Los Angeles County--- Support Measure R. This will increase the sales tax 1/2 cent to pay for numerous transit projects, including extending the subway to the sea and connecting the green line (light rail) to LA International Airport (LAX). http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-measurer9-2008oct09,0,2413553.story

Santa Clara County-- Yes on Measure B (http://barttosiliconvalley.com/). This will bring BART to Santa Clara Co./San Jose. This extension is expected to have an average daily ridership of nearly 100,000 passengers.

David, I also agree that voting yes on Prop 1A is absolutely important.

by Ben on Nov 4, 2008 9:06 am • link • report

Maryland had two ballot initiatives, in addition to local initiatives:

Slots - Bring'em on. The opponents' argument that support groups cost the overall economy more than the additional 7% tax we'd levy on their profits would gain our budget rings hollow. The opportunity cost of a large local leisure activity tends to keep money in our state's pockets, and a gambling support group is a low-investment operation - any that requires a serious budget expenditure that it can't get from its members or donors doesn't deserve it. My general thinking is 'down with consensual crimes of all types...' this is a start.

Early Voting - An adjustment needed to be made to our state Constitution to allow this, shame it's only possible after this election. Like everybody else, the weak arguments involving Election Day being a civic ceremony don't strike me as important. At a minimum, it should be an Election Week, with results kept under lock/key until the day after. We might want to think about scheduling it closer to the actual swearing in, as well - one no longer requires a warm dry day after the harvest but before harsh weather destroys the dirt roads to take a 4-day trip by covered wagon into town after attending Sunday morning church services. Other concerns predominate. With labor standards/economic conditions so bad that the working class often actually doubles up on 40-hour weeks without breaking the median income, I think it's ridiculous to have long lines for voting in this day & age.

At 7:30 this morning the line was 1h15m in MoCo, MD.

by Squalish on Nov 4, 2008 9:33 am • link • report

I'm predicting extraordinarily long lines by the end of the day in scattered locations, particularly those with the aggravating factors of high African-American population and no early voting. Most will be at least a little bit prepared, but the areas that didn't allocate money for a new batch of polling machines to match a high-turnout freak election are going to get swamped. Some of the early states (which admittedly operated with many fewer polling stations) achieved 10 hour lines a few days ago - increased attrition plus the number who managed to vote never actually matched the inflow of voters to the line, so they added people until the polls closed.

by Squalish on Nov 4, 2008 9:47 am • link • report

I voted this morning, in Precinct 68 in DC, in Brookland. When I arrived, at perhaps 8:15am, the line was out the door and down the sidewalk past the "No Electioneering Past This Point" signs. But the line moved quickly.

It's a fairly efficient process--the bottleneck is the initial sign-in. You stand in a line corresponding to your last name; the alphabet is broken into four segments, and they process one at a time from each segment.

By the time I left, there was still a line but it only stretched to the door, not out. But it definitely seemed more crowded than two or four years ago. The biggest difference between now and two years ago--when there were hotly contested mayoral, council chair, and Ward 5 council races--was the lack of electioneering. One guy was handing out flyers to encourage voters to write in Carol Schwartz, another was handing out flyers for Michael Brown, but it was nothing like the circus of two years ago.

by thm on Nov 4, 2008 10:03 am • link • report

Sorry, David, but as a Minnesotan, I just could not bring myself to vote for Franken.

by Froggie on Nov 4, 2008 10:03 am • link • report

i couldn't tell you what precient I was in, but I voted at the church on 13th and R. The line was about 200 people when the poll opened, but it moved quickly. I was out the door 30 minutes after I got in line. The women next to be said she had been coming to this poll location for 30 years and never had seen any type of line

by nathaniel on Nov 4, 2008 10:25 am • link • report

I waited for two hours to vote this morning at my precinct in Wheaton. I've never seen anything like this. I know my sample size isn't that big at my age, but still...

It's nice to see such an interest in voting this time around. No one left the line while I was there, despite the waiting time. I did vote in favor of early voting, especially based on my wait time in line.

by Cavan on Nov 4, 2008 11:16 am • link • report

I waited two hours in DC, on Capitol Hill.

by Alex B. on Nov 4, 2008 11:20 am • link • report

I voted at the Baptist Church at 13th and Monroe at about 815 this morning. Short line, nothing much to speak of, was in and out in less than 15 minutes.

by Nate on Nov 4, 2008 11:21 am • link • report

To answer your question about Maryland, the most interesting race is in the First Congressional District. Moderate Republican Wayne T. Gilchrest lost the primary to State Senator Andy Harris. Gilchrest has since endorsed the Democratic nominee, Queen Anne's County State's Attourney Frank Kratovil, a moderate. The first is comprised of the entire Eastern Shore, the southern half of Harford County, a small piece of southeastern Baltimore County, and a piece of northeastern Anne Arundel County.

The polls currently place the candidates in a statistical tie. For issues relating to this blog, the Post said in its endorsement, "Both candidates stress the importance of protecting the Chesapeake Bay from pollutants, but conservation groups rate Mr. Harris's environmental record one of the worst in the Maryland Senate. Mr. Harris was one of only five senators to vote against a 2007 bill that banned the sale of dishwashing detergent containing phosphorus, a top pollutant of the bay. He also has voted against tougher vehicle emissions standards and legislation to protect the Chesapeake shoreline from development."

by Cavan on Nov 4, 2008 11:31 am • link • report

Apparently, the funding for the high speed rail in California is ridiculous. That's one of the reasons that is a good deal of opposition for it.

by Vik on Nov 4, 2008 11:43 am • link • report

froggie: as a minnesotan, how could you vote for coleman?

by IMGoph on Nov 4, 2008 12:16 pm • link • report

California can't afford Prop 1a. Hell they are issuing bonds just to keep the lights on.

Some criticism beside the price tag is:

BY: Former Sen. James R. Mills was served on the Amtrak Board of Directors and the High Speed Rail Authority board. He is secretary of the California Rail Foundation, public benefit corporation that promotes increasing California's mobility by rail. Richard F. Tolmach is the president of CRF.

"We all believe in attractive alternatives to driving, especially sleek electric trains designed in Europe, but the promises in Proposition 1A on the Nov. 4 ballot are simply too good to be true. Voters are being asked to approve nearly $10 billion in bonds (costing taxpayers about $20 billion when debt service is included) for a San Francisco to Anaheim project. The total cost is probably five to 10 times that amount, and the financial structure of the project remains a mystery even to Sacramento insiders.

The California Rail Foundation has been a vocal advocate for high-speed rail, but this project frankly doesn't pass the smell test. In this year of global market meltdowns, voters should be cautious about a financially-leveraged proposal like Prop. 1A. The numbers don't add up and the High-speed Rail Authority refuses to explain how the system it proposes can be financed.

The California Legislature, wanting answers to its financial questions, demanded that the rail authority present a business plan by Sept. 1, and wrote that mandate into the initiative. At its Oct. 1 meeting, rail authority staff complained about legislative pressure and indicated it would not comply. Lehman Bros., the rail authority's financial adviser, is apparently out of business and unavailable to write the business plan. How can taxpayers trust the rail authority with $20 billion, given this record?

To promote the project, the rail authority made wild claims about ridership, energy and pollution benefits. It based its claims on a prediction that 117 million passengers will use this service annually, dwarfing the 29 million using Amtrak nationwide today. Amtrak's high-speed train, Acela, carries only 3 million annually.

No European high-speed train comes close to the rail authority's claimed performance. France's best route, the TGV-Southeast had 17.5 million passengers in its 10th year of operation, and 12 million of those passengers used trains before high-speed service started. How could California trains instantly outperform European trains that link larger populations and benefit from superb transit connections?

The rail authority claims that the project will have no operating deficit, but the legislative analyst says the operating cost would be about $1 billion annually, and suggests a portion of this cost would have to be subsidized. Where would the money for this subsidy come from? The danger is that it will come from draining state public transit funds that support existing bus and train networks.

Millions of Californians, ourselves included, sincerely want high-speed rail. The problem is that a vote for Prop. 1A only guarantees billions of dollars will be spent. High-speed trains may never run, as the revenue bond is only a small fraction of the total amount required. The rail authority's idea is apparently to start a very big hole in the ground, then come back and ask for $30 billion to $70 billion more from taxpayers. Federal funding, following the Wall Street bailout, is as unlikely as private investment.

Rather than digging California deeper into high-interest bond debt, we favor improving rail using the federal railroad infrastructure loan fund. It has $34 billion available, but does require project advocates to demonstrate that they can repay the loans from revenues. Prop. 1A has no such guarantees.

Energy costs are causing us all to think more locally, and that is good. Few Californians have trouble getting from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Many have trouble getting from home to work. First priority for public spending should be to improve existing rail routes and highways, and help ease the chronic congestion that plagues commuters each day.

Let's not get taken for a high-speed ride by the California High-Speed Rail Authority and its slick promoters. In today's tough economic times, the last thing we need is more debt for yet another badly conceived project. Join many rail supporters and vote no on Prop. 1A."

by RJ on Nov 4, 2008 12:31 pm • link • report

Watch out for dirty tricks and fraud today as one party tries to steal this election. Someone hacked into the George Mason University email last night and sent this from the Provost's email address. It is absolutely sickening what they'll try to do.

---------------------------------------------------

To the Mason Community:

Please note that election day has been moved to November 5th. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Peter N. Stearns

Provost

by Ben on Nov 4, 2008 12:44 pm • link • report

Amen to Patrick Mara. This is an important race.

Early election results: Obama won overwhelmingly... in my son's pre-K class. My son worked the GOTV, even though he couldn't talk his carpool-mate out of voting for McCain.

by Ward 1 Guy on Nov 4, 2008 3:12 pm • link • report

David,

I just wanted to let you know that, largely because of your blog, I made my first ever political contribution last week, to Kay Hagan for Senate. I'll be biting my nails when those votes come in, too.

by tom veil on Nov 4, 2008 3:15 pm • link • report

Thanks, Tom!

by David Alpert on Nov 4, 2008 3:16 pm • link • report

Regarding electoral vote totals, What's everybody predicting?

by Squalish on Nov 4, 2008 5:54 pm • link • report

No to slots in Maryland. This is just a way for our elected officials to get out of making any kind of tough decisions. Slots were last outlawed in Maryland when elected officials were found to be enmeshed in slots-related corruption. Does anyone think elected officials have become less corruptible in the meantime? I would support legalizing gambling and opening it up to everyone in the free market, but this setup is designed to engender kickbacks, slush funds, etc.

In addition, and perhaps more importantly, there's a less quantifiable but still real cost associated with being a state that enables problem gamblers as a way out of its fiscal woes. I accept that we are about to incur it, because most people seem to disagree with me on this issue. But I am not going to be a party to doing so.

by Lindemann on Nov 4, 2008 6:24 pm • link • report

Regarding Obama's probable inauguration, I predict that Metro will have a #1 record-setting ridership day that will not be beaten for a decade or more (Clinton's 1st inaugural wasn't beaten until the Reagan Funeral 11 years later).

by Michael P on Nov 4, 2008 7:27 pm • link • report

Geoff: simple...I didn't vote for Coleman either. Sure, the Independent candidate is never going to win (well, almost never), but he was more in line with my views than either a party flip-flopper (Coleman was a Democrat before he boarded Bush's ship) or a certified crazy (which Franken qualifies as, based both on SNL and his books).

by Froggie on Nov 5, 2008 7:55 am • link • report

At a community meeting the other night, Councilmember Evans reported that the Feds had briefed the Council and said that were Obama to win they were expecting some 2 to 3 million people to come to town for the inauguration. That's a staggering number.

by Lance on Nov 5, 2008 12:52 pm • link • report