Note that this is clearly supposed to be a comparison to Bush, who has had some problems on the right to vote front of his own.
The English translation is provided by UNITE. There seem to have been some typos in their
version which have been corrected here after listening to the audio.
Hillary Clinton no respeta a nuestra gente los partidarios de Hillary Clinton fueron a corte para evitar que la gente que trabaja pueda votar este sábado, eso es vergonzoso.
Hillary Clinton does not respect our people. Hillary Clinton supporters went to court to prevent working people to vote this Saturday — that is an embarrassment.
Los partidarios de Hillary Clinton quieren evitar que la gente que trabaja el sábado pueda votar en sus lugares de empleo. ¡Imperdonable! Hillary Clinton no tiene vergüenza.
Hillary Clinton supporters want to prevent people from voting in their workplace on Saturday. This is unforgivable. Hillary Clinton is shameless.
Hillary Clinton no debería permitir que sus amigos ataquen el derecho de nuestra gente de votar este sábado. Es imperdonable! No hay respeto. El senador Barack Obama esta defendiendo nuestro derecho de votar.
Hillary Clinton should not allow her friends to attack our people’s right to vote this Saturday. This is unforgivable; There’s no respect. Sen. Obama is defending our right to vote.
El senador Barack Obama quiere nuestros votos, el respeta nuestros votos, nuestra comunidad y a nuestra gente. El lema de la campaña de Barrack Obama es “sí se puede, sí se puede”. Vote por un presidente que nos respeta y respeta nuestro derecho de votar. Obama para presidente. Sí se puede.
Sen. Obama wants our votes. He respects our votes, our community, and our people. Sen. Obama’s campaign slogan is “Sí Se Puede” (“Yes We Can”). Vote for a president that respects us, and that respects our right to vote. Obama for president, “Sí Se Puede” (“Yes We Can”).
Pagada por UNITE HERE Campaign Committee.
Paid for by UNITE HERE Campaign Committee.(2:12 previous day) Fred Thompson says Git'R'Done! (Not a hoax!)
The anti-Hillary "no tiene vergüenza" ad is reported to be running twice an hour on "Super Estrella" (KRRN 92.7) and "La Tricolor" (KQRT 105.1) in Las Vegas and "Radio Lazer" (KSRN 107.7) in Reno.
(3:26) The Nevada Caucuses met at 9:00 AM (12 in my time zone, EST) for Republicans and 11:00 AM (2 PM EST) for Democrats. The Republicans have given us no surprises. The heavy LDS population has turned out at the caucuses without benefit of coffee (perhaps they went out to the ephedra bush in the back yard) and according to exit polls voted 94% for Romney. The only two counties with large populations are Clark County (Las Vegas) and Washoe County (Reno)- with 52% in Romney got 59% of Clark County. The Washoe County results aren't in yet. The main shocker is that Ron Paul is running neck and neck with McCain for second place (12%) with 38% of precincts statewide reporting. There are few Democratic results.
(4:00) CNN on the radio has reported that South Carolina is experiencing snow and dysfunctional voting machines.
"We have received reports from Horry County that voters are being turned away from the polls, because electronic voting machines are not working and paper ballots are not available,” Buzz Jacobs, McCain’s South Carolina state director, said in a statement. “Some voters say they are being instructed to return at a later time. We are disturbed by these reports and hope that this issue is resolved immediately. We encourage any voters who were turned away from the polls to return again to their polling place this afternoon to exercise their constitutional right to vote."
Horry County is a major county containing Myrtle Beach and has a 2000 Census population of 217,608 (out of 4,012,012 in the state).
(4:08) The Weather Channel reports snow across the "upstate", the western part of the state around Greenville and Spartanburg, which is the most white area of South Carolina. A low turnout in this area will mean that turnout will be higher closer to the coast, where the percentage of African-Americans is highest.
(4:12) AP has called Nevada for Hillary. In the county results, it appears Obama has won in Washoe County (51% to 38% with 33% reporting) and most of the rural counties in the state, but Hillary has won Clark County (55% to 43% with 57% reporting). Vote totals are miniscule, with a mere 5,380 votes reported with 53% reporting. 3,984 are from Clark County and 967 are from Washoe.
(4:23) I'm confused. The Democratic results are for "county delegates" but this seems kind of implausible- there's going to be several thousand people at the county conventions? Perhaps these are "virtual" delegates who aren't a real person? The Republican results show a more plausible 22,380 votes with 38% reporting.
The other weird thing is that the Republican results seem stalled. They had a two-hour head start and the percentage in is lower than for the Democrats. I haven't seen the percentage increase in a while. Many rural counties haven't reported anything yet, and they started caucusing four and a half hours ago.
(4:36) Without the reported percentage reporting changing, Ron Paul has pulled ahead of McCain.
(4:47) In the two states, the 2000 Census reports that out of Nevada's 1,998,257 people, 7.7% are African-American, 5.7% are Asian, and 2.2% are Native American, with Latino of any race being 20.0% while South Carolina's 4,012,012 people are 30.0% African-American with all other minority groups being negligible. It will be entertaining to see the exit polls in a state which is 2.4% Latino claim immigration is their most important issue. Today we won't see much difference ethnically in the two electorates because the Republican electorate will be almost entirely white.
(5:00) The Republican total has leapt to 71% all at once. The new results show 33,739 Republican votes with 78% reporting, which doesn't make any sense, and now they show Romney with 52.6% and Paul with a razor-thin margin over McCain, at 13.0% to 12.9%. The difference is 34 votes.
South Carolina polls close at 7 PM. I guess they don't like people who work on Saturday.
I wonder what the effect of the snow will be. Since this is a Republican contest, black turnout isn't a factor at all, but there is a historic cultural division between people who live in old plantation country near the coast (where it is raining) and the more upland parts of the state (where it is snowing). There's also the voting machine problems in Myrtle Beach (on the coast). Some western parts of the state are expected to get as much as 4 inches of snow, which will shut things down. Note to parties- you can avoid this problem by voting in April and May instead of January.
(5:16) The New York Times reports that the McCain campaign is trying to get a court order to extend voting by an hour in Horry County, but nobody can find the only judge who can issue the order. The cause of the malfunction? "Bourcier [a county spokesperson] said the problem was caused by "human error." The last step in preparing the machines for Election Day is a "clearing" test that resets the machine data to zero. That test was not done on most of the machines, which locked them and made them unable to function, she said."
(5:22) The Myrtle Beach Sun-News reports, according to state representative Tracy Edge,
"He said he was bombarded with calls from people who vote in North Myrtle Beach and other precincts in his district. Some places had no paper ballots, in violation of the law, and were using pieces of blank paper.
He said his mother-in-law was only the 12th person to vote at her precinct but was given a piece of paper and told there were no printed ballots."
He also suggests a motive: "Horry County was McCain's best county in 2000, and we expected it to be again, so this could be devasting,'' he said.
(5:27) Since this blog is shifting toward South Carolina, I might mention some geography things. Since this is a Republican contest, you can expect basically all white voters. The largest counties are Greenville County (395,357, 78% white), Richland County (320,677, seat Columbia, 50% white), Charleston County (309,969, 62% white), Spartanburg County (253,791, next to Greenville County, 75% white), Horry County (217,608, seat Myrtle Beach, 81% white), and Lexington County (216,014, adjacent to Richland County, 84% white). Eight more counties have populations of over 100,000. Thus there are no major metropolitan areas in the state. These counties with over 200,000 make up 1,713,416 people (43%) which means that this is an unusually smalltown and rural electorate.
(6:05) Sen. Harry Reid, appearing on Air America, just said there were about 110,000 people participating in the Nevada caucuses. With 95% of the results in, it is reported that Ron Paul leads McCain by 5,324 votes to 5,216. Nye County, home of the former Nevada Nuclear Test Site, still reports no Republican results but 91% of Democratic precincts report. Given the small size of the electorate, there, this is probably 10 of 11 precincts.
(6:24) CNN reports Ron Paul is winning in Carson City, a non-county unit which has a larger population than any county except Clark and Washoe. For some reason, only 38% of precincts are reporting there versus 97% statewide. Then in the last few seconds the other 62% came in and Romney is suddenly ahead 42% to 18%. They are also showing a precinct in in Nye County, which has 52 votes for Ron Paul, 44 for Romney, 37 for McCain, 29 for Huckabee, and 9 Thmpson, 8 Giuliani, and 3 Hunter. On the basis of this single precinct (3%), they are projecting Romney as the winner of the county. Who's writing this software, anyway?
(6:59) CNN reports by radio that Duncan Hunter has withdrawn from the race. That leaves six candidates. Does this mean I can now describe Giuliani's likely finish in South Carolina to be "last"? They also report that many flights have been cancelled out of Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta due to snow. The Weather Channel continues to show it is snowing around Greenville and Spartanburg in western South Carolina.
(7:09) "The State", Columbia's newspaper, has a good piece on the shenanigans in Horry County. They report, "B.J. Boling, spokesman for the McCain campaign in South Carolina, said just after 6 p.m., with less than an hour remaining for voting, there was some talk of legal action because of the fear enough voters were turned away to affect the outcome of the primary." The article also allows us to pinpoint the four worst precincts, which are expected to be running at 5:30: Salem Methodist Church in Conway; Jet Port #2 at the Myrtle Beach Recreation Center; Sweetwater Branch Church in Conway and Lake Park at Socastee Pentecostal Holy Church in Myrtle Beach.
It's BAD-"Spokesman Chris Whitmire said voters could use almost anything - "a napkin, a paper towel" - on which they could write the name of a candidate and put it in a ballot box. “Emergency paper ballots are part of the election,” Baum said."
and-
"Marie VanMeter of Surfside Beach was told when she went to her polling station at Lakewood Elementary School, ''They said they were out of ballots and none of the machines were working in Surfside. They had everyone write down their phone number and that they would call us when we could vote.''(7:20) The worst precincts in Horry County-
Salem Methodist Church: 2376 Highway 90, Conway SC 29526, is in a rural area.
"Jet Port" is a road on the east side of Myrtle Beach, in 29577.
Sweetwater Branch Church: 1436 Highway 544, Conway, SC 29526, is in a golf-heavy section of "Red Hill", a town detatched from Conway.
"Socastee" is town detached from Myrtle Beach in the 29575 zip code.
No obvious pattern. I suspect that they generally screwed up the voting machines in the county as a whole and there's just issues about which machines they can get to work.
(7:34) The Myrtle Beach Sun-News reports that voting was not extended in Horry County. It will be interesting to compare its turnout with other counties.
(7:46) Exit poll- let's see if they revise using the election results! The expectation is a McCain win (31% Male/33% Female) with Huckabee second (26%/30%), Thompson third (17%/13%), Romney fourth (16%/15%), Paul fifth (8%/4%), and Giuliani last (3%/4%). There are 1648 respondents, which suggests a sampling margin of error of around 3%. The sample was 51% male and 49% female, so you can just average the two percentages to get a McCain win by four points. "Illegal immigration" was the most important issue for 26% of voters (South Carolina is 2.5% Latino), losing out to "the economy". Due to recent Bush policy changes Republicans are now permitted to say the economy is bad.
(8:00) CNN's software sucks. Their Nevada results have 100% of precincts reporting in Nye County and indicate 415 Ron Paul votes to 399 Mitt Romney votes, and yet they show Romney as the declared winner. The New York Times has it right.
(8:03) With 12% reporting, CNN has McCain 34%, Huckabee 30%, Thompson and Romney 15% with Thompson slightly ahead, Paul 4% and Giuliani 2%. With 16% in, Charleston County is the first major county with meaningful results, with McCain strongly ahead and Romney narrowly ahead of Huckabee.
(8:18) 22% reporting. CNN has McCain 36%, Huckabee 28%. There is enough in to see that the geographical pattern is for McCain to run well ahead in major urban areas, except Greenville and Spartanburg in the west, and for Huckabee to run ahead elsewhere. This looks like there could be a call pretty soon.
(8:43) Partial results are in for all major counties except the ill-fted Horry County. It looks like McCain is massively ahead around Charleston and Columbia, with Greenville and Spartanburg even or with Huckabee slightly ahead. CNN has 51% reporting, with McCain up 33% to 30%.
(8:58) Shenanigans continue in Horry County. The Myrtle Beach Sun-News reports:
Some voting machines are not allowing poll workers to print out results or to properly close down, said John Bonsignor, president of the South Strand Republicans and a volunteer poll worker in the Marlowe precinct.
``We have to sit here, because no one has come out to help us, and we haven't been able to report our results,'' Bonsignor said. ``When we put in the green [cartridge] to close the machine it won't let us shut down and we don't want to unplug it in case it'll mean we lose all the votes.''
These are iVotronic touch-screen machines from Election Systems & Software. BradBlog reports:Late in the week poll workers picked up the iVotronic machines that they are using today. They took them home on voting machine "sleepovers" and then set-up the poll sites for today's primary.
Today only the Republicans are voting.
When the polls close this evening all memory cards, machines and supplies will be returned to the county election office.
The tallies will be done and results reported. The machines will then be prepared to be picked-up next Thursday by the same poll workers who will take them home and repeat the "sleepover" process for the Democratic primary next Saturday.
This plan seems to be a welcome mat for security problems, since the machines are highly susceptible to tampering, and even short periods outside the view of the public and election officials can be a recipe for disaster. Also in question is whether memory cards will be saved between the two primaries, as per federal law."
These machines were the same ones used in the disputed 2006 election result in Katherine Harris's former congressional district in which there were a large number of nonvotes on the Congressional race only, and not other votes held on the same day, which appeared only in Democratic parts of the district.(9:22) AP declares McCain winner. There are almost all of the results in except for four counties with little or no results. These are Horry County (pop 217,608), Florence County (125,761), Chesterfield County (42,768), and Aiken County (142,552). NBC channel 15 in Florence reports no problems with voting there, unlike in Horry County.
(9:28) New York Times declares McCain winner. They have 83% reporting, with McCain 121,958 (33.3%), Huckabee 107,953 (29.5%), Thompson 58,439 (16.0%), Romney 55,558 (15.2%), Paul 13,267 (3.6%), and Giuliani 7,631 (2.1%). McCain counties include most of the eastern two thirds of the state and Huckabee has won most of the west, including Greenville and Spartanburg. Four counties report no results or few results. These four counties contained 528,689 people in 2000, which is 13.2% of the state's population.
(9:37) Aiken County came in all at once. McCain won it by three points, which is typical for its area.
(9:39) So did Chesterfield County, which is 49% Huckabee and 28% McCain. This is only 2,206 votes.
(9:42) CNN has absurd Horry County numbers. With 98% of precincts reporting, it is Huckabee 462, McCain 351, Romney 192, Thompson 171, Giuliani 39, Paul 27, Hunter 2. This isn't even remotely the number of votes you would expect. Lexington County, which has a comparable number of white people, has 34,493 votes cast with 100% of precincts reporting. Myrtle Beach Sun-News doesn't have any local results on their website according to a 9:12 update.
(9:47) The same absurd result for Horry County is on the New York Times site.
(10:01) CNN has corrected the absurd Horry County result to 7% of precincts reporting. This projects out to 18,000 county votes, which seems like a reasonable amount.
(10:09) Looks pretty quiet out there. There might not even be any results for those last two counties. The great part is that those Myrtle Beach people are going to have to deal with the fallout in the middle of preparing for the Democrats next weekend. Shouldn't the candidates talk about this issue over the next week before they have to run elections on the exact same machines?
(10:46) Horry County now has 10% reporting. CNN has Huckabee 752, McCain 724, Romney 462, Thompson 294, Giuliani 101, Paul 68, and Hunter 2. The vote total looks reasonable for 10%.
(11:14) Horry County (CNN) has 18%. McCain 1669, Huckabee 1560, Romney 986, Thompson 727, Giuliani 187, Paul 139, and Hunter 17. This is 5,285 votes and the New York Times has 5,291.
(11:20) Horry County (CNN) 26%. McCain 2563, Huckabee 2195, Romney 1544, Thompson 1147, Giuliani 316, Paul 222, Hunter 19.
(11:26) Small disrepancies between the vote totals on CNN and the NYT are probably due to nonreporting of minor candidates Tom Tancredo, Hugh Cort, John Cox, and Cap Fendig. And these guys wouldn't let Stephen Colbert run?
(11:30) Low results are also seen in Florence County: with 33% reporting, it is Huckabee 1527, McCain 1336, Thompson 586, Romney 569, Paul 105, Giuliani 68, Hunter 7. This projects to a reasonable number of total votes cast.
(11:34) Horry County (CNN) 34%. McCain 3362, Huckabee 2787, Romney 2070, Thompson 1541, Giuliani 412, Paul 297, Hunter 22.
(12:19) It is reported that Obama has been projected to win 13 delegates to Clinton's 12 in Nevada, despite losing the popular vote.
(1:04 AM) Two counties still have outstanding precincts, and they are Florence and Horry Counties. There is no change from reported numbers.
(1:16 AM) Horry County is stiull reporting new results over six hours after the polls closed. The new number is 42% reporting, 4055 McCain, 3472 Huckabee, 2418 Romney, 1892 Thompson, 504 Giuliani, 363 Paul, and 32 Hunter. There are 16 additional votes in the NYT totals, which presumably went to fringe candidates.
(1:45 AM) CNN's new delegate totals: 38 Obama, 36 Clinton, and 18 Edwards, and 66 Romney, 38 McCain, 26 Huckabee, 8 Thompson, 6 Paul, 1 Giuliani, and 1 Hunter. Duncan Hunter has withdrwn from the race and presumably his delegate may now be uncommitted. These results are dependent on penalties for early primaries holding at the convention.
(2:17) No new reports in South Carolina since 1:16. Time to call it a night.
(12:40 PM, next day) CNN still doesn't have those two county results all in yet. Horry County has 45% reporting (the polls closed 17 hours ago) with McCain 4347, Huckabee 3733, Romney 2602, Thompson 2057, Giuliani 529, Paul 391, Hunter 33. This was last updated at 2:26 AM. Florence County has 88% reporting, last updated at 2:42 AM, with Huckabee 3987, McCain 3470, Thompson 1494, Romney 1446, Paul 280, Giuliani 166, and Hunter 17.
You know, the stereotype of Republican voter suppression is that it takes place in poor or minority areas, but Horry County is the whitest and wealthiest major urban area in South Carolina. Similarly, the 2006 incident using the same machines in the race to fill Katherine Harris's congressional seat involved an area which was affluent and white. Are these the voters the Republican Party doesn't want voting?
This morning's Myrtle Beach Sun-News says that all the paper ballots were counted last night, but they are still awaiting results from the electronic voting machines, which are expected late this afternoon:
"All the results from Horry County's 118 precincts for yesterday's Republican presidential primary are expected to be in late Sunday afternoon, said Sandy Martin, the director of the county's election office.
About 4,000 paper ballots were cast in the county, Martin said. All the paper ballots were counted last night.
Martin said that election workers still needed to tabulate results from the voting machines from 25 of the county's precincts."The Sun-News also reports that the problem was that the closing time for the election on the machines was set by the state to be on February 26, when the Democratic primary closes. Interesting that they would only make that goof in one county... and ALSO make an independent goof on the same machines which made them not start properly in the morning.
"An incorrect closing time for voting machines set by the S.C. Election Commission forced Horry County election workers to close the machines manually and delayed the issuing of the final results, said Garry Baum, a spokesman for the commission.
The voting machines were set to open on Jan. 19 but to not close until Jan. 26, the date of the Democratic presidential primary. The machines should have also been set to close on Jan. 19.
The problem had nothing to do with an issue earlier in the day that disabled many of the county's voting machines and forced several thousand voters to cast paper ballots.
Sandy Martin, the director of the county's election office, said the county would have been able to issue all the results Saturday night if the state had set the closing for the correct time.
Martin said the voting machines, manufactured by Omaha, Neb.-based Election Systems & Software, require a 10-step process to close manually. She said it takes several minutes to do so.
Baum said the state election commission prepares the voting machines before they are sent to the counties. He said he was unsure if a similar problem had affected other counties."
The Sun News also reports that the county Democratic Party is concerned that the machines may not work on Saturday- and they say Republicans turned away are welcome to vote in the Democratic primary.
(5:24) Florence County seems to have not changed its results, but now is claimed to have 100% of precincts reporting instead of 88% before. I guess they don't need the other precincts.We currently have reports of over 200 separate incidents of trouble at caucus sites, including doors being closed up to thirty minutes early, registration forms running out so people were turned away, and ID being requested and checked in a non-uniform fashion. This is in addition to the Clinton campaign’s efforts to confuse voters and call into question the at-large caucus sites which clearly had an affect on turnout at these locations. These kinds of Clinton campaign tactics were part of an entire week’s worth of false, divisive, attacks designed to mislead caucus-goers and discredit the caucus itself.
We will investigate all of these thoroughly and would encourage anyone who had concern about actions at the caucus sites to call (866) 675-2008.
Horry County has also done the same, except in this case the modification of the precincts reporting has been from 45% reporting to 91% reporting. 13,702 votes (at 91%) seems low for this county, since Lexington County, with a similar population, has 34,493, and snow-affected Spartanburg County, which is 20% larger, has 30,164 votes.
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