Cindi has a column for tomorrow about early voting, in which she more or less expresses support for the idea, and mentions me as the elitist, paternalistic mossback who doesn’t like the idea.
You just can’t get good help these days.
Anyway, I’ll write more about that tomorrow, after she’s had her say. Suffice it to say that my reasons for opposing it (aside from the fact that I am just at heart a traditionalist, which doesn’t change anyone’s mind about me being a mossback) are related to why I oppose the way people like Mark Sanford look at public schools. That will bear explaining, and I will explain it — later. Basically, I look at this as a communitarian, while Cindi is looking at it as a small-d democrat. Or at least, as somewhat more of a small-d democrat than what I am.
But speaking of outmoded ways of doing things, a few minutes ago I got the regular notice that the state election commission has certified the election results:
SEC CERTIFIES 2008 GENERAL ELECTION RESULTS
COLUMBIA, S.C. – (November 12, 2008) – The State Election Commission met at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, November 12, 2008, as the State Board of Canvassers to certify the results of the November 4, 2008 General Election. Official results can be found at www.SCVotes.org. No recounts were necessary in any federal, state, or multi-county contests.
The certification, protest, and appeal schedule is attached.
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Every election year, I am struck by how LONG that takes.
Mind you, I’m not being critical. Far as I know, the folks at the election commission have really been busting their humps getting the results certified. And I DO want them to get it right, even if it takes more time.
But it still always strikes me as very horse-and-buggy to take so long — especially with electronic voting. Part of it is that in my business, it’s about getting it right away (AND getting it right, of course). Even long before we used computers for this stuff, we moved Heaven and Earth to get complete election results to the reader the very next morning, moving back deadlines, holding the presses to the limit then holding them some more, to get the job done. And if there were results we could NOT get you in that news cycle (often due to the fact that the poll workers didn’t have our same sense of urgency), you got them 24 hours later.
So it still strikes me as … anachronistic to get the certification a week later. Not that I’m complaining; it’s just something I always think about.
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Brad, isn’t it the Southern way to follow tradition for the sake of the tradition, regardless of pragmatic considerations?
The world is changing despite the best efforts of some fully immersed in nostalgia. In education, some teachers resist, even today, the use of calculators. In college, office hours are becoming archaic. Communication is now often conducted through chat rooms, discussion boards, and of course email. The big three US auto makers, run by old school management, missed the memo about the impending green revolution. (Friedman made a great point regarding this; look at what cars you see college kids driving – no Pontiacs or Buicks).
You chide the anachronistic approach regarding voting but supported a presidential candidate who thinks Google is something you wear while swimming. (or course he did invent the Blackberry according to his chief financial advisor)
Hey guys!
You know what? We have COMPUTERS now!! We could use them to vote the same way we bank and pay bills securely online. The TECHNOLOGY now exists! Wow!
Just think!! More people would vote if they could interface with their government online. We might even get back to 19th-century voter turn-outs of 95% or better!
Of course, that would be the death of the GOP. Can’t let that happen, of course.
And if the GOP were permanently excluded from power, how would the Third Temple get built!!
“We cannot expect the Americans to jump from capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving Americans small doses of socialism until they suddenly awake to find they have Communism.”
– Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev
Death of the Repugnant Party would be OK so long as the Dumbocrat Party died as well. They are the ones who keep us in this 18th century method of voting.
In the Sunday paper there was a “Letter to the Editor” about using home computers to produce a ballot. And, to have a 30 day “voting period”. Monday, in “Letters”, a writer said we should be able to “vote online”. Another said “absentee ballots” caused no harm (he’s right), and another said campaigns should be shortened to six months. Above, Rich and Randy E suggest we might want to consider using current day technology to vote. Ms. Scoppe also seems to think we should change. Are we as a State and a People to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century as Ol’ Strom was into the 20th?
WE THE PEOPLE should be the ones doing the dragging, kicking and screaming, and our rotten, incumbent politicians should be the “dragees”. Same ol’, same ol’, the way I see it. All these great ideas that folks come up with, and never a change. CHANGE??
Google
“vote the Bastards out Spencer Gantt”
and see what you think.
Ahh the Brad Warthen Governor Sanford slam has returned.
So Bradley, what do you have to say now that Sanford has been elected chief GOP governor by his peers?
Mark Sanford has been dead on with his assessment of the recent election.
Governor Sanford was right when he vetoed the rampant spending of the legislature the last 4 years, squandering a $3 BILLION surplus. Now, after increasing government spending 20% faster than taxpayer incomes, the revenues are falling at a rate of 30% a year.
State and local governments have to immediately cut 33 to 35% out of their spending plans, but just like Brad Warthen, they refuse to face reality.
If candidate is good election result is also good other wise it will be bad results,,,,,?
Christena
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