Voters get Santorumed

October 26, 2007 11:30 AM

Pennsylvania polling places regarding September 08 elections to have everything but voters.
posted by duende (31 comments total)

"State officials have decided not to publicize their list of polling places in Pennsylvania, citing concerns that terrorists could disrupt elections in the commonwealth."

WE ARE ALL SOLDIERS IN WORLD WAR IV AND IF THAT MAKES BREAKING A FEW EGGS TO MAKE A LIBERTY OMELETTE THEN THE ONLY REAL TERRORIST IS THE ONE PROTECTING THE EGGS OR SITTING ON THEM IN CASE THEY HATCH

GOD BLESS AMERICA

SOB CRYING EAGLE SOB
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:34 AM on October 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

Information on individual polling places remains available on the state voter services Web site

those damned terrorists will never think to look on the internet!
posted by edgeways at 11:39 AM on October 26, 2007

I heard Iran is trying to develop search engine technology. We must act now before Iran gets the Google.
posted by Pollomacho at 11:42 AM on October 26, 2007 [3 favorites]

It's pretty clear to me what's going on; it says so right in the article. It's because of the threat from Spanish terrorists.

Remember about four years ago when there was a huge rush for the door at that Basque polling station and all those people were crushed to death.

Pennsylvania has obviously taken the lesson to heart because this go 'round they've obviously made sure that they...

*

don't put all their Basques in one exit.
posted by Mike D at 11:42 AM on October 26, 2007 [7 favorites]

har har
posted by Item at 11:44 AM on October 26, 2007

*headdesk* I'm moving to NYC before the '08 election anyway. Screw this ass-backwards state.

Philadelphia on one side, Pittsburgh on the other, Arkansas in the middle.
posted by SansPoint at 11:46 AM on October 26, 2007

Tags:
1984

I think this is referring to the 2008 elections, not the 1984 elections. Or did you mean Orwell's book? I don't remember this happening in 1984. What chapter is it in? I'll have to go back and look.
posted by dios at 11:47 AM on October 26, 2007

Philadelphia on one side, Pittsburgh on the other, Arkansas in the middle.

As a Pittsburgher, I must say, I'm quite offended by the grave (if implied) insult to Arkansas.
posted by Vetinari at 11:49 AM on October 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

"Hey Ahmed, how can we possibly top destroying the tallest buildings in New York? I've got it! Let's throw cherry bombs in front of the Punxsutawney Community Center!"
posted by Armitage Shanks at 11:53 AM on October 26, 2007

Does Pennsylvania have day-of registration? If they don't, it may not matter anyway. You can't just go to any old polling place and vote, you have to go to the one that's on your voter card.

So there might be situations where there's no real point in publishing the polling places, because a list wouldn't help anyone. You'd need to look at something specific to you, to find out where to vote.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:56 AM on October 26, 2007

The Department of State was influenced by the terrorist bombings that struck just days before Spain's national elections in 2004, spokeswoman Leslie Amoros said.

Ah yes, the terrorist attacks on Spanish trains were caused by the terrorist's knowledge of the polling locations. Or rather, the fact that the polling locations would be somewhere in Spain. Or rather, that there would be an election in Spain in a few days time.

My god, that's it! We must keep our election dates secret from the public, or the terrorists win! If we allow poor, innocent, non-security-cleared citizens to participate in elections, I fear for this country.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:57 AM on October 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

I call shenanigans.
posted by neuron at 11:58 AM on October 26, 2007

Dontcha know that voting could empower terrorism, you commies!
posted by CameraObscura at 11:59 AM on October 26, 2007

Why can't individual Pennsylvanians compile the complete list themselves and post it to an easily accessibly website?

While at the same time condemning and deposing the twatbombs who put this into effect. Of course.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:59 AM on October 26, 2007

Kadin2048 -

The point made was that this means that parties and candidates can't get people out to canvas the polling places. This seems like a free speech violation.
posted by MythMaker at 12:14 PM on October 26, 2007

I don't remember this happening in 1984.

You don't remember greedy government officials using perpetual war against a non-specific enemy as an absurd rationale for keeping secrets, damaging opposition and denying civil liberties?
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:15 PM on October 26, 2007 [3 favorites]

Maybe he means the Van Halen album 1984?
posted by CameraObscura at 12:21 PM on October 26, 2007

This is not, of course about terrorism, nor about somehow keeping people from finiding their polling places, it is about throwing roadblocks in the way of the Greens, Libertarians and other small parties (Pennsylvania hates small parties), and especially this bunch.
posted by tommyD at 12:22 PM on October 26, 2007

You don't remember greedy government officials using perpetual war against a non-specific enemy as an absurd rationale for keeping secrets, damaging opposition and denying civil liberties?
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 2:15 PM on October 26

No, I remember that part. I just don't remember the part where Orwell argued that a minor and moronic administrative decision with respect to publishing the location polling places on one website and not another was a denial of "civil liberties."
posted by dios at 12:30 PM on October 26, 2007

Where's the flag for "cannot be parsed?"
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 12:47 PM on October 26, 2007

They are right.

If they publicized polling places terrorists DO show up.

After all— they elected Bush TWICE!
posted by tkchrist at 12:49 PM on October 26, 2007

dios writes "No, I remember that part. I just don't remember the part where Orwell argued that a minor and moronic administrative decision with respect to publishing the location polling places on one website and not another was a denial of 'civil liberties.'"

Forget Orwell. It's a violation of the state's open records law.

However, making the very polling locations of our elections secret due to a nebulous terrorist threat is Orwellian. It doesn't matter so much that the government is incompetent enough not to realize the information is available elsewhere. And an open elections process is vital to establishing civil liberties.
posted by krinklyfig at 1:14 PM on October 26, 2007 [3 favorites]

The Department of State was influenced by the terrorist bombings that struck just days before Spain's national elections in 2004, spokeswoman Leslie Amoros said.

Um, the Madrid bombings took place on a commuter train, not at a polling place. Maybe they should hide all of the trains in Pennsylvania before the elections??
posted by JJ86 at 1:18 PM on October 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

I guess the governor realized the stupidity of this idea!
posted by JJ86 at 1:24 PM on October 26, 2007

I don't think its at all wrong to assume that this is done with the intent of making it harder for minorities and poor people to vote. I'm in Texas, but my voter's registration card doesn't tell me the address to vote at, simply which district I'm part of.

People who are determined can vote, by jumping through hoops to find their polling place, but it kinda cripples get out the vote efforts if you can't say "come to X and vote on election day", but instead have to say "I can't tell you where to vote for fear of terrorism, but if you call this number and give them info off your voter's registration card they'll tell you, please do it and vote."
posted by sotonohito at 1:27 PM on October 26, 2007

tkchrist: "
After all— they elected Bush TWICE!"

Hey, Pennsylvania didn't. Believe or it not we're a blue state here.

well commonwealth really
posted by octothorpe at 2:09 PM on October 26, 2007

Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo says the governor believes it wasn’t appropriate to keep the list secret because the information is already publicly available through county elections offices.

(emp mine)

I like how this indirectly implies that since it is already public knowledge we won't hide it, but gosh darn it we wish we could keep it from being public knowledge and squirrel it away somewhere SAFE!
posted by edgeways at 2:32 PM on October 26, 2007

"I don't remember this happening in 1984. What chapter is it in? I'll have to go back and look."

You see in the book the party used fear of the external enemy in order to maintain control over the thoughts of it's people hence the terms “Eurasian” (or "Eastasian" or both as the case may be whomever they had been currently been at war with forever), traitor, “thoughtcriminal” etc.
Similarly we have the eternal, yet uncapturable enemy - specifically - Emmanuel Goldstein in the book, Osama bin Laden to this administration and terrorists (or spies, traitors, thoughtcriminals) in general.

The media whips up hatred against Goldstein-like figures and those who's thoughts do not conform.
Most of this is still directed against Hitler who, I believe, is still dead. There have been thousands of films made, many hate sessions against the Nazis.
The irony is that, like 1984, people take the symbol for the actual warnings. Many people mistake hating the Nazis as a virtue in and of itself, rather than recognizing the techniques the Nazis used when they appear within their own governments.

This fetish for the surface appearance occludes the substance of doing real work on behalf of liberty, which, ultimately, is the only real defense against fascism (hatred in nearly any form feeds it).
The media always encourages this kind of thinking. In part to better market crap to you, and in part by proxy through the powers that be.
Some halfwits in the media however have encouraged this thinking in such a facile manner as examining the book 1984 in the year 1984 and encouraging us to congratulate ourselves that such a future did not come to pass - wholly misunderstanding (?) the rather arbitrary nature of the title for the far more valuable and timeless allegorical warnings against the encroachment on the individual by power.
One of the techniques used is, as I've hopefully belabored, keeping information away from people.

Orwell wrote:
"indifference to objective truth is encouraged by the sealing off of one part of the world from another, which makes it harder and harder to discover what is actually happening. There can often be doubt about the most enormous events... .The calamities that are constantly being reported -- battles, massacres, famines, revolutions -- tend to inspire in the average person a feeling of unreality. One has no way of verifying the facts, one is not even fully certain that they have happened, and one is always presented with totally different interpretations from different sources. Probably the truth is undiscoverable but the facts will be so dishonestly set forth in that the ordinary reader can be forgiven either for swallowing lies or for failing to form an opinion"

This is the larger picture this one event contributes to, if the core of its thinking is allowed to continue.
That is - as has been stated in more simple terms - hiding the mechanism of voting from the public is despotic - even if, and given the terms I've set above - especially if there are "fears" of "terrorists."

Now, I understand the tag references this entire sphere of thought and touches upon a great deal of Orwell's thinking and 1984 in particular.
But perhaps I am, as I've long suspected, the smartest motherfucker in the world.
Given other folks seem to get the gist tho, I doubt I'm that isolated.
posted by Smedleyman at 3:08 PM on October 26, 2007 [4 favorites]

The stupid, it runs deep in these officials.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:46 PM on October 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

You're all assuming that there's some need for voters to find the polling places.

The victors have already been selected, and the victors do not include the people of Pennsylvania.
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 3:42 PM on October 28, 2007

I think this is referring to the 2008 elections, not the 1984 elections. Or did you mean Orwell's book? I don't remember this happening in 1984. What chapter is it in? I'll have to go back and look.

Flagged as "other" because "amazingly dumb" was not an option.
posted by oaf at 8:25 AM on October 29, 2007