Mrs. Buchanan hit the button THREE times??

[Tuesday_Morning]

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002281.php

FL-13: GOPer's Wife Had Voting Troubles

Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) has taken every opportunity to blast Democrat Christine Jennings for challenging the results of November's election in the district, even accusing her of "destroying democracy." But now it turns out that his own wife came to him about her own voting problems on Election Day.

"Mrs. Sandy Buchanan indicated on November 7, 2006 that she had difficulty registering her vote for Buchanan. did not respond to this complaint as the period for voting had nearly ended," reads a recent court filing by Buchanan (you can read it here http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/20070104courtdocsbuchananwife/). A memo by Buchanan's spokeswoman also turned over to Jennings as part of a court filing gives more detail:

"...on Election Day... Mrs. Buchanan indicated that she had to hit the button more than once, I think she said three times -- to record her vote for Mr. Buchanan."http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/20070104courtdocsbuchananwife/?resultpage=6&

Jennings has cited the testimony of hundreds of Sarasota County voters who had difficulties voting just like Sandy Buchanan to buffer her contention that electronic machine glitches cost her the election.

[hashibabba]

1. Uh, Mrs. Buchanan? I think that was God telling you that you

were voting for the wrong man!

[Tuesday_Morning]

2. Vern Buchanan had this to say in an interview:

CQ: Do you think the undervotes in Sarasota County deserve further scrutiny?

Buchanan: I don’t. Absolutely not. I think she’s challenging democracy and the will of the people. ... People have the right to undervote. And you can come up with six different reasons why someone maybe undervoted or not. I know I’ve undervoted .

We had a county-wide race, and the percentage was higher than ours in the undervote. ...She wants to take away the peoples’ rights to not vote. If someone doesn’t want to vote in a race, it’s fine. But she is really challenging the whole system of democracy.

http://www.nytimes.com/cq/2006/12/08/cq_2020.html

Pretty audacious in light of his wife's struggle to vote, wouldn't you say?

[frylock]

3. she wants to take away the peoples’ rights to not vote..

WHAT THE FUCK!!! Can someone explain this to me?!

[dlaliberte]

5. People should not be denied the right to not vote

I think he was trying to say that people are allowed to not vote for any candidate in a race, and he is claiming that Jennings is essentially claiming the opposite. That is a lot of negatives to parse, but it comes down to Buchanan accepting any number of undervotes even if it runs contrary to polls and voting patterns in other races and other precincts, while Jennings does not accept that such a pattern is legitimate and therefore there must be something significantly wrong. She certainly doesn't deny the right to not vote.

[emlev]

4. Things that make you go hmmm...

I haven't heard of many voters ever having difficulty voting Republicant.

It kinda makes you wonder if she's telling the truth about who she was trying to vote for when she had that trouble.

[dlaliberte]

6. Are the precincts with the problems mostly democratic?

I don't know if I have heard whether the problem areas are those that have mostly democrats. If so, then merely randomly dropping (or not dropping) votes for any candidate regardless of party will on average drop more democratic votes than republican votes. It could be they believe that is a safer way to change the result of the election because, after all, as Buchanan says, people are allowed to not vote, while it is more obvious if votes are switched instead.