Knight Ridder Election 2004
krwashington
 Around the World
 Correspondents
 Special Reports
 Washington

 Back to your local site:
 



  Related links

InstaPundit.com: Smart, lively commentary from mostly right-leaning bloggers.

Talking Points Memo: Joshua Micah Marshall's take from left of center.

Blogs for Bush: The other side's take on all the action in the Democratic primary.





Welcome to Red State/Blue State, a feature presented by The Anniston Star of Anniston, Ala., and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

In the December 2001 edition of the Atlantic, David Brooks wrote an essay titled "One Nation, Slightly Divisible," in which he suggested that America is divided largely into two political cultures, one "red" and one "blue." His idea is based on those electoral maps in 2000 that colored majority-Republican states in red and majority-Democratic states in blue. Brooks' witty essay pictures the red-state voter as trending rural, a salt-of-the-earth type, concerned with individual liberty and family values, whereas the "blue" voter trends urban, more of a book-reader, a Beltway-savvy intellectual, the environmentally conscious soccer mom or dad.

Cliches? Maybe. But Brooks does have his finger on two very strong currents in the American votership. It's not that Pennsylvania is a "blue state" or Alabama is a "red state." It's that our two political cultures don't talk to each other much, or even know much about each other. To bridge that gap, we've brought together two "red" voters - John Franklin and Cynthia Sneed - and two "blue" voters, Terri Falbo and Timothy Horner. Each week, they'll ponder and debate the issues arising in the election campaign. The hope is that they'll model an intelligent discussion, a great big conference room where red and blue sit down together.

Monday, October 25, 2004

Joe Franklin, Red Stater 

Question Number Fourteen: Given the amount of concerns over inaccurate vote counts, the discrepancy of polling equipment, voting machine malfunctions and allegations of potential voter fraud, how confident are you of our system of counting votes for the Nov. 2 election?

After being educated on butterfly ballots, hanging chads, dimpled chads, and pregnant chads in the 2000 Florida presidential election, I suppose anything can happen. I've heard it said we could have nine or 10 Floridas this year. We will probably have al-Qaeda peacekeepers in the United States by the time the presidential election of 2004 is settled. Now, that's electoral dysfunction!

Remember the Ryder truck that carried the ballots from Palm Beach to Tallahassee? If the process had required carrying the ballots to Washington, we would have had four more years of Clinton. The teams of lawyers involved were the only ones who benefited from that fiasco. Allegation of voter fraud is already being made by lawyers on both sides in the 2004 election. No doubt we need reform in our election laws.

At my polling place, we vote on a paper ballot with a pen and enter it into an electronic counter. The ballots are kept in the counter and can be removed for a manual recount. I am comfortable with this system. I don't think I would be as comfortable with some of the paperless electronic voting machines I have heard about in other states.

Working around courthouses for almost 30 years, I have heard stories about dead people voting and the cemetery vote. But nowadays, with all the advancements in health care, we just vote the nursing homes, where many are incompetent and virtually brain-dead.

I think our state legislatures need to take a good look at absentees and early voting. Possibly we need to undertake more frequent reidentification of voters. It seems as if many prospective voters need instructions and education regarding the process. I find it troubling that the only instructions and assistance given are from partisans in the final days leading up to elections.

posted at # 9:38 AM
  Archives

   •  08/01/2004 - 08/08/2004
   •  08/08/2004 - 08/15/2004
   •  08/15/2004 - 08/22/2004
   •  08/22/2004 - 08/29/2004
   •  08/29/2004 - 09/05/2004
   •  09/05/2004 - 09/12/2004
   •  09/12/2004 - 09/19/2004
   •  09/19/2004 - 09/26/2004
   •  09/26/2004 - 10/03/2004
   •  10/03/2004 - 10/10/2004
   •  10/10/2004 - 10/17/2004
   •  10/24/2004 - 10/31/2004
   •  10/31/2004 - 11/07/2004
   •  11/07/2004 - 11/14/2004


Bloggers from
Blue State (Pa.)

Terri Falbo

Born and raised in Southwestern Pennsylvania, Terri Falbo is a union organizer who has lived in Philadelphia for almost 30 years. She graduated from Temple University and previously worked as a construction worker for 17 years.

Tim Horner

Tim Horner grew up in Iowa, but has lived out significant chunks of his adult life in Chicago, IL and Oxford, England. He is married and has four children (14, 12, 10 and 7). Having grown up as an Evangelical in the Midwest and still a practicing Christian, he is concerned with how religion and politics mix. Because of a combination of circumstance and apathy, he has never voted in a presidential election. He currently teaches Humanities at Villanova University.
Bloggers from
Red State (Ala.)

Joe Franklin

Alabama native Joe Franklin, 58, was born in Pike County and grew up on a farm in Crenshaw County. He graduated from Troy State University in 1967. After working for 28 years with the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles as a parole and probation officer, retired to Crenshaw County, which is just south of Montgomery, where he spends his days working on the farm.


Cynthia Sneed

Gadsden resident and local college professor Cynthia Smith Sneed has a doctorate in Accounting from the University of Alabama. Her fields of academic research are in state pension and employee benefit issues. She has been published in numerous academic accounting journals and has done research for the Alabama Policy Institute. She is a member of the American Accounting Association, Governmental Finance Officers Association as well as being active in the Republican Party.



About Realcities Network | About Knight Ridder | Terms of Use & Privacy Statement

Copyright 2004 Knight Ridder. All rights reserved. Any copying, redistribution or retransmission of any
of the contents of this service without the express written consent of Knight Ridder is expressly prohibited.