Completely Unnecessary

Check your registration for Chicago residents and suburban Cook County residents online. Everyone else, call your county clerk - their number can be found here.

Chicago residents: if your status is ‘Inactive’ call 312.269.7936 to resolve the issue and be prepared to bring your driver’s license to the polling place.

Illinois registration continues through October 7th. You can download, print out and mail in your registration form here.

You can also register in person at various city, county and state offices - including the Secretary of State’s office if you’re renewing your license. Public schools and libraries also can provide these services.

To register in person, you need two forms of ID, one of which must have your current address. To register, by mail you will need your driver’s license or State ID card number. Failing that you need either the last four digits of your SSN and photo ID or a utility bill, check, etc. that shows your current address.

Grace Period Registration continues through October 21st. But you have to visit one of six Cook County offices. (Different in other areas, obviously…)

Early Voting - October 13-30 - There are fifty locations in Chicago (for Chicago residents) and forty-four in suburban Cook. You may vote at any of the locations, respectively. Early voting locations places are open 9-5, Monday through Saturday (including Columbus Day, 13 October). You must bring a state-issued ID to vote early.

Voting on Election Day: Tuesday, November 4 - Polls are open from 6am until 7pm. If you vote on election day, you must vote at your polling place. It listed on your voter card or you can check your polling place by checking your registration online (Chicago).

If you are in line at 7pm, you must be allowed to vote. Do not be turned away. If your workday spans the entirety of open polling times, your employer must give you two hours off to vote.

Various Chicago voting nonsense: if you have voted in your polling place before and are in the signature book (a white slip) - you are not required to show ID. It’s always a good thing to bring along in case of a canvas challenge, but - as a voter - you are allowed to speak to other voters and to question a judge who asks for ID from a voter in the book with a white slip.

While we’re talking about the book - this is the proper order of things at the polling place.

1. Your give your name and your application should be located in the book.
2. You sign your application.
3. It is checked against your signature in the book (white slips).
4. Your application is then removed, given to you and you exchange it for your ballot.

You should NOT be given your application before your signature is checked. You should NOT have to ‘check in’ with a partisan pollwatcher beforehand. Partisan pollwatchers should NOT be sitting at the table with election judges. (I’m looking at you, precinct in the Hamlin Park gym in 2004…)

And remember - no matter how much your precinct captain insists - you’re only allowed to vote once. One time.

Report any and all irregularities to the Board of Elections (312.269.7900/312-269-7867).

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Jesus. That’s about all one can say about this past Friday’s election in Zimbabwe.

With Tsvangirai gone and the UN bravely refusing to do anything (the august body was even unable to declare a run-off with one candidate ‘illegitimate’).

Mugabe has declared victory and proclaimed ‘record turnouts’, though it appear (unsurprisingly) that the Zimbabweans that voted did so out of fear. Despite the increasing violence and terror waged against those supporting the opposition, it seems as though numerous voters spoilt their ballots or voted for Tfo. Some even boycotted the poll, despite Mugabe’s thugs checking for the tell-tale ‘I voted’ red ink on people’s fingers.

But, worry not, Mugabe is going to be magnamouous in his ‘victory’ - I suppose he can afford to be, having terrorized his opponent and his people.

Bush is going to put in tougher sanctions, but whether this will work or not is debatable. One of Mugabe’s ploys in the past has been to claim that Western sanctions on his government is what has driven the insane inflation in the country. But at least he’s doing something.

After the fact, of course. God forbid we act when it might be truly effective - say, before or during the intimidating beatings, murders and incarcerations. Say, before Mugabe could claim victory in an election.

Perhaps if we meddled in the right place for once we wouldn’t have to call it ‘meddling’.

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Turns out that last October’s comments by then-Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews about Africans not ’settling and adjusting’ were contrary to departmental advice.

He was told that socio-economic problems (unsurprisingly) played more of a role than ethnicity in criminal behaviour.

Yet after the beating death of Liep Gony, an Australian citizen of Sudanese birth, Andrews saw fit to say:

I have been concerned that some groups don’t seem to be settling and adjusting into the Australian way of life as quickly as we would hope and therefore it makes sense to put the extra money in to provide extra resources, but also to slow down the rate of intake from countries such as Sudan. (Age, 2 Oct.: 2)

Ironically, Andrew’s comments came on the same day that it ‘emerged that Mr Gony’s alleged attackers were not African’ - as the Age persists in phrasing it. His alleged murderers were, in fact, white and Australian-born.

In a paper I just wrote on the Gony affair, I argued that media framing set the stage for Andrews’ comments by portraying Gony’s death as part of a continuing ‘refugee crisis’ in Australia.

The reporting was strikingly similar to that of other ‘crises’, such as the Tampa and ‘Children Overboard‘. In 2001, the Howard Government used these incidents to encourage ethnic and immigration tensions for political purposes and was reelected.

In the paper, I said:

While this paper does not imply that Andrews had cynical motivations for his comments, if the Minister had been looking for a Tampa-esque moment, he could be excused for believing the time was ripe.

Now that we know that Andrews specifically acted against departmental advice, it seems less likely that his comments were innocent in nature.

Papers at the time noted that Andrews’ explanation above did not match with the rationale his department had previously given for cuts in the intake of African refugees, and this seems like the final nail in the coffin.

Here were are again, six months after an election, finding out damning information about another of these pre-election, race-baiting events.

Andrews was specifically told that ethnicity was not the problem, but he went ahead and made statements that whipped up ethnic tensions in Noble Park - to the tune of a beaten Sudanese refugee on the 10th and a bashed police officer on the 11th.

Thank god it wasn’t to the tune of another term in power.

Race row we didn’t have to have [The Age]

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I’m not really an advocate of military intervention, but maybe we could be speaking up a bit more than letting one of our envoys do the heavy lifting…

Mugabe’s party/police raided opposition headquarters:

Armed police officers raided the headquarters of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party in Harare, the capital, on Friday, arresting hundreds of people, a spokesman for the party said.
…
“These armed police have taken hundreds of people that were now staying at the party headquarters running away from the different parts of Zimbabwe, where the regime has been unleashing brutal violence,” Mr. Mlilo said in a statement.

In a later statement, the MDC said the number arrested had risen to 300 people, including all staff members.

The police searched for documents used by the opposition to support its claim it won the presidential election, and had also taken away computers, Mr. Mlilo said.

Reuters has a newer article, but some of the info seems older.

Supposedly, we’ll have results this weekend, and the nine constituencies that have recounted have remained the same.

The things we get in a tither about versus the things we ignore absolutely does my head in…

Links:
Opposition ‘Clear Victor’ in Zimbabwe, U.S. Says [NYT]
In Zimbabwe Raid, Hundreds in Opposition Party Detained [NYT]
Zimbabwe Riot Police Stage Raid [Reuters at NYT]

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And his remarks are pretty spot-on:

Some highlights:

I will tell you, it does not get much more fun than these debates. They are inspiring events. I mean, last night, I think we set a new record because it took us 45 minutes before we even started talking about a single issue that matters to the American people. It took us 45 minutes!

Noting that ‘Senator Clinton looked in her element’ when asked by the moderators to attack him, Obama said:

Look, I understand that because that’s the text book Washington game. That’s how our politics has been taught to be played. That’s the lesson that she learned when the Republicans were doing that same thing to her back in the 1990s. So I understand it and when you’re running for the presidency then you’ve got to expect it.

You know, doing research on Australian elections - as dumb as they are sometimes - really helps put the American political process into perspective. I saw a clip yesterday with the now-Deputy PM Julia Gillard congratulating ALP supporters for raising ‘tens of thousands of dollars’ during the election. I chuckled, and then felt a little dead inside.

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Get it?

I haven’t been paying attention to non-Chicago Illinois politics, so it came as a surprise when I saw that the special election for Denny Hastert’s House seat is this Saturday.

It did not come as a surprise to see that perennial candidate Jim Oberweis had thrown his udder in the ring.

Get it?

I switched back to surprise, though, when I saw on TPM today that Hastert heavily Republican district looks to be leaning towards Bill Foster, the Democratic candidate. Even the Chicago Tribune endorsed Foster.

Now one can speculate about whether this portents a Democratic swing across the country or if people are just sick of Oberweis’ ‘I-really-hate-me-some-illegals- (but-damn-they’re-good-at-cleaning-up-my-stores)’ platform.

Hard to say. Poor Oberweis just cannot get himself into office, whilst being pretty much the cream of the IL Republican Party at this point. And that’s gratifying.

Get it?

It’s 9am. These are literally the best dairy puns I have.

Update: My mother points us towards today’s awesome editorial in which the Trib ed. board rips Oberweis a new one over mailers he’s been sending out. They all talk about the lives of IL families for whom Oberweis wants to fight. But the families don’t exist, per se; he made them up. Hurrah!

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Chicago’s early voting has begun!

In its commitment to the phrase, ‘vote early, vote often,’ Chicago has opened 51 early voting locations around the city. If you’re already registered, you can vote at any of the locations listed here. If you’re early voting, you do not have to vote in your own ward (though you must on election day).

The locations are open from 9-5, Monday thru Saturday. They’re also open on Martin Luther King Day, which is totally a good way to spend 10 minutes on your holiday!

Early voting lasts until January 31st. If you miss it, you can vote the usual (read: boring!) way on February 5th (polls stay open til 7pm). If you vote on election day, you must vote at the location listed on your voter card (which I totally just got in the mail before I left, so don’t pretend like you don’t know where it is).

If you need to check to see if you’re registered, find out where your (election day) polling place is, or to see who’s on the ballots, click here.

Illinois has a declaratory ballot, so you have to pick which party’s primary ballot you would like. It does not have to be your party. Perhaps you’re like my dad and cross parties to vote for the weakest opposition candidate (check tonight’s Michigan results to see if that worked for DailyKos). Dubious at best, but who wouldn’t love a Obama/Keyes rematch, this time for President?

As Obama is almost certain to take Illinois by a large percentage, lefty Dems might want to take this opportunity to check out the Green Party. They’re running a field of candidates and are one of your choices for a primary ballot.

Final note: if you aren’t already registered, you can’t vote in the primary. Heart wrenching, I know, but it’s your own damn fault for being so lax in your civic duty. You can still register for the general election in November.

Patriotism moment - America requires very little of you a citizen, and gets more craptacular each year because its citizens don’t participate. It’s 30 minutes of your time every 2-4 years. Get on it.

That being said, I’m not voting in the primary because early voting opened the day after I left and I messed up my absentee procedure by going to Asia! What a hypocrite I am! All the more reason why you should show me up. I know at least several people who would be happy to rub this in my face for years. If that what it takes to participate in your democracy, I am willing to be your holier-than-thou punching bag.

Links:
Early Voting Locations
Voter Information

h/t to Gate, from whom I cheerfully stole the links and the inspiration.

ps: please do not ‘vote often’ - that is voter fraud, no matter how favorably we look upon it in IL.
pps: please do not vote for Alan Keyes - he is a bigot.
ppps: no, go ahead and vote for Keyes. I have no idea if he’s on the ballot, but that would be amazing.

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This is the actual conclusion of a paper I turned in today. I scrapped the Daily Show bit.

Conclusion:

While the state of the election media coverage in 1984 seemed perhaps shaky, by 2004 it appeared to be an all-out brawl. This assessment of the 2004 election finds election reporting not just unimproved, but in crisis. It becomes nearly impossible to decide who is setting the agenda, and sometimes if there even is one. But if there is a lack of control, it does not seem to be indicative of any kind of open, participatory, or deliberative democracy either. As in 1984, it appears that in 2004 the Republicans were able to use incumbency to their advantage and set some of the parameters of the debate. Both Reagan and Bush were able create strong, masculine images, and 2004 saw the active creation of a feminine, flip-flopping Kerry image on the part of the Bush campaign. These images were duly carried in the media at the expense of policy discussion.

The detrimental effects of conflict-based, horserace and process-focused journalism were present in 1984, but shockingly exacerbated twenty years later. Perhaps it says something important when the political spin doctors themselves are mortified by their own processes. One cannot but feel sorry for Eskew when he says, ‘I guess it was entertaining for people at home, but it led to another moment I’m just completely ashamed of’ (quoted in Jamieson, 2006: 160). Unfortunately, this paper’s comparison has shown that when it comes to recent election media coverage, the specifics of Eskew’s complaint are sadly irrelevant. Instead, they stand in for larger ills in American media and political systems that feed off each other in downward spiral, and whose ability to inform the electorate or serve the democracy is doubtful at best.

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Firstly, the FEMA thing. I love things that get on my dad’s radar because then I get the equivalent from him of what I give to you all when I’m not talking about puppies.

If you’re a federal agency that everyone wants to nail, why on earth would you stage a fake press conference with questions by your own staff? Why? Why waste everyone’s time with the exposure, the newscycle about how dumb you are, the inevitable Congressional investigations? Anyway, that’s enough about that.

I also read in Editor and Publisher that Stephen Colbert could be the front runner within a month. Sigh.

Okay, I totally heart Colbert and I think the stunt he’s pulling is vaguely amusing and highlights the ridiculousness and theatricality of the primary process… if it were in a different state.

If he were doing this in a Super Tuesday state or Florida (that’d learn them to move their primary) I would be more or less behind it. But he’s chosen South Carolina. It’s the fourth primary, one of the key states that’s going to determine the presidential candidates.

I realize that, the way the system is supposed to run, this shouldn’t matter. If the conventions were real nominating conventions instead of bland coronations, I would totally back Colbert. But it’s not the way the system works right now. We got Kerry because of a scream. I don’t want Mitt Romney choosing (what, probably three?) Supreme Court justices because of Colbert.

This is the first time in 28 years it’s an open field (no incumbent or veep running) and this is probably the best chance the Democrats have to break up the New Republican Majority. Only two of the last seven presidents have been Democrats - that’s two Dems in nearly 40 years.

I should also say that if he were mounting a full, nationwide presidential bid, I would be less against this. I wouldn’t support him, obviously, but he would affect everything in the system instead of just one very important facet. I just fear that swinging out South Carolina could have an impact on the strength of the Democratic candidate, or help choose a stronger Republican candidate (though I’m not exactly sure who I think that might be).

This just really isn’t the time to be messing around in the gears of our democracy. It’s not doing so well as it is.

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I’ve had numerous discussions down here about issues that Australians were shocked to find Americans don’t know about.

Australia’s deadliest killing spree at Port Arthur? I’d never heard of it.

APEC? A bunch of people I’ve talked to back home don’t know what it is, let alone that it happened.

How, several Aussies have remarked to me, is it possible that Americans don’t know about these important events happening around the globe? I mean, the Virginia Tech shooting was big news down here, how could the 35 dead and 37 injured at Port Arthur have escaped notice in the US?

Unfortunately, I have to keep reminding people that it is because the United States does not care. We just don’t. It’s not that we’re uneducated - though some of us are - but that we have a massive population and de facto world domination. We make enough of our own news - we just don’t care about yours.

Case in point? Howard called the election yesterday. Everyone’s abuzz down here. And this is actually pretty big news for the States, since Bush seems likely to lose his staunchest ideological ally.

But, it’s not on nyt.com’s front page, nor is it in the print edition of the NYT (as posted on their website). They do have a Reuters story if you do a search - but they didn’t send their own reporter. Washington Post? Their site had nothing on the front page - and their registeration system is annoying, so I didn’t go deeper. Chicago Tribune? No. LA Times? No.

Only wsj.com (Wall Street Journal) had it on their front page. You could argue their impending sale to Murdoch makes them a touch more attuned to Oz politics.

Sorry guys, America doesn’t care if you elect Howard, Rudd or one of the myriad of cute bouncing animals we’ve heard about.

Those other two guys? We’re not quite sure who they are.

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