Darkoshi

Besides disappointment, I felt some anger too, looking at the results this morning. It has faded back down to cynicism now, though I am still irritable.

Last night around 11pm, one announcer said the results were looking like they did at that hour in 2016. I still remember my reaction back in 2016 around that time; how I couldn't or didn't want to believe it and didn't give up hope. This time I didn't give up hope either, as slim as it kept getting. But unlike last time, I could believe it, because it happened before.

This is a somewhat heartening message:



Video title: Jon Stewart’s Election Night Takeaway | The Daily Show
Posted by: The Daily Show
Date posted: Nov 6, 2024

I came across this short article yesterday while reading about "Blake" and other names; I thought it was well written:

Why You Should Vote for Kamala Harris

Why is a baby name website endorsing Kamala Harris for President?

Names are at the heart of the issues most crucial in this election. Donald Trump has made a campaign stunt of mispronouncing Kamala’s name. But when he ridicules her name, he’s also disrespecting not just Harris herself but women and cultural diversity in general.

Names are our identity. The names we choose with love and care represent who we are and who we want our children to be.
...

I cast my ballot during our early voting period, Friday a week ago. I stood in line outside in mostly full sun for an hour, but was relieved to get it done.

I still haven't figured out the solution word to the Semantle Junior game (#1000) which I started playing on my phone while waiting in line. I haven't played the game often, but this is the first one to stump me so badly.

Time.com: Your Vote Is Safe (2024/10/24)

The upcoming U.S. presidential election hasn't seemed humorous to me so far, but this commercial on TV really got me laughing.

For more details, see the website:
https://presidentprison.com/

From the video transcript:
The presidential election of 2024 will go down in history.
The country is divided.
Millions of Americans want Biden to win and see Trump go to prison,
and millions want Trump to win and see Biden go to prison.
This historic period inspired skilled American Artisans to design the official 2024 President Prison Collection.
The pro-Trump coin features a Victorious Trump sworn in as president on the front and Biden in prison on the back.
The pro-Biden coin features a Victorious Biden sworn in as president on the front and Trump in prison on the back.
Each private issue commemorative coin has been minted in Exquisite detail and layered in pure .999 silver. The Artistry and intricate detail are stunning.
...

August:
I took a week of vacation.
I watched the Peacemaker series on HBO Max, and enjoyed it. That show has the best title sequence / music.


September:
I got a new phone.
I drove to Myrtle Beach with my mom, for a half-vacation half-work week.


October:
I visited an Arts & Music festival and browsed the art.

I went to the SC Pride Festival and got to see a performance by Sheila E.. A nice thing about these public outdoor events here is how close up you can get to the stage and performers, if you want, compared to a concert with assigned seating.

I got my flu shot and bivalent Covid booster on the same day, one in each arm.

Wyze treasure hunt! It affected me, oddly, remotely. I wish I had time to describe the feels.

Halloween: I put up decorations and lights. I replaced the net fabric from my ghosties with a different fabric less likely to entrap flying insects. The new fabric is thicker and heavier, so I cut it into strips to make it look better. Turned out quite well; I was very pleased. I gave out treats. There were 13 trick-or-treaters.


November:
I early-voted the Friday before; stood in line for an hour. But I was relieved to get it done with.

8 days away from Election Day, and I find there's nothing for me to vote on this year. The city is having a mayoral election - I've been getting emails about that one. But as I live outside the city limits, I don't get to vote for the mayor. That disappoints me, but at least now I don't have to spend time looking up info on the candidates; one item removed from my to-do list.

For those of you who do have local elections to vote in, this is a reminder! Next Tuesday (after Halloween) is Election Day.

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I've got pretty Halloween lights on the porches. I plan to give out treats or set up a grab-n-go treats table like last year (not sure which yet), for anyone who might come. I'm putting some Halloween cards in the mail tomorrow.

- Wednesday, 2:20pm -

Statewide in SC, 4 counties including Richland county are still shown as only "partially reported".

For Richland county, the election results map on SCvotes.org shows all precincts colored green as in "Completely Reported". But the page text says only 149 of 150 are completely reported.

152 precinct names are listed, including these 3 at the end:
Failsafe
Provisional
Failsafe Provisional

Maybe the above 3 are not counted as part of the 150, but there's another one NOT listed which is included as one of the 150, and that one isn't completely reported yet. I'm guessing that one is the main county office where they would be processing the mail-in absentee ballots.


I downloaded the Richland County results (in XML format) from 9:41am and from 13:06pm, and compared them. The numbers for ALL the precincts have changed, which supports my guess that the part not yet completed IS the absentee ballots (which span all precincts). .. YES, in the details, it is the "Absentee By Mail" numbers that are going up. The "In-Person Absentee" numbers are not changing, so those must have all been counted already.

In that time period (9:41 to 13:06), the county results show about 3500 additional ballots have been counted, with a total so far of 173k out of 278k registered voters.

Other than putting up some Halloween lights*, I spent all of today looking up election-related things.

I had intended to finish deciding who to vote for in the school board election which is the last thing I need to do before going out to vote absentee-in-person, but I didn't even get around to that.

(*Doing so made me realize I badly want a solid-green LED light strand. Blue or aqua ones would be nice too. And more orange ones, maybe yellow too. I need other colors to balance out all these red and purples! I talked myself into moving the one orange strand outside for Halloween, by saying I'd put up the white falling icicle ones inside instead. But the latter were too distracting inside, so I took them down again. I also took down the rest of the incandescents, which were half-burned out anyway.)

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South Carolina's new voting machines which we got last year let you make your selections on a touch screen. They print out a paper ballot which you feed into a scanner. One thing that bothered me in the primary earlier this year, was that scanner. It didn't seem clear which way you had to place your ballot on it, face-up or face-down. I thought I remembered scanning mine face-up, which seems bad from a privacy perspective since everyone carries their ballot from the voting machines to that centrally-placed scanner. But when I asked Qiao, he said he'd been told to turn his face-down.

That made me wonder, what happens if you turn the ballot the wrong way? Does your vote end up not getting counted??

Based on the below info, I'm not the only one who's been concerned about this. But it seems that maybe it doesn't matter which way you turn it; it may scan both sides.


Doublecheck that ballot: Controversial voting machines make their primary debut in South Carolina
This article reminds you to check that your printed ballot lists your votes correctly before you scan it, in case of foul play or other machine problems. (You can check the names that are printed out; barcodes are also printed but you can't tell if those really correspond to your candidates - that's another thing that bothers me about this voting system.***)


A red flag for upcoming elections: South Carolina debut's of new voting system plagued by problems (2020/03/04)

These issues were atop other concerns noted, such as inadequate privacy screens surrounding touch screens, conflicting instructions from ES&S on which side of the ballot card was to be scanned.
...
But the voter had a question. Should he slide his ballot into the scanner face up or face down? Killoy replied face down, for privacy — even though some ES&S materials had said face up.
...
He would also receive phone calls from national groups like Common Cause and the League of Women Voters asking whether the new scanners were properly reading the ballot cards—due to ambiguity about which side should face up. (He believed it didn't matter.)

Instructional Video on how to use the voting machines - from what I can tell, this shows that when the ballot is printed, the cut corner is on the upper right of the side that has the text on it. The ballot is then inserted into the scanner with the cut corner in the upper right, ie. face-up.

South Carolina voters will now use paper-based system
South Carolina’s Paper-Based Voting System
Both of the above pages say that ballots should be placed *face-down* on the ballot scanner.

Poll Manager's Handbook (SC Election Commission - this handbook PDF has all kinds of good info** about election procedures at the polling stations.
It indicates that ballots should be placed face-down on the scanners.

Precinct Scanner and Tabulator DS200® - this is the ballot scanner being used.

DS200 Precinct Ballot Scanner Election Day Training Manual

"The DS200 can accept and scan ballots inserted in any direction."
...
"The DS200 precinct tabulator can be coded to detect and notify the voter when it encounters a blank ballot. The display will indicate that no votes were detected on the ballot and offer the voter two choices, Accept or Return. "

[ "can be" is underlined, meaning I suppose that by default, it doesn't necessarily notify you? ]
...
"Some error messages related to the ballot will instruct the voter to turn over the ballot and try again."

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Unrelated to the above...

5 mistakes that can disqualify your November mail ballot and how to avoid them

"Thirty-one states now use signature verification to confirm the authenticity of voted ballots...
election officials cross-check the signature a voter used to sign their ballot envelope to see if it matches the voter's most recent signature on file with the elections office, the Department of Motor Vehicles, or another government agency."

How States Verify Voted Absentee Ballots


What, really?? They compare your signature?? My signatures can be quite inconsistent.


**Such as if the poll worker doubts your identity, they will first ask for another qualifying photo ID. So if you have more than one ID, it may be a good idea to bring both when you go vote.

"The manager must verify that the photograph on the qualifying ID is that of the person seeking to vote. Additionally, the signature on the voter’s ID should be checked against the voter’s signature on the poll list."


***Update: Based on New Voting System FAQs:

"the SEC will make scanned images of all ballots cast in statewide elections available to the public. The use of paper ballots combined with this level of transparency makes it possible for anyone to do their own count of the paper ballots to verify results."

I'm looking forward to seeing how the images are provided to the public. It should be possible to use OCR to count how many ballot images contain each candidate's name. So maybe even someone like me could run the images through some utility to check that at least my own precinct-level results match up with the ballot images. Assuming I could do that, someone with access to more processing power and storage space might do the same thing for the whole state's ballots.

It still might be theoretically possible for the scanner software to be compromised, such that the stored images wouldn't match the actual ballots that were scanned. But that seems less likely to me than other vectors of attack or other kinds of software problems.

Update, 2020/11/03:
Insert face up or face down? Officials say ballots placed in scanner will be counted either way
"Ballots can be placed in the scanner face up, face down, or backwards," said Chris Whitmire of the SC Election Commission.

It was bound to happen sooner or later. I had an anxiety-type dream that manifested as difficulty in getting my face-mask on. I was meeting up with someone, and belatedly realized that I should be wearing a face-mask. So I started digging around in my purse... there were several in there, but it took a while to find the right one that I could wear. By then there was a whole group of people with us. The others were all wearing their face masks. I was being silently judged by them, though they were polite and didn't say anything... I was still struggling to get the face mask out of my purse. And then a group photo of us all was being taken, and I still didn't have the mask on, and it was going to be immortalized in a photograph...

Nothing too dire, and somewhat amusing in retrospect.

..

This evening I had a scary thought. What if I end up being sick on election day, so that I can't go vote? Or so I feel I shouldn't go vote, to avoid infecting anyone else? What if I'm just a little bit sick, and I don't know if I should go out or not?

There are probably going to be long lines again for this election. Not a nearly empty gymnasium like during the primaries. So if I have any reason to think I might have COVID or a flu, I ought not go out even to vote. That would be unfortunate.

I am disappointed that so many police officers have been responding to protests against policy brutality with... police brutality. It becomes hard to believe that not all police officers are thugs, when seeing reports like that. Yet I know there are good ones out there too; one has to maintain some hope.

Then again, if police departments are training the goodness out of the good ones, and/or firing them for being good, of course all they'll (we'll) end up with are bad ones.

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The upcoming Democratic primary here in Richland County includes a race between the incumbent county sheriff, Leon Lott, and two other candidates. In general, my opinion of Lott is positive. But one reason I decided not to vote for him is that he is against outside agencies like SLED from investigating any officer-involved shootings.
Richland County sheriff defends investigating his own officers who shoot at, kill suspects

Even in a news report aired on TV today, he reiterated that stance. (Though I can't find it online, so I can't be sure it was really that recent.)

I'm annoyed at NBC, calling the election less than 1 minute after the poll closing time, with no votes even officially in yet. They'll probably end up being right, but still. I've never once even encountered an exit poll at my polling places, so how can they really know what people have voted?

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After voting, I stopped by an Oriental grocery, hoping to find some mung bean thread noodles, which I haven't had in ages. I didn't see any on the shelves, but did find some good-looking sweet potato and acorn starch noodles. In the vegetable section, I got a bag of an unfamiliar looking green, which per Google Lens turns out to be crown daisy, aka edible chrysanthemum. It now occurs to me this may be what a local Korean restaurant uses in their "Korean salad", which was always more memorable to me for the spicy salad dressing they put on it than the greens themselves.

While paying, I asked the owner if she knew where I could find mung bean noodles, and it turned out that the store had them after all. The package said "bean vermicelli" on it, which I must have mistaken for "rice vermicelli" while scanning the shelves. So then I bought that too. [ ETA: But these aren't as good as the ones I remember from the past. I prefer thicker noodles rather than these very fine vermicelli ones. ]

There was also a Mexican supermercado next door, so I browsed it too. I got a box of "shavegrass tea" (aka horsetail) because I'd never heard of it before, and some fresh epazote which is another leafy green vegetable unfamiliar to me. I'd seen the latter in dried form before, but not fresh. The leaves don't smell good, but they taste ok. I'd planned to stir-fry it, but apparently eating it all at once like that may be a bad idea.

Ingredient Spotlight: Epazote:
"Be aware that too much epazote can overpower a dish and even lead to nausea."

Epazote: Mexico’s Mystery Herb
"In very high amounts, epazote can be toxic: It is a vermifuge of the highest order, which means it will kill any intestinal parasites you might have living in your innards."

So maybe I'd be better off making a pot of beans and adding the epazote to it near the end. That could let me use up some of those ancient beans in the cupboard... but then again they are so old, they might not get soft even using the pressure cooker. I'll try it anyway; if the beans don't turn out well then I won't add the epazote.

So. Plans to cook tonight, which might be overdoing it: bean thread noodles, stir-fried or maybe blanched crown daisy, and a pot of beans which will take forever to cook. Oh darn it, they aren't even soaked. That won't work, will it?...

I know! I'll instead take all the canned beans from the cupboard, cook them with some spices and the big can of fire-roasted tomatoes... maybe add that can of pumpkin which I can't figure out what to do with... and then put the epazote in it. And then hopefully I won't get nausea or throw up from it.

I'm glad I didn't buy 2 bunches of the epazote, which I contemplated in the store. Even this one bunch must be at least 2 cups worth, while most recipes I see say to only use a few sprigs of it.

ETA: On further thought, I'll probably throw the epazote away. There's no point in mixing it up with good food and possibly ruining the whole lot, and no point in eating something that may make me feel sick. I wasn't originally planning to cook beans anyway, and to got through that trouble only to use up a couple of sprigs out of the whole bunch, which I then won't even be able to taste? Not worth it.

The stir-fried crysanthemum turned out good.