One Man's Thoughts: 03/01/2006

Monday, March 27, 2006

The daily Herald is reporting that it appears that Jim Oberwies is looking to run for Kane County GOP chairman and/or the 14th Congressional District position for State Central Committeeman. It also brings up Oberweis having an "ally" for chair and Jim running for Central Committeeman

As an elected Republican Committeeman in Kane County let me explain why I will not be voting for Jim Oberweis nor any "ally" for Chairman or Central Committeeman.

First and foremost: Violations of Ronald Regan's 11th commandment, if you want to do that as a candidate during a primary that is your choice. Don't expect me to consider that acceptable actions from someone who wants to be an elected leader of the party.

Party leaders at any level should not put 'conditions' on supporting a candidate that wins a Republican Primary unless they are really, really outside the mainstream or even the banks of the mainstream (see David Duke, Lyndon LaRouche). Sorry Jim, Judy does not even visit this neighborhood no less fall into it.

If he were to become county party chair I don't see Jim's focus being on winning local elections (picking up county board seats or helping Bob Mitchell beat Linda Chapa-LaVia) and that is what I expect out of my county chair.

I don't see Jim as being really available to people like me within the Kane County Republican Party to return a call or answer a question. I know my current county chair will return a call and answer a question. I certainly don't see Jim sitting down with the township organization chairs once a month to deal with issues at the county level or go over arraignments for the golf outing and the fall round-up.

If Jim wants to run for either of these offices or both that is his right, just as it is my right as an elected committeeman to do the same.

If he wants to go after Bob Kjellander, that's his right as well. I understand that after coming in second in three state-wide primaries as well as the whole 'not being picked as Jack Ryan's replacement thing' he may have a legitimate beef with some people. It is however my right and responsibility as a committeeman in Kane County however to say no to him using our organization as cover to promote his own agenda. Which as far as I can see is the only reason he is running for county chair and/or central committeeman.

We have local elections to contest and win and party infighting about the 'vision' of the party and Bob Kjellander is not the way to get that done.

OneMan

Saturday, March 25, 2006

Ok, here is an interesting if very unlikely thought.

Meeks gets in the race, FTN keeps pushing The "Protect Marriage" thing that motivates voters that are not real with happy with Judy's views on a host of social issue to get involved. As a result theStufflebeam campaign gets a bit of traction.

We could end up with sort of a four way race, with each side facing a challenge for their traditional base from their flank. Really unlikely but it could be really entertaining.

OneMan

Friday, March 24, 2006

Well, things have been calming down a bit. Some general thoughts on the primary, I am surprised that Blago lost a few counties, not a ton but some all south of I-80. I think if the weather was better down south EE would have done better than 30%.

Even 30% should make Rod a bit nervous and I think it emboldens Meeks a bit.

Locally, I was surprised that Weis won with such a convincing margin. I would be interested to see what he was sending via direct mail, I suspect it was effective.

I had a co-worker come by and ask what I did with the election (in terms of the count) and as I was explaining the difference between an election judge and a poll watcher and mentioned that poll watchers are more common in general elections vs. primaries and with the governors race we would likely see more poll watchers in November she said "Oh, that's was the election was for it was a primary". Glad to see what ever direct mail got sent to her worked. :-)

OneMan

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Well, the election in Aurora went of without any major issues. One interesting thing in my view however.

The Kane County Democratic Party requested a copy of the 'tape' out of each machine (basically the totals, perhaps more I am not sure what they are getting with their copy) including the touch screens used for early voting. There were three machines used for early voting at the election comm. So here is the issue.

I voted early, it now appears looking at the results I am the only person who voted early in the Republican primary in my ward and pct. The fact I voted early is part of the voting record. So by taking the voting record and their copy of the tape the Kane County Democratic Party will basically know exactly who I voted for across the board. Does the Kane County Democratic Party care who I voted for, unlikely. Do I think voting information at this level of granularity should be in anyone's hands, no.

Ok, you may think a bit of a fluke. Well as I understand it they requested this tape from every voting machine. We have two different machines, the scanners and the touch screens.

Do I think they are trying to figure out who voted how this time no.

But lets look at this for November, lets say you are in a position to request and do request 'tape (the paper total)' out of every touch screen. Then you tell your voters to vote touch screen, I think you can ask to do this when you vote and if you ask I don't see how they can stop you from doing so. Since most people will vote optical scan the number of voters on the touch screen will be lower. So you can in theory have a fairly good idea of exactly how you sub-group voted.

OneMan

update: There was an anonymous post that was signed by someone within the Aurora Democrats (someone I might add who forgot to bring snacks to the count Tuesday night). Since it was signed yet anonymous I am a bit leary of posting it. I will try and summarize his points however.

They are checking to make sure the totals match, they are not trying to figure out how any single person voted. He also pointed out we had/have the chance to request the same thing.

Again sort of like I said above I don't really think they want to figure out how individual people voted (a bit of a corner case) or even to see if there are voting patterns among people who likely used touch screen.

It's just with the information they will have they could and that makes me a bit uncomfortable. Also I strongly suspect at least part of the motivation for looking at the tapes is to try to find an error and use it as a campaign issue against the county clerk (if the roles were reversed I suspect we would do the same). We thought about asking for the tapes but after figuring out the shear volume of paper (hundreds of yards) it just wasn't worth the effort of reviewing it.

Poster, if you are who you say you are e-mail me the name of the person you had at the count Tuesday night and the name of the Republican you watched the count with last November and I will be happy to post your original post. Since I know you I don't want to put words in your mouth.

Second update: I called the Illinois State Board of Elections and the basically told me that there was nothing I could do to correct this issue that the statute allows for tape review at that level. The person I spoke with also said they were aware of the issue and it also exists in small counties that may only have one touch screen that is used just for the disabled.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Almost all done here

Low turnout looks like EE got 21% here. Overall things went better than I expected with the new gear
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld.