Elections, briefly

Some small good news for Dems from Florida: Bill Nelson defeated Katherine Harris for the U.S. Senate seat. Ron Klein beat Clay Shaw for the U.S. House seat along coastal Broward and Palm Beach counties. Shaw had held that seat for years and years and was actually projected to retain the seat. I guess the condo commandos came out in force for "the tribe". ;-)

Yet, and still, Florida remains a red state. Charlie Crist won the governor's race. I didn't vote for him b/c I don't like his running mate. I didn't want to vote for the Democratic candidate, Jim Davis, either b/c I personally know his running mate, Darryl Jones, and I really don't like him. I went to law school with Jones. He was in my year, my class and my section. I knew him well. He was slick and manipulative, and it killed me to cast a vote for him, despite his being a Democrat. Oh well. Hopefully, his political career is over.

Now, if my friend, Ruben King-Shaw, Jr., ever runs for office, I'd support his campaign financially and cast a vote for him. I don't know if Ruben has political aspirations, but he is one brilliant, talented, man.

Update: Dems take control of the House. Woohoo! Nancy Pelosi as Speaker ... hmmm. I wonder if she'll be able to build bi-partisan support. Who ever would have predicted that the nail-biters would be the Virginia and Montana Senate races. I heard on the news this morning that there were some vote tabulation problems in Fairfax County, Va. (suburb of DC). That seems quite unusual b/c those folks are always on the ball. Apparently there were software problems with the voting machines in Montana. When they finally resolved the glitches, the machines set their counters back to zero. I guess they're hand-counting votes now.

The current question: what is your opinion of electronic voting? Should a voter receive a printed receipt of her vote? Some jurisdictions allow early voting (in person) -- should they all? Or, should all jurisdictions provide for mail-in ballots, other than absentee?

Speak up!