In a previous journal entry I wondered why nobody had yet called the election 281 to 257 in favor of GWB. For the record, I wasn’t saying they SHOULD have called it… I was wondering what I was missing as to why they HADN’T called it yet.

Well, it looks like my count at the time was as accurate as anybody else’s STILL is, so it’s a good thing I didn’t stay up for more results. Unless you live in a cave, or read my blog before reading important stuff, you know that the GOP has claimed victory, 286 to 252 (GW gained Nevada, which I thought he’d lose), and it’s going to take what looks like two weeks’ worth of counting (oh PLEASE no recounting, please oh please) before the Democrats allow that claim to be substantiated, or successfully refute it. Hey, who knows? There could be a huge bloc of Kerry votes in those uncounted 1%. If I were a voter in Iowa, New Mexico, or Ohio, I’d certainly want all those votes counted.

Now, as to where votes REALLY count: local measures! Here in Utah the Sales Tax bond I wanted to see defeated appears to be losing by a close margin. All three constitutional amendments passed: The Legislature can call itself into an impeachment session, Public universities can accept stock in private businesses spun off from their research, and (in the most controversial measure) marriage will only be between a man and a woman, with no other union allowed to have the same benefits as traditional marriages. I fully expect that last one to get challenged in Federal Court, where Utah attorneys will join attorneys from 10 other U.S. states wrangling the mess of State’s Rights vs Freedom of Religion. Whatever comes of that, I’m sure it won’t be boring.

The one place where I simply couldn’t find a candidate to vote for: Nuclear Waste Storage. SOMEBODY has to store this stuff. Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico are all great places for it. If we could agree to store it then maybe someday we could actually put nuclear plants in place to end our huge dependence on foreign oil. Oh, and lower the costs of energy, sparking a boom in a number of industries. But there was no candidate anywhere on the ballots who had come out publicly in favor of storing the stuff in Utah.

What this means is that I need to continue to be involved. I need to write the folks who were elected, and let them know that THIS Utah citizen is not spooked by irrational arguments about nukes.

*sigh*

I could have used a few hours more sleep. I’ll write my congressmen about THAT, too.

–Howard

As of this writing, it looks like it’ll be 281 Electoral votes for Bush, 257 for Kerry. Iowa could swing to Kerry still, but it looks like Bush has both Ohio and New Mexico sewn up at this point. I’m wondering why none of the major news agencies have called it yet. I dug into the county-by-county data on the remaining states, and it seems pretty clear that the election has been won.

Obviously I’m overlooking something.

Interesting side-note: if you want to predict something, find out what odds are being given in Vegas. Bush was favored 6:4 in Vegas, and that’s a city that is going to vote for Kerry. Not that it matters. Money talks for those oddsmakers, not politics. They’ve got a vested interest in calling things accurately.

CNN hasn’t called Ohio for Bush yet, but he’s leading by over 110,000 votes there with less than 3% of the precincts still out. Fox and MSNBC have both predicted Ohio for Bush.
Iowa also has 3% still out, and Bush has a slim lead there. Sure, there are enough uncounted votes to completely reverse the leads in both Iowa and Ohio, but statistically speaking that’s not usually what happens.

I really, really want to go to bed.

I also really, really want the election to be OVER tomorrow. I want to be able to say confidently that nobody stole this election (unless you argue that the two major parties stole it from everyone else by spending enormous amounts of money… in which case you’ve called the whole system into question, and now’s not the best time for that.)

I may have mentioned that I’m working on a series of single-panel PDA-related comics for a calendar. This is a purely commercial project, and I’ve been paid in advance for my contribution.

You can pre-order this calendar from Toffa, and you can see one of the gags as well. This is very rich marker-art I’m doing (far beyond anything I typically do for commissions at conventions), so please go take a look.

It’s right here.

Voters can probably have more immediate impact on local issues, and this is what got me out to the polls today. Utah is a strong Bush-leaning state, so my Presidential vote is much less likely to have results hinge on it than are my votes on a number of local issues.

(If I lived in Wisconsin or Florida I’d not be writing this)

Most significant: “Initiative 1” for a 1/20th cent additional Sales Tax to be spent on environmental preservation, education, and several other “feel good” things.

I voted against it. Taxation where the expenditures are NOT required to go through the same budgetary review as all the other expenditures is a Bad Idea. Sure, they put lots of touchy-feely stuff in the wording (“How can you vote against education?”) but I’d much rather have that touchy-feely stuff taken care of out of the REST of my local taxes — at the expense of less important things.

In the same spirit I voted against the Republican State House-of-Reps candidate in favor of the Libertarian. I’m all for small government. See, while neither Bush nor Kerry (nor Nader, nor anybody else on the Presidential ballot) has the power to significantly reduce the size of the Federal Government, local governments CAN be changed significantly. The cadre of hundreds of thousands of Federal bureaucrats nationwide are lifers. None of us voted THEM into office, and only a MAJOR shift in opinion in Congress, the White House, and the Judiciary can truly pare back on the rampant-and-arguably-completely-uncontrolled government spending we’ve seen since Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to stop the Great Depression with federal projects.

The point is, while I can’t see to it that the Fed gets pared back, I CAN vote in favor of like-minded folks at the local level.

In other news, I heard that the Redskins lost, and that the incumbent President wins or loses his election on the most recent Redskins game. Fascinating. The Red Sox also WON, though, so I’m not placing any advance bets.

–Howard