio law.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/2004/la-na-ohio3oct03,1,533537.story?coll=la-home-headlines

I can't believe he gave up without a full investigation of yesterday's events, but CNN is saying that Kerry called Bush and conceeded, and will be making a speech today to officially do so at 1pm eastern.

I can't even imagine the horrible things that this President is going to do to hurt our own country and the rest of the world over these next four years.

Sure. Hilary will come save us in 2008, but what will be left of our country by then?

Well, I'm not convinced, actually. It's hard to believe that with a 70% voter turnout, the Shrub was able to squeak ahead. I think they cheated. Between the electronic voting machines, purge lists, and the various other illegal methods consistently employed by this administration, they've managed to pull another fast one on us.

It's up to all of us to continue to document whatever we can about the election -- while the trail is hot.

I'm not looking forward to what will inevitably be another four years of Election 2004 horror stories...trickling out little by little, with little or nothing that can be done about them when they finally surface.

I'm a bitter loser. But I'm a bitter loser with my eyes open.

We'll have to stick together more than ever over these next four miserable years. The Shrub will continue to attempt to drive us farther apart. We can't let him.

Also, for those of you with children of draft age, I'd suggest moving away to another country, and fast. Seriously.

What perfect timing. I was putting up the last post when I realize that CNN had a little panel of legal professors talking about Provisional Ballots and their legal implications.

The tricky part, apparently, lies in the processing of those ballots, which is left to the States' discretion in the Help America Vote Act.

All of the guests agreed that these people deserve to have their vote counted and that their votes could make a difference in the outcome. Especially in Ohio. But really in all states, and that it was fairly irresponsible for networks to claim any victories at this point.

This just in from Joseph Sickel:

here's my little voting story...

When I arrived at our polling place in Southern California, about 300 people had voted. I asked for a paper ballot, saying I didn't trust the DREs.
The volunteers asked, "Why?"
I said, "I'm a programmer."
We laughed.

But it was an old joke for them. They said nearly all of the 20 or so people requesting a paper ballot gave the same sort of answer.

First of all, there are 1,000s of people who, as of an hour or two ago, were still lined up waiting to vote. (People who had already vote were starting to bring refreshments to those still waiting in line.)

Then a friend just sent me an email reminding me about Walden "Wally" O'Dell. The chairman of the board and chief executive of Diebold - the company who manufacturers the electronic voting machines used in Ohio. He promised to deliver Ohio to Bush.

They better count every last vote this time around! In Ohio, and everywhere else. (Including all
Provisional Ballots.)

We can't let the Repubs use the existing buraucracy under their control to throw out millions of Democrat votes in the states where it suits them. (They've already done it again in Florida.)

Karl Rove will stop at nothing.

We have to stand up to them this time around. No quick forfeits.

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html

For years, O'Dell has given generously to Republican candidates. Last September, he held a packed $1,000-per-head GOP fundraiser at his 10,800-square-foot mansion. He has been feted as a guest at President Bush's Texas ranch, joining a cadre of "Pioneers and Rangers" who have pledged to raise more than $100,000 for the Bush reelection campaign. Most memorably, O'Dell last fall penned a letter pledging his commitment "to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President.

This just in from Benjamin:

Here in West Des Moines, Iowa it went like clockwork, just like every
other time. I walked in, filled out a little piece of carbon paper
stating who I was and signed it, walked to the next person who checked
the paper against her big book o' people, and then to the next for a
ballot. After receiving my nice paper ballot I completed the arrow
pointing at the candidates I was voting for, checked it over a couple
times, and stuck it in the machine. According to the LEDs on the
machine, I was number 812 for my precinct.

This in from Dave Pentecost of Michael Moore's "Protect the Vote" video team in Cleveland. (I offered to host clips for them.):

I am with the Michael Moore protect the vote video team in Cleveland. I expect we will have clips of voters being challenged or sound bites after they leave the polls.

We are starting to hear about more incidents of challengers and dirty tricks and are sending crews to those locations. I'll let you know when I've uploaded anything.

This is typical right now: we got a report that there were 5
challengers where they are only allowed 2, old couples being allowed
only one vote between them, cops around and telling our crews to turn
off the cameras (even though they were the proper distance). Rebecca
Perl who is organizing things called for a lawyer, he went over and
got the challengers to leave. I'll see what gets on tape, but that's
what we are here for - rapid response.

I shot the Michael Moore press conference this afternoon. He's good
but you can see him on TV. I'm still looking for the clips you can't
see elsewhere. And after the presser, the "real" media went off
trailing behind our teams, who've been out in the rain all day.

Just got a call that they are sending some tapes back. We'll see what's up.

And then later:

Looks like no video clip today. some good
anecdotal interviews. Good determined folks at the polls. Surprisingly
little conflict considering all the waiting lines. But we know how
great all Americans are!

Lines of Voters Try to Cast Ballots Early
By Roger Petterson for the Associated Press.

Voters trying to beat the rush turned out early to cast ballots in many precincts as Election Day opened, forming long lines that snaked out the doors, waiting in rain and even taking along chairs for expected long waits.

Umbrellas and raincoats were needed Tuesday from Texas to the lower Great Lakes, and snow-covered roads were a problem in the Texas Panhandle. In some places, voters were standing in line before the polling place doors opened.

Besides the presidency, voters were filling 34 Senate seats, 11 governorships and all 435 House seats.

Both parties had pushed to increase turnout among their supporters, and even with early voting in many states, tens of millions were to head to the polls before the long Election Day wound to a close.

This isn't the first email I've received since I asked you to send me your accounts of voting experiences. This is the email I received last night that gave me the idea in the first place.

From Brian Nicks:

Want to know what this image is? It's a picture I took with my cellphone-camera of an electronic voting machine screen. I took it today when I went down to vote for the next President of the Unites States in Santa Clara California. The screen says "Vote Save Error #9. Use the Backup Voting Procedure." A news crew was on hand to film Californians using the voting machines. I pointed to this particular screen and said "There's your story - right there. I just took a picture of the screen and plan to share it with 6.4 billion of my closest friends on the Internet tonight. I suggest you do the same." To my astonishment, the cameraman did shoot some footage of the screen, though I don't know what was shown later on television.

Now that I've told you the story behind the picture, I need not mention the maelstrom of thoughts that go through my head whenever I look at it - the picture is testament enough. The next revolution will not be televised. The next revolution will be blogged.

I'll try to keep up with these as best I can. I'd like to keep a record of as many personal experiences as possible. It will help others reading about this day in the future understand the emotionally-charged nature of the whole thing.

Or, hell, what do I know. Maybe tomorrow (today) will just be like any other day...