Early Voting Florida: Primaries August 16 2014

WAKE UP FLORIDA

Early voting begins today (Saturday) August 16th!  It's for the Primaries and for the local elected offices such as School Boards and Judges.

Early polling places should be available in most accessible locations in every county (Except Pinellas County which for some GODFORSAKEN REASON never has an early polling place in North Pinellas.  Clearwater is still a hassle to get to!  Would it kill you guys to put a polling place in Tarpon Springs?!  We're not freaking Siberia up there!  /rage).

For example, I currently reside in Mulberry, so City Hall is where I go:

I voted.  AND SO SHOULD YOU!

Just a reminder or three:
1) They do require photo ID.  Which is still a problem for people - mostly poor - who can't afford one (Driver's or State ID).  Also an authorized signature (to match the one you gave when you signed for your free voter ID card).  If you do not have a photo ID you can still vote using a Provisional Ballot!
2) Please read up on the candidates' information first.  Your county elections office should have a list of candidates, and hopefully those candidates will have websites arguing their positions.  If not, check the local newspapers for the op-ed recommendations.  The local elections for school board and justices may be non-partisan, but the candidates still are partisan so make sure you're not voting any wingnuts to office.
3) The primaries in Florida are closed: you have to be in a party to vote their primary challenges.  However, NPA (non-Party voters like me) can STILL vote for the school boards and judges, and that's still important, so EVERYONE needs to get out to vote.
3a) If you're Democrat, you DO have a primary contest for Governor: choosing between Charlie Crist and Nan Rich.  Personally, I back Crist but I'm NPA so I can't vote.  All I can say is vote your conscience.
3b) If you're Republican, you DO have a primary contest for Governor: choosing between Rick "Medicare Fraud" Scott and two challengers, Yinka Abosede Adeshina and Elizabeth Cuevas-Neunder.  If you've followed this blog with any awareness these past four years, you know my feelings about Rick "No Ethics" Scott.  All I can say is vote your conscience... WHICH MEANS VOTING FOR ELIZABETH CUEVAS-NEUNDER.  PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD REPUBLICANS DON'T VOTE FOR A GODDAMN CROOK...
5) The major election issues - the state amendments - are set for November.  Again, I'll write about those three ballot issues - not many this year, odd - on a later blog entry.

That all said, if you're in Mulberry (Polk County) and need help finding your way to the early voting area, just look for the TARDIS:

The Doctor does not support nor does he recognize any of the candidates running for office this 2014.  As a Gallifreyian non-resident, he's not allowed to vote here anywho.

The Doctor does, however, encourage you to support your local public library! (Hi Mulberry!)

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Gerrymander And The Contempt of the Florida Legislature

Previously on Gerrymandering Florida, the judge that ruled against the state legislature's blatant partisan district-making for the federal congressional seats ordered that legislature to hold a special session and redraw the affected districts to adhere to the state's Fair Districts amendments.  Said maps were being redrawn for use this year's midterms, which could mean a delay in the affected districts (and perhaps the whole state's primary and general elections).

There wasn't much expected out of this court order, though.  Personally, I had little hope that the state legislature - ruled by Republicans - would play by the rules and draw districts that were compact and based not on registered voters/ethnic makeup but on population density.  After all, these were the same jokers who drew the 5th Congressional District as this long snake-like gerrymander in the first place: they wanted to shove as many Democrats into that one district so they could craft six surrounding districts to favor Republicans.

So, to no surprise at all, the legislature presented to the judge their revised district maps.  Which is: they didn't change much of anything! (via Talking Points Memo)

...But the new maps look quite like the old ones, especially the boundaries of the snakelike District 5, one of the most gerrymandered seats in the country. In his ruling earlier this summer, Federal Judge Terry P. Lewis said District 5 “does not follow traditional political boundaries” and “connects two far flung urban populations” without legal justification. His opinion chided lawmakers, saying districts containing “finger-like extensions, narrow and bizarrely shaped tentacles, and hook like shapes…are constitutionally suspect and often indicative of racial and partisan gerrymandering...”

The revised districts still carve out a snaking thin 5th District between Jacksonville, half of Gainesville (the eastern half where most Blacks and college students live) down to the northern half of the Orlando metro.  The new map does nothing about those "finger-like extensions" that exist among most of the districts, clear efforts by the party in charge to carve out favorable "safe" districts rather than allow communities, cities and counties to speak with one unified voice.

To which I say: can Judge Lewis hold the entire Republican contingency sitting in the Florida legislature with contempt of court?  At least that redistricting committee?

The powers-that-be in the state legislature were given instructions, and a clear understanding from the judge that he was expecting a cleaner, rule-abiding map.  They refused: they intentionally made minor tweaks and are basically daring Lewis to accept what they're offering.

Judge Lewis shouldn't accept it.  He should hold them accountable: for violating the state constitution, for violating their oath of office, for displaying this level of open contempt for his court rulings.

If he's empowered to do so, Lewis should get an independent map-maker on this, get another redistricting map drawn up for Florida's congressional districts and set that map for use.  If not, if he's forced to require the state legislature to make the redistricting map, then he ought to make certain those bastards play by the rules and make a congressional district map that's compact, centered out evenly to our population centers, and unbiased to party alignment.

The state legislature's argument that they have to make the 5th District a "minority" district to abide by the Voting Rights Act requirements for minority representation doesn't make sense when you consider most urban communities are minority, and already effective areas to create such districts in the first place.  The bloggers over at Addicting Info went and did their own redistricting maps, and found that by following the compactness rule and population density without any other bias they could create six congressional districts with heavy minority (Black and/or Hispanic) voting blocs.  We still end up with evenly mapped out districts, not ones that are snaking over six different counties and splitting cities and communities.

This is what Addicting Info's compact and fair districts map looks like.  See anything?  Yeah.  NO GERRYMANDERS.

What the Republicans in the Lege are trying to do is carve out controlled, party-friendly districts, which violates the core values of our electoral process.  It also violates the whole idea behind the Fair District Amendments to make compact, community-focused districts.

The state legislature is pretty much breaking the law right now.

That's the sort of thing that's supposed to involve criminal charges, jail time, fines, something, ANYTHING to uphold the laws of the land.

To Judge Lewis, I urge you to hold the irresponsible leadership of the state Republican-controlled legislature in contempt of your court.

And I urge voters, in spite of our gerrymandered districts, to get up and GET OUT THE DAMN VOTE and to vote the Republicans OUT OF THE STATE LEGISLATURE.  Just DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN, people.  PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD...

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Anniversary: When Impeachment Was Real

Doonesbury: the stonewall (1974)

On this day in 1974 President Richard Nixon went before the nation and offered his resignation, effective the next day.  Gerald Ford, recently installed as Vice President, would be sworn in as President on August 9.

What began as an investigation into a puzzling break-in at the Democratic Party's headquarters in the Watergate Office Complex in June 1972 turned into a revelation of reckless law-breaking by a political campaign awash in slush money, political dirty tricks, warrant-less wire-tapping, interdepartmental warfare reaching well into the White House itself, and Paul Newman being on Nixon's Enemies List.

The rot with the Nixon administration was top-down, but up to a certain point most of the damage to Nixon himself wasn't threatening to his position (when the November 1972 vote was held, Nixon still won because most voters didn't think Watergate or the cover-up attempts involved him).

By 1974 the situation changed.  The revelation in 1973 that Nixon had been taping all conversations in the Oval Office (it was actually a practice begun during the FDR years, but not to the extent Nixon set up) created a Constitutional crisis.  The relationship - the system of checks and balances - between the three branches of the federal government were strained to a point not seen since the start of the Civil War, especially between the Executive and Legislative branches.  Court fights over the tapes and transcripts carried on for over a year.  By the time the Supreme Court ruled 8-0 in US v Nixon in favor of releasing the tapes, we were facing the likelihood of a President openly defying SCOTUS as well as defying Congress itself.

Impeachment - the removal of the President for criminal or unethical misconduct - was openly discussed.  And seriously - as opposed to other moments - considered...

The history of impeachment itself as a mechanism for cleaning corrupt officials out of power is kinda checkered.  For non-elected and (usually) non-partisan officials like judges, the system was even-handed.  There'd only been 62 proceedings in the House to consider impeachments, with only 19 proceeding to the Senate since 1789 up to today, making it a rarely used process.  But when it comes to the big chair of the Presidency... well...

In the review of Presidential character I did last year, I pointed out - in cases like John Tyler and Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton - that the partisan nature of the fights between the White House and Congress skewed the need to impeach.  As I said in a follow-up:

...Congress talked impeachment only rarely: in a case like John Tyler (when Tyler seemed to betray the Whig Party on a personal level); and in a case like Andrew Johnson (when party foolishness put a Democrat in the line of succession, leaving a Radical Republican Congress to reach for any excuse to purge him). The impeachment process against Tyler went nowhere because the Whigs couldn't garner enough votes in the House: the impeachment against Johnson came one vote shy of success, which historians still argue was the closest we'd ever gotten to a political coup in our nation's history. Both times, impeachment was used as a means to remove a President simply because of ideological conflict: neither one really broke the law (technically Johnson broke the Tenure of Office Act, but that law was specifically written against him, and the courts ruled it unconstitutional), they both were radically opposed to what Congress wanted...

This is the danger of impeachment: meant to be a tool to remove a powerful political figure that might otherwise be above the law, impeachment has rarely been used as such (only once)...

You'll notice that I gave one exemption ("only once"): that exemption was Nixon.

As Watergate's revelations unfolded, even the partisan backers of his own party - Republicans - began to step away.  Unlike Tyler and Johnson, there was something criminally wrong with Nixon's White House that even the most biased supporter couldn't defend.  It didn't help Nixon that the Congressional investigations especially in the Senate were fronted by respected pols - Sam Ervin and Howard Baker - known for their bipartisan work.

As long as Nixon kept hidden any evidence of criminal wrong-doing, of unethical activity, he was still safe behind the argument that Watergate was a political witch-hunt.  Which was why he and his lawyers fought hard to keep those tapes away from the public.  When the Supreme Court said that the tapes had to come out, there was nowhere to hide.  Other than outright law-breaking, full shutdown of the government, a White House coup making Nixon full-on dictator...

If there was anything in Nixon's soul, even it balked at taking that one step.  Nixon turned over the tapes.

The House Committee considering impeachment charges voted on July 27 to charge Nixon with obstruction of justice with a 27-11 vote, with enough Republicans on the committee voting for it.  The "smoking gun" tape - the one that caught Nixon telling six days after the Watergate break-in to get the CIA to block the FBI investigation, specific proof of obstruction - went public August 5th.

Word was, even Barry Goldwater and other GOP leaders were warning Nixon he was "toast."

Rather than face the ignominy of being the first President ever impeached - a legitimate possibility, one even Andrew Johnson was able to avoid - Nixon resigned.

It's never been that close a call.

In Andrew Johnson's defense, the law he was getting impeached over was a sham.  In Bill Clinton's defense, his actions trying to hide his affair with Monica Lewinsky didn't rise to an impeachable offense.  In all the other cases where impeachment was argued, pursued, wished for - Tyler, Bush the Lesser, and Obama (present tense) - the stench of partisan obsessiveness made it too reckless and either failed on a floor vote or failed (and should fail in Obama's case) in committee.

It was forty years ago, we came this close to a genuine impeachment trial, and for all that meant.  It was forty years ago our nation pulled back from a very dangerous political cliff.

We still have morons desperately trying to drive us back over that political cliff for all the wrong partisan reasons.

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Just Can't Even Focus On The World Right Now

There just gets to be a point where the current events out there - the civil wars raging across the Middle East, the Ebola crisis in Africa, the Ukrainian-Russian border war, our immigration crisis along the U.S. border with kids and families trying to flee the violence of Central America, the climate change disasters affecting everything from California's drought to methane holes blowing open in Siberia - just overwhelm me.  Writing about even one of these things just gets me into a sad AND angry mood.

There's something I can write about tomorrow, but it's more history than anything else... you'll see...

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I Survived Tampa Bay Comic Con 2014: The Epic

Ah, to revel in the geekdom of comic books, science fiction and fantasy, costume roleplay, gaming, and walking.  Lots and lots of walking.

Shall I sing to you the song of Saturday comic conventioneering?  Too bad, I can't carry a tune.  I shall narrate my journey instead...

always begin your journey with a Selfie...

With many thanks to Mom for sewing this Jedi outfit for me back when I was thinner (2006).  Unfortunately, I thought I had safety pins but didn't and I ended up not going with the samurai-esque shoulder pads to complete the Jedi effect.  I DID have a belt on which to hang my plastic lightsaber though...

This is my... sixth attendance of the Tampa Bay Comic Con, and the second that they've held at the convention center itself - I mentioned earlier how previous Tampa cons were at an undersized hotel near the airport - and while this year the hosts have done a better job preparing for the turnout, there's still an issue with lines to get in.

On the downside, had to wait in a long line - even with advance ticket - outside the convention hall this year due to the growing turnout.  On the upside: growing turnout.  You know your convention is getting popular when the lines circle half of downtown...

That was the line forming behind us at that same spot I took the earlier photo...

Inside, I asked about at some of the shopping booths to see if any had any safety pins for the Jedi robe I did wear: I had a clip trying to keep the V-neck together but it wasn't holding.  Turns out there is a cosplay assistance group - the International Cosplay Corps - that helps out with wardrobe malfunctions at a con, so many thanks to the Mending Mistress standing with me (I regretted leaving the Jedi shoulder pads behind...).

LOOK KIDS!  IT'S JIM STERANKO! (applause)

 Cosplay can become a deliriously detailed and complex work of art sometimes.  Also very life-consuming and bulky.  This guy - I think that's a Warhammer outfit - is on stilts wearing a body armor suit taller than I am, with a cumbersome gun to carry, a sweltering helmet covering 85 percent of his normal vision, and he stands there 90 percent of the time letting everybody get pictures of him.  This takes dedication.  And a lot of stamina.

The more successful your cosplay, the more likely you're going to be standing all day getting pictures of you posted everywhere.  I dressed up this con and... no requests.

The other part of a convention on display: model working, crafts, costumes for sale, artwork for sale.  This booth was just a display of someone's hobby making detailed models of famous SciFi spaceships.  The hand-painted touch, the eye to detail... incredible.

If you do cosplay: do it in a group.  Themed costumes draw a lot of attention.  This foursome are a steampunk version of Batman, Batgirl, Scarecrow and Catwoman.

Another thing that helps with cosplay: GLOWY LIGHT THINGEES.  Oh man, if I can find a reasonably priced glass-blue-neon lightsaber on the market... sigh.

This Dalek tried to photobomb those Jedi!  Foolish Dalek...

It's Mike Maihack!  I'm a geek for his fanart involving Batgirl-Supergirl, and was hoping he'd have his most recent work - see the bit I wrote about Batgirl's new outfit at the end of this blog for more - but it was too recent for prints to be available.  I got his first Batgirl-Supergirl print instead, still a good one to get...

It's JC De La Torre!  My fellow Buccaneer fan, at the comic con in the Artist's Alley promoting his Star Mage (IDW) series.

There are TARDISes everywhere.  But that's okay, because space-time is this kind of timey-wimey ball of... stuff.

As always, it's R2-D2 and he's working this convention like a pimp uh BOSS.  For some reason, this little droid wants to hang out with the ladies in the R2 tank tops...

Together, R2 and I will fight to save the Republic!  Either that or rescue Luke, who's fallen down a well or something...

It's the cosplayers for the Game of Thrones show!  Quick, name the ones playing characters that are still alive (so far...)  (P.S. I saw people cosplaying GRRM.  Seriously?  Why deal with the grief of people coming up to you screaming "WRITE FASTER, GEORGE!"...?)

A Tampa Bay Rays Stormtrooper made the rounds - mostly near the benches in a far corner, basically one of the best open spots for cosplayers to gather for poses - and I asked about how the trooper felt about the recent David Price trade.  The half-laugh half-cry of a damned soul I heard was all I needed to know.  Yeah, it was painful for me too...

During my patrol of the lower level - waiting for a presentation / open chat about publishing in comics - I spotted some professional-looking cosplayers coming out of the convention's work areas.  Including a fellow dressed up in a Wookie (might be Tarfful) outfit.  A massive, fur-covered outfit.  IN FLORIDA.  Even in an air-conditioned conventional hall, THIS TAKES COURAGE PEOPLE.

Unfortunately, I failed to take care of one thing during this: I bumped into two young women who remembered me from last year's convention from the pre-opening wait line, where I and a few other nearby geeks explained the tips and tricks of comic-cons (it was their first).  One of the ladies took my tip of cosplay to heighten the experience, as she showed up as a female (distaff) version of Han Solo.  And there I was, wearing a Jedi outfit... and I never once thought to get a photo of us posing.  /headdesk  I completely forgot to get a shot of her posing with the Wookie as well (granted, my smartphone battery was getting close to fading out, but still I had some juice...).  And damn me for a fool, but I'm lousy at remembering names...

Back to the Artist's Alley, where late in the day I come across Bernie Wrightson!!!  When I was eight-ish, we had a few comic books in the house, one of which was a special re-issue of Swamp Thing #1-2 by Len Wein and Wrightson as the artist.  He's the guy for gothic horror graphic art (his work on illustrating the story of Frankenstein is classic).  He's also (in)famous for his version of Batman... where he's wearing a bat-cape that's twice as long as humanly possible.  As a fan of both Wrightson's work, Swamp Thing, and Batman, getting a signed print from Mr. Wrightston was a huge treat.

Ahhh, Deadpool, my old nemesis.  Actually, nemesES.  A plurality of Deadpools are a given for any convention.  And every year they are driven by the same madness: to find a veteran actor of the Power Ranger series and worship him/her like a GOD.

This year it was a Red Ranger.  Go figure.  For some reason they got The Eleventh Doctor (see the fez?) to join in the ritual...

Finally.  Last photo I was able to take before the smartphone powered down.  I spotted a cosplayer in an excellent version of Batgirl's new outfit! (UPDATE: According to the tumblrs out there, her name is Alyson Larkin) Let me clarify my own little geek-out here...

When I did MegaCon earlier this year, it was just after Frozen had become the Number One ZOMG fan-thing, and I expected to see a bunch of Queen Elsas in her Ice Queen costume.  Sadly then, only counted about four of them (in a cosplay crowd of thousands).  This month, with time to craft the outfit, I counted about nine, maybe ten of them (I saw more Maleficents though).  I digress a little, but the point is when there's a new thing for costuming to do, I'm hoping to see how quickly the response is and how pervasive (in 2009 for example every other male cosplayer was Rorschach and every other female cosplayer Silk Spectre).

It was announced about two weeks ago that a new comic book team for Batgirl was giving her a new re-design.  The response to it was - via the fan art - huge.  Nearly everybody went ga-ga over it.  So when I went to the Tampa comic con, I was keeping an eye out for anyone with the new outfit - practical boots, leather armor, and the SNAP-ON CAPE - to see what the response would be for cosplay.

I kinda knew the shortness of time - two weeks - made it unlikely to see one... and yet, thank you Batgirl Cosplayer of Tampa Bay, you made it!  And you did a great job of it!  Thank you.

That said, here's that Maihack print I hope he gets printed up soon for the next comic con:

And next year?  I need a simpler outfit.  How much are Wookie suits?

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Update on the Gerrymander Court Decision, and How It Affects Voting for Florida

The judge in that gerrymandering case is ordering the state legislature to convene a Special Session to redraw the illegal districts into something legal by August 15th.  I thought he'd wait but apparently he didn't: worse, it took him a month to make up his mind to order this done.

Because what this does is throw the entire voting calender into chaos:

...The practical effect is that lawmakers must convene a special session in the next two weeks to meet the map-fixing deadline. Lewis would then decide when and if special elections would be held for the districts whose boundaries have been modified.

Candidates would then have to qualify again, election officials would have to modify precinct maps, and the costs of the elections could rise...

While I'm all for making the Florida Legislature's collective life miserable for making these illegal gerrymanders in the first place, I dunno if this is the way to go. What's going to happen is that the election cycle - the primary at the end of this month, and the general election in November - is going to get thrown off-track. By messing with the dates we can have these elections, we're risking the likelihood most residents won't know when to really vote.

Continue reading


Voter turnout has been, continues to be, the great unspoken scandal of our age.  It's not voter ID fraud that's the problem, it's the 39 percent turnout of the extremists.  We've got this high population count in Florida - 18 million give or take 450,000 illegals - and 11 million registered voters making it 61 percent of the residents able to vote... and then just 5 million or so actually showing up to vote, with 6 million sitting at home for some reason or another.

Why that 6 million no-shows?  Partly due to apathy, partly due to disgust with the ballot being filled with unwanted choices, a good amount due to people just unable to get in line at their precinct to vote because of work or family or other conflicts of time.

A lot of our poor turnout is due to confusion over where and when to vote.  Our system of using precincts as polling places spreads out across the counties to where people are uncertain which is theirs to use.  One street can get assigned to a polling spot five miles away, yet those homes could be five blocks away from another polling spot for a neighboring precinct.  And our rules make it so that you HAVE to vote at that precinct, due to how districts at all levels are drawn out.  The most frustrating thing for voters is to show up at a precinct only to be told they got to keep moving up-road to ANOTHER place they might not be able to find...

The "when to vote" is the other sticking point: people still can't get used to the idea that elections can be held on a Tuesday, in the middle of the week.  There may have been reasons to doing that back in the 1800s, but in this day and age there's little reason to keep doing that.  It doesn't help that primaries are held inconsistently over election cycles: while the general elections tend to be the first Tuesday of November, primaries are sometimes held in March... or August... nowadays January for the Presidential primary... maybe May... sometimes Y.

Forcing a delay on this year's primaries and general election, at least for the congressional offices, is going to make it harder to get the voters fully informed on when they'll need to get their votes in.  It'll make it harder in terms of knowing or learning who's on the ballot anymore.  It also depends on how disruptive the redesigning of the gerrymandered districts will get: It will clearly affect all of the connected congressional districts - about 7 or 8 of them - and could conceivably cascade across the entire state anyway.

While normally that might be a good thing - fix ALL the districts to be fairly based on population density and not partisan protection - this might not be the time to do it.  It may be better to wait after this election is done, and then get the districts redrawn so that by 2016's election cycle they'll be in place and the county elections offices are prepped and ready.

Of course, we voters can make this all academic by keeping alert, checking our county elections office websites for updated information, and especially by GETTING THE VOTE OUT AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE so that we don't have to worry about wrong precincts or getting lost or not showing up on time.

That said, here's the current Early Voting directory by county.  I know where to go for Polk County now... and I'm still miffed at Pinellas County only having three (THREE?!) early voting polling spots, none of them in North Pinellas.  Dudes.  DUDES!  You got how many people in Tarpon Springs, Palm Harbor, Ozona, Crystal Beach, East Lake, Oldsmar, Dunedin that have to drive down to Clearwater?!  Just find a spot in Tarpon or Palm Harbor or Oldsmar to host and GET IT DONE.  Sheesh.  I swear, growing up in North Pinellas felt like being in Siberia cut off from the rest of the county... and we're one of the smallest geographic counties in the state (with the most population!).  Mutter grumble getting old grumble etc.

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Brief Warning

Just to 

let you know

this will be a crazy

comic-con weekend for me

so I wanna make it clear to my 7 readers

that sometimes you just gotta

ride that flying shark

to freedom!

Welcome to August.

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