Election Day is … not quite over, is it? But it’s close enough to finally read those liberal Electoral College projections that have predicted a solid Obama win since forever. If it turns out that Mitt Romney already lost, as John Ziegler wrote in the Huffington Post today, then the most important thing is to find something (or someone) to blame. Oh, look, there’s a $100-million punching bag right over there! His name is Mittens, and he’s not even a real Christian, so have at him!

It’s Hurricane Sandy’s Fault

GOP caricature Haley Barbour was sent out to tell CNN viewers that Hurricane Sandy killed Mitt’s longshot chance. “The hurricane is what broke Romney’s momentum,” Barbour said. Well sure, it was a very powerful hurricane. Then again, it seemed to have the opposite effect on Barack Obama.

Money Isn’t Powerful Enough, These Days

There is nothing sadder than very rich people not being able to buy an election. Is money somehow not magic, in 2012? It still has a prayer to God right on the currency, doesn’t it? Despite all the hundreds of millions of dollars the very wealthy have spent to convince America of the proper decision on Election Day, the money failed. “You keep throwing money at the problem and it just doesn’t resolve,” a super-secret conservative money operative told BuzzFeed. Is this even legal, to not be able to purchase a basic presidency?

Republican Voters Are All Elderly White Ghouls

Since 1992, Democrats have won every presidential election except for 2000 and 2004, which they lost by a single state. Democrats are young, diverse, urban and tolerant. They are, in other words, “people who are not close to death.” Republican voters are mostly old white men, and they are literally dying out. Mitt Romney’s support is 91% white. “If we lose this election there is only one explanation — demographics,” says Republican dandy Lindsey Graham.

Romney Isn’t Conservative Enough

This is the most hilarious reason, because it suggests that the GOP could’ve wrapped this thing up only with an actual mouth-breathing fanatic like Rick Santorum, so the Republicans could win maybe two states, and achieve … moral victory? Who knows. This “GOP operative” is just full of good ideas: “Structurally, a Romney loss, following a McCain loss, would be a rebuke to moderates who have wanted ideological conservatives to fill the bus but not drive the bus.”

The Bible Doesn’t Like Mitt, Either

From the delightful web article, “The Conservative Case Against Mitt Romney,” we learn that it’s the Holy Bible that really determines these outcomes:

The foremost liability against Romney is his untrustworthiness. As the Bible says in 1 Timothy 6:10, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” It is out of this singular trait that flow many of the reasons conservatives should not support the former Massachusetts governor. Each of these liabilities can be broken into simple conservative principles: restraint in foreign policy, personal responsibility, privatization of loss, and the preservation of life.

So, basically, the Bible is Occupy Wall Street, the end.

Earlier in the week I casually retweeted a note from the activist Bob Fitrakis. He’d posted a story about secret new software patches that had been rolled out to Ohio voting machines, with dark suggestions of shenanigans afoot in the counting of the votes there. Election maniacs may recall Fitrakis from the Ohio debacle of 2004, when he worked with Cliff Arnebeck to try to prove election fraud. (The questionability of the 2004 results is not quite in tinfoil territory; many not-outwardly-foaming observers do still believe that the Kerry-Bush election was stolen in Ohio.)

Soon a response came from one @JoeBeOne:

Please don’t spread shaky voting machine rumors freepress.org/departments/di… , however tempting. Anything by Bello or Fritakis is conspiracy theory.

— Joseph Lorenzo Hall (@JoeBeOne) November 3, 2012

.@mariabustillos as a voting technology expert, I can tell you fears about the OH software are way overblown. tabulators are air-gapped.

— Joseph Lorenzo Hall (@JoeBeOne) November 3, 2012

Air-gapped! @JoeBeOne turned out to be Joseph Lorenzo Hall, senior staff technologist at the Center for Democracy and Technology in D.C., and he is indeed a highly qualified voting expert. And like an answered prayer from the desperate, wild-eyed, bedraggled election-obsessed lunatic that I am, this election expert had miraculously appeared out of the clear blue in order to help me separate fact from fiction. Say on, I begged.

@mariabustillos Air gap = no contact between voting system and reporting software. Tabulation results are walked over to a different PC.

— Joseph Lorenzo Hall (@JoeBeOne) November 3, 2012

A few more tweets followed this (concatenated below):

So, this software doesn’t touch the official system. The SoS could show results before and after to address concerns here. To be sure: voting systems are exceedingly vulnerable. But there are much more subtle ways to mess with them. And what we need are regular risk-limiting audits that can detect mischief or error.

If you have come down with Election Fever, as I have, talking with extremely qualified people who spend their whole workday on these matters is the best way to cause your bulging skull to return to its ordinary proportions.

So I arranged to speak with Joe later in the day, over email. (Lightly edited for clarity and punctuation.)

Maria Bustillos: I no longer know what to believe in media reports of electronic election tampering. What are professionals most worried about, at this point, in this election?

Joseph Lorenzo Hall: It’s a very complex area and unfortunately one that lends itself to dearths of information and poor intuition… which is how Bello and Fitrakis get way out into left field. Extending email/fax voting to displaced NJ voters is making us very nervous… check out Matt Blaze here. What I think we expect to see a lot of — and it’s not as sexy as conspiracy theory — is the aging of this machinery, as much of it is 10- to 15-year-old computer equipment. Another not-so-sexy source of problems will be from newer online voter registration systems, an electronic version of pollbooks. We may see strange reports of people not being registered or being marked down as already voted. Much of that will seem to some like fraud, but it is more likely poorly checked voter registration rolls. People don’t like having to cast provisional ballots, but they need to understand that if you’re registered and at the right location, the ballot will count.

Maria: Why do you think we haven’t been able to solve these problems, given that we’ve had years in which to do so?

Joe: Two reasons: 1) no one cares about it until presidential election years, and mostly right before that election; and, 2) there is no regular source of federal funding for elections (when it comes to a state or local government choosing between spending money to fill potholes — which affect people every day — or making elections better, they will fill the potholes).

Maria: Which of the voting ‘conspiracy theorists’ are doing the most harm, in your view, and how?

Joe: Well, Fitrakis and Bello really seem to be getting widespread play this year for some reason. I can’t tell you how many otherwise smart and discerning people have asked me about both their two recent stories on “Romney owns voting machines in Ohio” and this new “scary last-minute software update” one. The frustrating part is that in other times of the year people like myself would have time to carefully debunk this well-manufactured drivel, but at the moment I’m too concerned with real issues, like making sure voters on election day and volunteers in the field have the information they need, however mundane or technical, to make sure all registered, eligible voters can cast a ballot. Luckily, in the case of the “Romney owns voting machines” story, the reliable fact-checking site Snopes.com has really hit it out of the park.

As to who’s doing the most damage… chalk up Naomi Wolf in that category as she seems to think that getting rid of the secret ballot would solve all our problems.

What an amazingly stupid idea! She probably doesn’t know — why would she? — that voting before we instituted the secret ballot in the US (around 1900 for most states) was a payday for most voters, and that when we instituted the secret ballot voter turnout dropped like a rock since vote buyers could no longer be assured that they were getting what they paid for.

Also, I’m not a big fan of the Brad Blog, as he can be very sensational and ego-driven. However, he often has good facts and original analysis, so while I don’t visit his site, I don’t immediately write-off what he has to say, just his tone and likely his policy recommendations.

Maria: One last question, is there anything that you’d recommend voters should look out for in the way of irregularities? And is the phone number you tweeted this morning (866 OUR VOTE) the best place to report irregularities all over the country, or are there different places to report different irregularities?

Joe: The number-one recommendation I can make is make sure voters “check their work”; that is, if you’re voting on a voting machine, it will usually summarize your selections on a final screen before you cast your vote (and if there is a paper trail — a printer on the side, be sure to carefully make sure it prints your choices correctly). Make sure this ballot summary reflects how you want to vote because this is the most likely step where voters would make a mistake or an attacker would try and take advantage of an inattentive voter and show something different on the screen versus the paper. If you have a problem, tell the poll workers and then call us at (non-partisan) Election Protection at 866-OUR-VOTE.

866-OUR-VOTE is the only number people need to know: find your polling place, report any kind of problem, from lines to registration problems to issues with voting machinery. I’ll be at the DC command center as one of the voting tech geeks.

THE ONE ELECTION APP YOU SHOULD REALLY GET

After we spoke, Joe sent me along to Pam Smith, president of the Verified Voting Foundation, who is just a walking treasury of clarity and helpful information. I spoke with her by telephone yesterday. She was en route to DC to join a coordinated group of voting rights experts, technologists and lawyers, including Joe Hall.

The best thing I learned from Pam: she helped me to find a free app called ElectProtect (Android version here), which can be used on all smartphones and iPads and will provide your polling place, tell you whether or not your registration at that address is active, and give the rules for your polling place based on where you live (such as, whether or not you need an ID). It will also let you know what kind of voting machine you’ll be using. I tried it and it worked like a charm.

You can use ElectProtect to look up anyone’s voter information, so if you have this app installed you can help anyone who might need it on Election Day.

I asked Pam specifically about Ohio, since that is where a lot of the rumors have been concentrated.

“Ohio is actually in reasonably good shape,” she said. Throughout Ohio, there is a paper trail for votes; that is, even if you vote electronically you get a paper receipt, so that there can be recounts after. All the electronic machines, no matter which of the three voting machine companies they originate from, are required by law to provide paper receipts.

Another thing that people don’t know, Pam said, is that there are paper ballots available for those who would prefer not to vote with the electronic machines. This is required by Ohio law. “Most people don’t avail themselves of these, but they should know that they could.” If there are long lines for machines, for example, or if the machines are down, you can ask for a paper ballot at your Ohio polling place.

The most important thing is that election results be auditable. Promising advances have been made in this area; Joe sent me to Cyrus Farivar’s article at arstechnica about new, super accurate auditing methods that is freakishly interesting and involves Dungeons and Dragons dice.

In any case, a post-election audit is required by law in Ohio, whether the election is close or not. This audit can be observed by the public, by election observers, anyone. If there are discrepancies then a recommendation can be made to the Secretary of State, if there is a chance the audit could affect the outcome.

Verified Voting is strictly nonpartisan; their goal is simply that everyone should vote. (Which may or may not be the goal of some, but that is another kettle of fish.) “If I had my way,” Smith said, “you’d be automatically registered to vote at age 18. Then we could concentrate on all the other problems,” she said.

When I asked how someone in her position felt about partisanship, she replied with practiced ease. “There are differences in how people treat the rules,” she said. For example, there are rules in certain states where a vote will be disqualified for having been cast at the wrong precinct, which in some cases might be a question of the wrong table in a big room; in those cases voter intent can very easily be determined, and there’s no need to disqualify a ballot. “But most elections officials are trying to do the right thing,” she concluded.

At the National Command Center, where Pam Smith and Joe Hall will be working, several hundred volunteers from different voting-rights organizations are gathering to help voters in real time to find polling places and to talk with attorneys to solve specific problems (and who can take action, if necessary). The hotline number, as we said before, is 866 OUR VOTE, and the website is ourvotelive.org. Here you can see complaints coming in in real time, so that problem areas can be identified as they are reported in.

Will you sleep? I asked Pam.

“No sleep until the 7th,” she said wryly. “And then, we’ll see.”

Maria Bustillos is the author of Dorkismo and Act Like a Gentleman, Think Like a Woman. Thumbnail photo by lowjumpingfrog.

“Shoppers Drug Mart pulled Christmas music from its almost 1,200 stores across Canada at midnight Friday after hearing complaints from customers that they weren’t quite ready for the season to be jolly.”
 — Okay, that “moving to Canada” thing finally makes sense.

“There is no issue with the toe. The risk of freezing on the way to the bar or being attacked by a pack of wolves would be higher.”
 — Yes, it’s the cocktail “garnished with a preserved human toe.”

This rap-rock video about how great America is like a mix of Insane Clown Posse and Bobby McFerrin and Billy Joel and Night Ranger. It’s really… something. But you should still vote tomorrow anyway.

“Death rates spike when more than half of the moon is visible in the night sky, according to research by longevity analysts.”

“Much of Politico’s published output seems deliberately engineered to exasperate high-minded liberals who consider journalism an act of public service. In its short half-dozen-year lifespan, the Politico brand has become a byword for a style of political reporting that gleefully defies almost every liberal shibboleth about the civic values of newsgathering: gossipy, blithely unconcerned with policy or the real-world effects of the actions of political actors, fixated on artificial ‘narratives,’ designed to flatter the powerful.”
 — Consider Politico.

“Will you tell your children that a liberal government will increasingly marginalize, dismiss and weaken the support for and the safety of the Jewish state?… Will you explain that whatever their personal beliefs, tax-funded institutions will require them to imbibe and repeat the slogans of the left, and that, should they differ, they cannot have a career in education, medicine or television unless they keep their mouths shut?… Most importantly, will you teach them never to question the pronouncements of those in power, for to do so is to risk ostracism?”
 — Right-wing “convert” David Mamet appeals to American Jews’ sense of parental guilt

as he encourages them to live up to the all the worst stereotypes in an essay he published yesterday at The Jewish Journal. Be tribal, selfish, greedy and penny-pinching, he says (I’m paraphrasing but only slightly.) And ambitious in your social climbing as you try to manipulate your children into becoming doctors or lawyers or media-world “macherim.” Be conniving and duplicitous as you lie to save face in polite society afterward. Don’t worry. It’s okay (just between us)… lots of Jews do it.

“Trillions of dollars worth of stock certificates and other paper securities that were stored in a vault in lower Manhattan may have suffered water damage from Superstorm Sandy. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., an industry-run clearing house for Wall Street, said the contents of its vault ‘are likely damaged.’”
 — And here you are worried about people having food and water and electricity.

Exactly Where and When to Be Useful in New York City Today

Blue = volunteer locations, green = dropoff locations.

Here’s a pretty good summary of volunteer locations for today in and around New York City. From there and other sources, here’s where to go.

GOWANUS
Volunteers and donations are needed for the Gowanus Houses. Info and schedule here; volunteer sign-up form here.

RED HOOK
Report to 402 Van Brunt starting at 10 a.m.

STATEN ISLAND
Report to Christian Pentecostal Church, 900 Richmond Rd, corner of Ralph Pl, starting at 9 a.m.

ROCKAWAYS
Cars and drivers needed and, it is stressed, people to do labor. Donations report to 443 Beach 54th starting at 8:30 a.m.

EVERYWHERE
Report to St. Jacobi Church in Sunset Park, 5406 4th Ave. They will shuttle volunteers to needed locations from there, departing promptly at 10 a.m

PLANNING FOR TOMORROW
Down in Coney Island, meeting at Generation Gap at 2904 Neptune Avenue, they are going to need people to help seniors get to the polls.

OUT OF TOWN?
Send a gift, why don’t ya.