“Let’s just say I think this a colossal waste of taxpayer money,” one older man volunteered as his wife nodded. “We voted for (Giron) three years ago and she would be up for election next year anyway? Why are we doing this?”
from
The Pueblo Chieftain, posted September 5, 2013 11:11PM
More than 11,000 Pueblo County voters have cast ballots...
After five days of voting, 5,887 Democrats, 3,314 Republicans and 2,051 unaffiliated voters had cast their ballots.
from
The Pueblo Chieftain, posted September 6, 2013 03:17PM
Not wanting to jinx anything, and lord knows there's going to be litigation after the count, but it looks like Yosemite Sam might be rootin' tootin' shootin' blanks in Pueblo.
That being said, there's a big difference between the Colorado Springs state senate district, and the Pueblo district. One huge difference? CS has a Republican County Clerk. Pueblo has a Democrat.
- Guess which district started early voting the earliest?
- Guess which district has the most, and easiest to get to polling places, with the most worker friendly hours?
- Now guess which district has only one polling place in the actual freakin' district?!?
That's right kids, Colorado Republicans are on the Voter Suppression freight train to Cheatersville.
First, they sued to prevent mail-in ballots, at the very last second so that even if they lost, there would be no time to prepare, print, and mail out the ballots. (What's that white stuff around chickensh|t? I'm pretty sure it's also...)
They won that case, so no mail-in ballots. Consequences? Lower turnout, which favors Republicans, and higher cost to the taxpayer, which Republicans do not give a fuck about.
Second, in Colorado Springs, like North Carolina and Florida and Ohio and..., they're making voting as difficult as they can possibly get away with.
For an exceedingly longwinded (even by my standards) and thus very detailed write-up of exactly what happened in Colorado Springs, check out RWN's diary from yesterday: "Reporting 1st Hand from CO's Recall, don't be surprised by the results".
My short take on this does not do the facts justice. Yes, it's as bad as you think, so take your anti-depressants and read that diary.
Oddly enough, in Pueblo, with its Democratic County Clerk, they're not having many problems:
Dwight Shellman, an observer from the Colorado Secretary of State’s office said there were some reported problems Thursday — malfunctioning voting machines here and there or complaints about individual election judges.
“But overall I think it’s gone well,” he said. “The observers from our office are visiting any polling place where a problem is reported and they are being resolved.”
(from the second Chieftain article linked above)
And, from RWN's diary, their chickensh|t suppression tactics in CS might not save them there either:
Today as voting has officially begun I was privately given an insight to “internal polling” earlier in the week by a party official that strongly pointed to what is going to be a surprise---our way. For a few weeks now things have turned around at least for Morse in Colorado Springs as his staff and volunteers are made great inroads on the ground game overcoming voter apathy and support and all signs point to a big win. It is why the NRA ponied $250,000 more for the recall campaigns late last week (link here:) "They",meaning the NRA, doesn't do this because they think they're winning, they're doing it because things are going the other way badly and they feel they have to increase their air war now making smears and insinuations that are way over the top.
In diaries and comments on this topic that I've written since last week when a
Quinnipiac poll was published about these races, which told us that no matter where they stand on gun issues,
Coloradoans don't support the recall, I've been saying that
the Democrats needed to
stop spending money defending themselves and telling everyone how much they love kittens,
and
stop spending money telling everyone that their Republican opponents want to cage all vaginas,
and
close all of Pueblo's public schools so Cherry Creek kids can attend Yale,
and
that Rush Limbaugh wants to steal your private Oxycontin stash,
and
start telling people how easy it is to complete this ballot and where they can go to do so.
Well looky what showed up in my mailbox just a couple of minutes ago, an 8.5 x 11 full-color mailer that reads:
IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE SPECIAL RECALL ELECTION
EARLY VOTING STARTS THIS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5TH.
Turn over for more details and locations.
On the other side we have all the locations listed and voting hours, nice and big and easy to read.
And in very tiny print in the return address spot on the front you can read
PAID FOR BY PUEBLO UNITED FOR ANGELA
Ouch. I just sprained my shoulder patting myself on the back...
Anyway, it ain't over 'till it's over, and we have no idea what other kinds of shenanigans our win-at-all-costs opponents are willing to pull out of their asses, either before the election is over, or after the votes are counted. These fools see this as a fight to the death. And no tactic is beneath them, so no lead is big enough, no amount of effort should be seen as adequate until after the vote is certified and this beast trundles back to its lair, licking its wounds, to grumble and grouse about black guys in office and black helicopters overhead, and such.