And not just in Sandy devastated territory.
Yesterday morning, 48 hours before the polls were to open in New York and New Jersey, there were 730,000 households without power in New York and 910,000 households without power across the Hudson in New Jersey. This afternoon, that number holds at roughly a half million and 800,000, respectively. And even in areas where power has been restored, provisions for this election have been scrambled. Yesterday in leafy Princeton, far from the shore, the power returned, and all day long a fusillade of robocalls rained on the land lines there, announcing changed polling places and consolidated voting districts. Today, election officials in eastern New Jersey counties tried to explain last-minute e-mail ballots to voters in a state where turnout has never been below 70-percent in a presidential election year. Tomorrow, statewide, many people will be showing up at the wrong place, and the explaining will continue, and confusion will reign.
[...]
Governor Christie, has performed well in the crisis, and his announcement that the state was would allow voting by e-mail and fax, under a provision of state law previously used only for service men and women, was his only option — barring a delay of the election by Congress. But there are many problems with this solution, the most obvious being that e-mailing and faxing also require electricity.
Charlie Pierce
[...]
Governor Christie, has performed well in the crisis, and his announcement that the state was would allow voting by e-mail and fax, under a provision of state law previously used only for service men and women, was his only option — barring a delay of the election by Congress. But there are many problems with this solution, the most obvious being that e-mailing and faxing also require electricity.
Charlie Pierce
[For Miami-Dade voters, t]he past two days have been an unprecedented nightmare. First, Republican Governor Rick Scott and his pet Republican legislature cut the early-voting period in half and also cut down on the number of early-voting locations, law suits and bomb threats notwithstanding. Then came the fiasco of last night, when the commission closed, and then reopened, and had the mayor of Miami come blundering through the process like a hippo in spiked heels. Then, a decision was made at some point to allow voters to come and vote today. Sort of.
[...]
In fact, there has been so much misinformation, malinformation, changing information, and pure second-hand bullshit floating around the election process down here that a great number of people in the line had completely forgotten that tomorrow is actually, you know, Election Day.
Charlie Pierce
[...]
In fact, there has been so much misinformation, malinformation, changing information, and pure second-hand bullshit floating around the election process down here that a great number of people in the line had completely forgotten that tomorrow is actually, you know, Election Day.
Charlie Pierce
Even apart from a natural disaster, our elections have become such a processional nightmare of corruption and bumbling that we can't elect a president on election day any more.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
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