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election

Great moments in absentee voting

Let's hope today's Western Australian state election isn't decided by 29 votes or less. The people of Eucla, near the South Australian border and more than 1400 kilometres from Perth, have been disenfranchised from today's poll. The state electoral commission forgot to organise a polling booth and then couldn't get the postal votes to them in time.

American decisions

In Seattle, 63% of voters have opposed changes to strip club regulations, while 74% of them have supported an initiative to ban taxpayer-funded subsidies for professional sporting teams. The Supersonics are threatening to take their basketball and dribble somewhere else.

In San Francisco, 59% of voters have called for the impeachment of George W Bush and Dick Cheney. In the City of Berkeley, the impeachment vote was 69%.

The tide turneth?

If the 1994 mid-term election represented the start of the right-wing chill in the US, we can only hope that the 2006 election represents its end. The Democrats have taken control of the House of Reps. Maybe, just maybe, they may yet grab control of the Senate.

Bush 43's response at a Wednesday afternoon presser will be interesting. Is Rumsfeld's sword ready to be fallen upon?

Special mention to the squirrel in Oklahoma that ate through some cables and blacked out polling booths for a couple of hours. Honourable mention also to those thousands of fine, upstanding, computer-illiterate volunteers who muddled through manning the booths in the World's Greatest Democracy.

The real US election

Seattle residents are voting today on, among other things, "City of Seattle Referendum No.1: Adult Entertainment". It aims to define regulatory standards for the city's strip clubs.

There's stringent lighting standards, elevation standards for railings around stages, and, biggest shock horror, lap dancers will not be allowed within four feet of the patrons. (One wonders how the legislators arrived at that dimension.)

The Seattle Times and the Washington Post take up the story. The complete (and at times explicit) text of the ordinance being put forward at today's election is here.

Let's meddle in US politics

The United States of America has more than a century and a half of experience in meddling in the sovereignty of foreign nations, and with that in mind I'm going to make some endorsements in Tuesday's US congressional and gubernatorial elections.

My short answer is to vote Democrat in both houses and remove Republican control of congress. That way, the gang at White House Halliburton will have to work harder at bypassing the US Constitution for their own corporate ends.

An even shorter answer: In the state Governors races, vote for candidates from the Green Party of the United States.

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