2014 Midterms Thread

Well, there's both of 'em. And the ones with the D or the R get the name recognition and media popularity.

Governor's Race in Florida is almost a tie

That's what happens when you have a race where both candidates are running mostly negative ads.

Governor's race in Texas isn't even close. Huffington Post averaged the various polls and Abbott(R) is whipping Davis(D) 51.2%-38%. Not much reason to follow this one at the moment.

Governor's race in Georgia is close. Huffington Post average for state polls has it Deal(R) 45.9 and Carter(D) 43.1.

For the congressional races Real Clear Politics has the RCP average in favor of the GOP at +4.

How did I manage to not know Jimmy Carter's grandson was running for something?

Yeah, I said months ago that Wheels would trounce Davis.

If one of the Castro brothers runs in four years, they might beat Abbott or at least make it a closer race.

In florida most polls are showing a tie between Charlie Crist and Rick Scott. It's going to be a long election night.

Annoyingly, because of the timing of my move, I wasn't able to get my voter registration done before the cutoff
Oh well, I'm sure pot will become legal here in Oregon without my help. Still annoying though.

What? When was the cut-off? I don't think we've hit it her just yet.

We have vote by mail here in Oregon.

So do we, and it's bullshit. I'm miss going to a polling place, and not having to pay postage on my ballot.

You spend many times over in time and gas voting in person what you spend on postage for a mail-in ballot. Unless the polling place is right next door and there are no lines, mail-in is a much cheaper way to vote, and even in that case it's a close call.

I see the act as something meaningful, not subject to monetary value.

Best thing is, you can drop your mail-in ballot at any number of locations from which the election officials will collect.

It would be better if mail-in ballots resulted in a confirmation of receipt letter so that postal employees couldn't disappear them on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis, or even a house by house basis.

You're describing something that hasn't happened in Oregon or Washington.

While I'm not going to go down the tinfoil-hat road of speculating about postal employees "disappearing" certain people's ballots, a confirmation would be nice. It wouldn't have to be a letter -- an automated phone line or website where you could put in a unique code and get confirmation would be enough.

I'm not sure exactly what information is made available, but there is an option to "track your ballot" available online for Oregon mail-in voting.

An interesting map showing absentee and early voting by state

Interesting, ²/₃ of states with mail in only voting have legalized pot. What's wrong with Oregon?

Also, the chart is wrong, as we have an early voting option in Massachusetts, so we should be blue, not gray.

Check your county's supervisor of elections website. You can see the "ballot sent" and "ballot received by the office" here in Florida anyway.

There is no general early voting option in Massachusetts. What there is is in-person absentee voting that requires an excuse for being unable to vote on election day. Perhaps the excuse requirement isn't rigorously enforced, but it's still there either way and it's no different than any other absentee ballot excuse requirement.

Union instead of Confederate, eh?

Mail-in ballots as in using the US post office system?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/ohio-postal-worker-caught-throwing-mail-article-1.1896885