Secretary of State Todd Rokita today backed off his prediction of midterm voter turnout exceeding the 38 percent of 2002, but said he thinks the numbers were solid and that most people adjusted well to a new law requiring photo identification at the polls.
"We saw no problems at all," Rokita said of the law, which was in force for the first time in a general election Tuesday. "I said before the election that it would be one of Indiana's finest hours, and it was. We did everything humanly possible to prepare in light of all the changes."
one of indiana's finest hours? we made national news because our voting machines were so f'ed up. the machines in delaware county were so fubar that we won't get final results for two weeks.
now, i agree in one sense that yesterday was one of indiana's finest hours, because we voted to kick out three republican congressmen. in this supposed "red state", our delegation in the US house will now have more democrats than republicans. that's awesome. but i'm pretty sure that's not what rokita meant.
as for the quote about how they saw "no election problems at all"... the headline suggests he was referring to voter id problems, not problems in general. still, that's demonstrably false. we already know that voter id did cause problems in indiana, and rokita surely knows it, too. if he wants to play up how few complaints he received, fine, but when says there were none at all, he's just lying.
this will probably be my last election post for awhile. i'll likely post again when it's confirmed that democrats have taken the senate (which they almost assuredly have; the only race that's still contested is virginia, and allen would be a fool to demand a recount), but beyond that, people are tired after the harsh election season, so let's move on to other topics.¶
B0BBY V0MIT, at
12:53 AM, November 12, 2006
