Register to VOTE

By John McDaid | Monday, 29 September 2008

I know, I know, you've been meaning to get around to it. But time is running out. The last day to register (or change your address, if you've moved) and be eligible to vote in November is October 4. This is one election you won't want to miss, with significant races all up and down the ticket. So get down to Portsmouth Town Hall at 2200 East Main Rd or give them a call to check their hours at 683-3157.

BarackObama.com has put together an awesome voter registration tool, VoteForChange.com, which coould be helpful if you are an out-of-state resident. It looks like it searches the entire national voter registration list, and it's wicked fast. Compare the one-button simplicity of this site to the bulleted lists and legalese on JohnMcCain.com and you can pretty much tell everything you need to know about the candidates. From a Web design perspective, of course. It's also interesting to note that in the midst of his legal threats about perjury and deportation, his team actually spells the word refused wrong. (Look right above the "Next Step" button: "refuzed.") That's just sad.

Resources:
RI Voter Information Center — See your registration, find your polling place, check your address
Secretary of State's Elections Web site — Frequently asked questions, how-to guides

Tags: 
Localblogging, 02871

Comments

Lije

Mon, 09/29/2008 - 11:27am

After going through the McCain site's legalese including having me click a box saying that "information I have provided is true to the best of my knowledge under penalty of perjury" and requiring me to put in my driver's license number and all that, the only thing the McCain site does is put up a link to a pdf of a voter registration form, and it's not even the Rhode Island voter registration form, it's a generic "national" form.

Heck -- I could have gotten better from the RI Secretary of State's website without going through all that legalese and rigmarole.

The Obama site, by comparison, was simple to use and tells me "You are ready to vote in Rhode Island!" This show's that the Obama site actually does some voter registration info lookup and then goes on to provide relevant information about voting in Rhode Island.

You can tell a lot about the executive administration skills of someone by how they structure their campaign administration. The take-away isn't just about "web design" aesthetics. It's about competence! If this is an example of how McCain will lead, then a McCain administration will be bloated and useless, just like the George W. Bush presidency has been.

By contrast, an Obama administration will be streamlined and useful.

Lije

Mon, 09/29/2008 - 12:05pm

As a follow on note, the McCain site has already sent me two email in the course of less than half an hour since I input data into their stupid voter registration tool. The Obama site -- blessed silence.

I clicked on the link in the McCain spam email saying "click here to unsubscribe" and I got taken to the McCain site. Most intelligent unsubscribe sites, by having me click on a link, already know what email address I'm unsubscribing. Not this one. I had to enter it again.

Was there a confirmation? No -- so what that means is that anyone can go there and unsubscribe their republican friends if they wanted to. How bogus is that?

I hate to nitpick over a website, but this is a multi-million dollar high stakes presidential campaign, and they've hired folks to implement a late 1990s vintage web interface. It's embarrassing!

Wernerlll

Tue, 09/30/2008 - 10:41pm

While during the primaries in Portsmouth my vote registered as #32 at 1115 AM, I was astonished at the low turnout. So why have the cost of primaries, state-wide or local?At least I can be reassured in the process for having scanned, traceable results. But after Florida and Ohio, my faith in the election system is scarred. Somehow McCain is going to get the White House and I think this year the toss-up will be Colorado with all kinds of inconsitencies and give it to the GOP.

However, back to the topic. Good point Lije, about the SPAM and McCain's computer novelty. While you are correct, it could also be a smart trick to catch voters off guard. Remember, McCain does not operate the computer or knows much about the economy except that which he is being coached to say just like his VP pick Palin. I used to like McCain in 2000, but his party did him in, nice party. After publicly melding into the arms of President Bush, John converted to the GOP dogma in order to get the nomination. However, after cheating on his first wife, who was loyal to him for all those prison years, and being complicit in the "Keating Five" debacle, and to top it off, sponsoring legislation with Senator Kerry to squelch the search for 'Nam MIAs and US prisoners left behind, I have issues concerning his sincerity. I have thoughts, that he might just be a politician with ambition. True to form, a fighter pilot commissioned to drop bombs on targets without the benefit to discriminate among his choices from 30,000 feet, and, and would not hesitate to "bomb bomb, bomb Iran" now, makes me very nervous. I'm sure he has many nationalists supporting that view, born out of the Bush "pre-emptive war" policies to ensure "world dominance".

There are even some religious denominations actually looking forward to an all-out war, as it would possibly bring on the "Rapture" or "Second Coming". However, the "Higher Father" upstairs could not have seen it coming that his guidance to President Bush to "invade Iraq" would come at a great cost to both the Christian God and the Islamic God, referred to as Allah, of so many disciples. The Hindu deities are just shaking their heads while the Buddhist Monks are awaiting Karma.

Now with the thread of another "Mushroom Cloud" hanging over Wallstreet, I too await Karma and hope that reasonable minds will prevail.

Here are some websites that may help you satisfy your interest about McCain, but you may not want to know, in case you do not want to shake your belief you have already formed, can be very uncomforting:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081006/schanberg

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE7D6163DF93BA3575AC0A...

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE1DE1E30F93BA25757C0A...

Thanks to McCain, all Pentagon records and MIA signal recordings from Pave Penny a(no, not that weapons system) are now permanently sealed. And of course the Main Media will not touch it, but someone did.

Wernerlll