Chalk one up for the sceptics

More voting machine mysteries Vote Disparity Still a Mystery In Fla. Election For Congress

Naked man on crack rescued from alligator

Is this one of those "is it real?" stories Naked man on crack rescued from alligator

Who says you can't stop WalMart?

Hurray for San Diego! San Diego to ban Wal-Mart Supercenters

Lies that ring true

Want to get away and have nobody know what you are really up to - try these guys, they have it down pat! Lies that ring true

Be careful what you put on your protest signs - the police are watching!

Try this article for size, what's next PC Plod watching to see if you are properly dressed? Police want power to crack down on offensive demo chants and slogans

One for the older folks!

Now what, this story comes after the guntoting 92 year old was gunned down in the USA after shooting three police. What is going on here - everybody on youth pills? Suicide-bomber granny attacks Israeli troops

An opinion about the 2006 vote and electronic voting

OpEdNews Exclusive
Clear Evidence 2006 Congressional Elections Hacked

Now why didn't they ask Him in the first place?

Now the Parliament has egg on its face, perhaps they should have asked the old guy if he wanted to participate!
First World War vet declines state funeral

Cracked it! Veerrry Scarrry stuff!

Cracked it! Here is a long story about a couple of techies who hacked the code for biometric passports and the Governments of the world want to make us all carry these things.

Some musing about figures

The mayor's race attracted 6995 voters, the DM's race 6689 and the councillor's race produced an average of 5905 per available place. That means a number of people, 1090, did not vote for all of the Council candidates. Just imagine in a race that saw the places 5 - 9 only 500 votes apart where those missing votes were thrown back in the mix. The moral of this speculation is that all votes should be used but not for the people that you do not want to win.

One day after - Thank You

What is left to say? The winners will say they won and the losers will be picking over the chicken's entrails for hints. Manfred will be wondering where he lost the 250 people he needed to win and the "three musketeers - the returning incumbents" won't care much: they won! Meanwhile Miriam and Stan better enjoy their five minutes of fame for topping the polls, it is all hard slogging from here just to make oneself heard. My advice would be to "pick your fights"

In another vein, thanks go to COGECO for having the strength to ask me to appear on the election show. I enjoyed it and managed to ask a couple of questions of the candidates that I am sure they didn't expect. I am not sure if I will be asked back, but thanks anyway.

The writing on this site will of a sporadic nature from now on, due to all of us having other lives. As the saying goes it's been great and I thank you for the feedback.

Ben

Only in Cobourg - more details later

Only in Cobourg can a smug electorate claim to have created change by voting two new faces the top two vote getters. Only in Cobourg can the last placed councillor claim a resounding electoral success when it is pointed out to him the the opposition only lost by 500 votes in the top two races and the incumbent councillors were relegated to the bottom of the pecking order. Only in Cobourg can we claim change when the nothing changes - the two new faces may have topped the polls but they are powerless.

The other shoe will drop when it becomes apparent just how entrenched the cronyism is when the council responsibilities are doled out. My prediction - the newcomers will get low level assignments.

As you can see by the tone of these comments I am not impressed. Nor dare I say are 45% of the voters. The perspective is simple Mayor Delanty only won by 500 votes over his combined opposition. To claim a resounding victory when he is only supported by a slim margin is disingenuous. For this Council to assume that it is business as usual is dangerously arrogant. They should be chastened but listening to the deaf person speak - Mr MacCaughey - they haven't learnt that just under half of the folks voted against this team.

More to come

Zero Vote Tally Off - by 1

This is the only story I could find about the voting machines and their ability to mess up here

Howard Dean is going to be a busy boy

Howard Dean was reported in todays papers to headed to the Liberal convention to give them tips on how to beat the other side, now this

More thoughts on my election strategy

Having been challenged by an e-mailer who thought that my picks were more hypothetical than strategic let's look at the choices of strategy. One would be to use all the votes allowed and make choices based on rationale, the other would be to "Plump" - only vote for your essential choices.

"Plumping" works on the theory that as you only vote for a fewer number of candidates their chances become stronger because you are denying the others your vote. As an aside I have heard that some people will not be voting for the position of Deputy Mayor as not only do they not want Mr Brocanier to win they don't think much of Mr Schumann. The idea that by only voting for one person in a five person race is that the vote cast is five times stronger because of the missing four votes.

However in my case where I have voted for five people and none for the people who I wish to see deposed, what's the difference. In fact I have made five peoples votes stronger because I have denied the others my vote.

Plumping will only work when you do not have enough of your selections to fill out the allowed ballot.

A response to the previous

Some response to the election edition

Hi, Ben:Well,
I'm very disappointed.I wish you had used your influence to help elect an actual council, rather than promote a hypothetical one. In particular, you are suggesting that people fritter away their precious five councillor votes by selecting some candidates who do not have a real chance to get in. This is one municipal election in a generation where (by electing three new councillors rather than just two) we have a chance to break the hold of the old guard in Cobourg. I expected that you, with your excellent historical grasp of the situation, would have been more, er, strategic.
Certainly merit should normally guide us. I know and like Rob, and I have met and was impressed by Melissa, and at first I thought Howie might be the right person to have the swing vote on council. But none of them has much of a chance this time, and there's a grave danger that MacDonald will slip back in because of lack of voter focus.
You could have helped with this. A few votes put in the right place could make all the difference. For four years.

And the response:

In my case I stand by the picks, I just cannot abide any more of what we have had for the past six years. Even three of the old guard would have been too much - MacCaughey in planning for 4 more years to give us more of the same - what the developers want in the name of pragmatism and cooperative development, MacDonald too bloody idle to speak up except to say "give me what Mr Peacock wants" and Spooner to say whatever he thinks you want to hear and then he can tell his Dutch Oven buddies what he told us,
No. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to be on Council and all of the people who stood can think for themselves and produce a reasonable consensus guided by the facts from the Staff to be able.
Three new councillors will not break the old guard there will still be a majority of them and none of the three will have the stomach not to be coopted in the next four years in the face of always being on the wrong side or being accused of lack of knowledge.
If the only criteria for a vote is to go by who you or anybody else thinks "will get in" then I suggest that you don't need an independent voter just a sheep with its finger in the wind trying to guess what others will pick.
Call me naive but if we don't start doing what we want then we will be stuck with what we have now.

BTW the sane one in the house (the love of my life) is also ragging me for this approach!

My choices for the vote!

In making these choices I made two assumptions. One: none of the incumbents deserved to be re-elected, their offenses against the Official plan were of the hanging variety and their inability to listen to the electorate are the main reasons for me. Councillor Brocanier boasts about having listened to 45 delegations in the last year, well Gil listening and Listening are two different things. Sitting in one's chair like Buddha and then having the Mayor say, "Thank you for coming" is not meaningful listening.

You don't have to be a brain surgeon to be on Council, just an independent mind and the guts to state your opinion

So here they are:

• Mayor: Lloyd Williams, despite the bizarre campaign tactic of admitting that he will not win he succeeded in getting the issues out. He gets my vote because he has pledged to reform the "coordinator system", I hope he destroys it!
  
  
• Deputy Mayor: Manfred Schumann, despite a rather flat public performance he has put forward a platform of thought and substance. His opponent has only said that he plans to use a "line by line" budget review as his tax cutting tool. Sorry Gil but you used that last year and the year before that and the year before that and taxes never went down but spending spiraled upward.
  
  
• Councillor: Stan Frost, he has the biggest vested interest in reducing taxes - he pays the most, so get to it Stan cut taxes!
  
  
• Councillor: Howie McCourt, he is the most straightforward of the list, I like him, I have worked with him and I trust him. Besides he understands the Official Plan.
  
  
• Councillor: Miriam Mutton, Miriam knows the issues, she understands the damage that the developers have wreaked on this Town, I like her and trust her.
  
  
• Councillor Rob Harper, Rob is down to earth, knows what it is to be like to live on less than a Teachers' Pension all the time and still keeps his sense of humour. Besides the ONLY new idea that came from any of the candidates came from him, he's original and I like that.
  

• Councillor: Melissa Marshall, Melissa is the youngest and at 34 brings a perspective that might offend some of the "dead white male thinking" that prevails around the Council Chamber

Now in making this slate I realise that most of it will never come to pass (shades of Lloyd Williams - ed) but one can only hope and perhaps the list and the reasons behind each choice may give others the thought too.

A c omment about the red, white and blue!

Ben:

Thank you for your reference to this site (mclellan4trustee.com). It was exciting visually, but I don't think I could ever bring myself to vote for a person with a red, white and blue website with quite so many stars and stripes !

Amen

School Board trustee candidate blows his own horn

Read this and see a blinking ad that proclaims the Northumberland News has endorsed him. VOTE FOR ALLAN MCLELLAN FOR SCHOOL BOARD TRUSTEE Be wary Allan in 1991 the Northumberland News endorsed me for Mayor and look where that went!!

Kinky Friedman Falls Short In Bid For Governor

I was looking forward to an original thinker finally going somewhere - not anymore! Kinky Friedman Falls Short In Bid For Governor

Good news for the Progressives

Read this it's a summary of the election yesterday. My Way News - Resurgent Democrats Win Control of House

It's not just me!

Read this and you will find just who else is bothered by the use of electronics this year A New Breed of Watchdog For Election Day - WSJ.com.

"Democracy is not the voting, it is the counting!"

Angry voters in this story

Two stories about angry voters: one guy didn't want to vote the full slate and the other obviously did not like touchscreen voting machines here

And it's only just starting!

Here is the first of many reports about the voting machines.

And one in more depth

First we kill all the lawyers

What would the world do without lawyers especially during elections. Lots of them here

Oooops

This is an email from a friend in Cobourg North, he asks "Now that I'm living here in the Township of Hamilton I'm on a steep learning curve to familiarize myself with the candidates.

Ben, I know you are focused on the nail-biting election in Cobourg, but I need a ruling on Fred's flyer that arrived in my mailbox today. What is the statute of limitations on asking for re-election? Is Mr. Holloway allowed to ask for re-election as Mayor? I would appreciate your insight on this."

It appears that Fred is an advocate of efficient recycling, either that or he had a couple of boxes stored in his basement for the next time.

The big fix

Does anybody think that the death sentence given to Saddam Hussein has anything to do with the US election tomorrow, what a coincidence of timing.

Have you voted yet?

One member of the household voted online yesterday. The only flaw in the system is that when one goes back into the voting after having voted, to test the PIN number security, a page appears saying "Try Again". It should say "Sorry your PIN has been used, you have voted already" Also would it have been too much to design the software to produce a receipt page, which would show your selections on a printable page. These printed pages would be an admirable recount ballot.

How many disreputable candidates (do we have any) are asking householders for their unused PIN number envelopes? Just a thought, but a percentage of the increased vote could be due to zealous campaign workers using the disaffected voters PINs.

One week to go

One week to go and the unofficial poll shows the current mayor on his way to another term. As one correspondent said this week Campion is finishing strongly. Pity she hadn't started to work in January like a serious candidate.

What we get for our money!

Look carefully in the latest YMCA blurb, that we all received on the weekend. Careful observers will notice on the right side of the double page, second one down, the Town's ad. Same size as all the others, it leads me to believe that the Town may even had to pay for it. Nowhere in this screed do we see any acknowledgment of the thousands and thousands of dollars the Town pays to maintain this magnificent edifice. Pity!

I guess the election is over for some!!!

The opinion is in - Northumberland News has made its picks! Proposing that the status quo be maintained in the strongest possible way what does that say for the News's progressivism? Endorsing all of the incumbents and then playing it safe by putting the strongest woman candidate on and saying that Stan Frost should be on because he only lost by a few votes last time does not do it for me.

I strongly disagree; that this slate is anything but a change, but then if you don't want change go for it.

The loneliness of the long distance candidate

Just came back from a visit downtown (Thursday 8pm) and noticed two candidates events - dropins. Gerry Drage had one person at his and Lloyd Williams had nobody in his surgery. Perhaps the election is over, we certainly don't see anything to the contrary.

Ten days to go!

Seen any candidates yet? Nothing doing in the local scene, but I'm hopeful something will emerge to make us all sit up (surely you jest - ed).

I had a conversation with a Port Hope candidate last night and this person raises the spectre of the feminazis from Ward 2 taking over the Town. Now I don't go that far but with the plethora of females supporting Linda Thompson I can see how such a theory could develop. Coupled with the allegation (from the candidate) that in matters of Planning and Finance the Ward 2 councillors get two votes to the Ward 1 councillors only getting one the idea of Ward 2 dictating to Ward 1 is a theoretical possibility.