The American Samoa delegation has just voted, casting all 9 votes for Senator Obama.

The land of endless blue skies (Arizona) and on behalf of crazy old man McCain's state; 40 for Obama, 27 for Hillary Clinton.

Arkansas is up now.

Bill Gwatney's widow is speaking on behalf of Arkansas

Arkansas casts 47 votes for Barack Obama.

Total current

1549.5-341.5 currently.

Halfway there!!!

A series on trends in voter registration

In early August, the New York Times revealed that since 2005, there has been a major shift in party registration, with the Republicans losing ground to Democrats and to unaffiliated voters. But what caused these shifts? How large have they been in key (and not so key) states? Have there been any demographic shifts? How will they help (or hinder) the Democratic party's chances at victory this November?

The answer can be found below.

Louisiana is one of the 3 states (along with Florida and North Carolina) which both registers voters by party and collects racial data as part of compliance with Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

While the combination of Hurricane Katrina and the still-existing legacy of Democratic dominance of the state make it tough to read too much into these numbers, we can still glean something from them.

A series on trends in voter registration

In early August, the New York Times revealed that since 2005, there has been a major shift in party registration, with the Republicans losing ground to Democrats and to unaffiliated voters. But what caused these shifts? How large have they been in key (and not so key) states? Have there been any demographic shifts? How will they help (or hinder) the Democratic party's chances at victory this November?

The answer can be found below.

I'm going to spend less time on this one, since Alabama isn't important on the presidential level or on the state level at all; not this year. However, there are perhaps 3 competitive congressional district races.

Like Georgia, Alabama does not register voters by party, yet as a state covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, it, too, collects registration totals by race.

This is what I would call educated speculation.  However, such a scenario is possible.

As you may or may not have heard, Joe Biden has chosen to downgrade his worth to less than that of a container of above room temperature urine by moving his relationship with Barack Obama from AIDS test confidante to running mate. I say downgrade because the Chairman of Foreign Relations is a powerful, powerful man. After all, both Benazir Bhutto and Pervez Musharraf gave Joe Biden a call during the crisis last year which culminated in her death and his ouster. Only later did they bother to call our roof-raising excuse for a president.

This means that Joe's ending his 36-year Senate career and relinquishing his Chairmanship, increasing to 2 the number of guys named Joe who will no longer be chairing Senate Committees come January of 2009.

The Barack Obama campaign this morning urged Chicago supporters to sign up soon if they want to travel by train to Obama's Springfield kickoff of his "battleground states" tour preceding the Democratic National Convention.

Obama and his still-unnamed vice presidential nominee will appear at the Old State Capitol in Springfield Saturday afternoon.

Granted, this story is not entirely accurate as it links to a grassroots-created event page on MyBO (the traditional media is a little slow on technology-grasping), but it's still nice to hear.

I will make this political (I may even bring some VP into it), although Amtrak itself is inherently political. After all, while John McCain was supposedly inventing broadband as Chairman of Commerce, Science and Transportation, he was also trying to kill Amtrak. However, I'm making this diary more political than merely the level of politicality that Amtrak generally rates.

More stories below the fold:

From the AP:

A major voting machine maker has cautioned its customers in 34 states to look out for a programming error that may cause votes to be dropped.

At least 1,000 total votes were dropped in nine Ohio counties over the course of a handful elections back to 2006, including the March presidential primary, though the error was in all cases discovered and corrected within several hours. Premier Election Solutions Inc. previously had said complications with antivirus software caused the problem, but on Tuesday the company said in a product advisory that the problem is with the machines themselves.

Not good news. Not good at all. By the way, Premier Election Solutions Inc. is the company formerly known as Diebold. Yes, that Diebold. Although I believe George Bush won Ohio in 2004, that still makes it more disturbing.

While paper ballots will allow for checking the results, we still don't have them everywhere.

First piece in a series on trends in voter registration

In early August, the New York Times revealed that since 2005, there has been a major shift in party registration, with the Republicans losing ground to Democrats and to unaffiliated voters. But what caused these shifts? How large have they been in key (and not so key) states? Have there been any demographic shifts? How will they help (or hinder) the Democratic party's chances at victory this November?

The answer can be found below.

Georgia does not have voter registration by party. As you may recall, in addition to "the Jews", Cynthia McKinney's campaign blamed "crossover" votes from Republicans for her losses in the 2002 and 2006 primaries.

However, thanks to the legacy of Lester Maddox, Georgia is covered by the Voting Rights Act, and as such, registration data by race is available.

The latest news in the Ted Stevens/VECO bribery case is quite possibly the most shocking.

According to the federal government, in addition to the house additions, Ted Stevens accepted a free generator from VECO CEO Bill Allen.

Ted's reason for wanting a generator is shocking enough.

a new court filing from the federal government suggests that Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, was one of the people who was concerned that the transition from "99" to "00" would wreak havoc on the nation's electric grid.

But the real shocker is that Ted Stevens requested the free generator via e-mail

One of the biggest mistakes I feel we in the national netroots (state blogs have been more into it) have made this cycle  (and every cycle, for that matter) is our lack of involvement in primaries for open House seats.

In my opinion, getting involved in open-seat races is probably the easiest way to ensure a progressive House of Representatives. If we get in early, we can help provide a major cash advantage for our preferred candidate, because there is no incumbent with a massive war chest to take down.

It's also far, far easier to win an open-seat primary than it is to take down an entrenched incumbent (granted, it's still worth it in cases like Wynn and Lieberman and Cuellar and Lipinski, but there's only a handful of other districts where it's worth the resources). Furthermore, if we don't get involved, a bad candidate might get through.

Of course, it's too late for that in tonight's race in CO-2, and Jared Polis and Joan Fitz-Gerald both seem to be fine candidates.

Results below or from The Denver Post

Yup. He's given $230,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee this cycle ($200,000 from his campaign fund, and $30,000 from his leadership PAC.

Now, obviously, as mentioned in the Politico article, he's doing this to try to buy himself some love:

"Basically, he doesn’t want everybody to hate him," one Lieberman-friendly Democrat said. "Plus he wants to keep his committee."

Of course, that's not good enough. Despite the fact that Tom Carper (next most senior member) is not a great Democrat, we will make sure he becomes chairman. If Lieberman wants to make peace, he can do so by using his time at the Republican Convention to castigate McCain and endorse Barack Obama (think of the media you'd get, Joe! That's what matters to you above all, isn't it?). Otherwise, he's out.

My real point is this.

A non-Democratic member of the Senate has put more money ($257,000) towards electing Democratic Senators than most Democratic Senators have.

2008 is a major, major opportunity that's not coming again for a while. We've got a legit shot at at least 12 pickups. They need to pony up.

Sorry to break the bad news to y'all.

But our hero, the great, the learned, the wise, the socially studied Brock Olivo seems to be heading to a resounding defeat tonight.

Despite his star record as a rusher at Mizzou and his Jehovah's Witness-like commitment to showing up at the polls, the Republican voters seem to be going with one of the other unqualified candidates, either the corrupt "family values" man Bob Onder, or the liar Blaine Luetkemeyer.

It's neck and neck between Steve Gaw and Judy Baker for the Democratic nomination in this seat, last held by a Democrat named Harold Volkmer, who lost to current incumbent Ken Hulshof (who's narrowly ahead in the gubernatorial primary tonight) in 1998
Results below:

Link here

Currently Hulshof (R-Gov), Powell (D-Treasurer), Koster(D-Atty. Gen), Luetkemeyer(R-District 9), and Gaw (D-District 9) are leading

That's the message I'm getting from every female House Republican except for Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

It's been over 45 years since President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, and yet women still earn only 77 cents for every dollar made by men.

After the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 (Justice Alito writing the opinion) against Lily Ledbetter last year in her suit against Goodyear under that Act for basing raises on her gender, Democrats in Congress have been trying to pass something to ensure women have routes to fight pay discrimination.

Today the House passed the Paycheck Fairness Act 247-178.

That's right. Republicans are coming our way. At least that's what it seems like to me.

Senator Sam Brownback has just publicly denounced a newly revealed program where the government requires foreign-owned hotels to install equipment to allow them to monitor Internet transmissions.

These hotels are justifiably outraged by ... their customers ... being spied on by ... the government.
.
.
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If you were a human rights advocate, if you're a journalist, you're in room 1251 of a hotel, anything that you use, sending out over the Internet is monitored in real time. It's not right.

It's unbelievable, isn't it? Sam Brownback coming out for the 4th amendment.

He's introducing a resolution today in the Senate on the issue. Progress is being made!

Except, of course, the 4th amendment does not apply in this jurisdiction, because these hotels are located in the People's Republic of China.

I'd been planning to write an entry bashing Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters for her attempts to privatize our road system.

While doing some more research, I found that the Department of Transportation now has a blog, The Fast Lane.   The comment policy is disturbing, to say the least.

The Fast Lane is a moderated blog, and we expect this community to treat its members with respect.  All comments will be reviewed before posting, and a representative sample will be posted to the site.

In other words, their stated policy involves picking and choosing (i.e. censoring) comments by the public on a government-run website.

If I'm reading the pocket Constitution I got at NN correctly (thanks, ACLU), this is in violation of the First Amendment statement that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech ... or the right of the people to petition the government"

Such is my take, anyway, and I believe it behooves those of us in the blogosphere to get such policies addressed and rectified sooner rather than later.

It's time, once again, for me to write about my time at the convention, taking in all the important parts of the convention but emphasizing myself.

It's a harrowing tale. Join me as I relive my time spent with my good libertarian friend Bob Barr, some LaRouchies, quite a few great candidates many, many many great bloggers, and quite a lot of refreshing beverages.

Hats were stolen, hearts were broken, and I even found a protege to indoctrinate.

And yes, the Squirmy Rooter and Rick Astley were involved.

Join me below the fold.

Sorry I'm late, y'all. Breakfast with the candidates and showering and whatnot.

Debbie Cook, Huntington Beach mayor is up now.

Serves on two non-profit boards

Study for Peak Oil ???

Post-Carbon Institute.

Jerome A Paris is awesome, and without the Internets, she'd never be Energy Smart.

The down button is missing from her PC.

Picture: "A Road Forward"-Bliss Rd and Dead End crossroads.

JeffLieber turns out to be a DEA official, so I will soon be arrested for underage drinking.

Help, help, I'm being repressed.

It's his second job.

He brought the Squirmy Rooter, too, but it's not here now.

Maybe later ...

Meeting people terrifies him.

Ben Masel wants to get me in trouble. I'm in!

Sign on the men's room door: Larry Craig Caucus

What is this world coming to? I always thought that if only two things in this world were certain, they were these:

1. It's the members of the Democrat party that flip-flop

2. Ron Paul will always vote against spending money that was stolen by force by the Government from innocent freedom-loving Americans.

Yet today, my beliefs have been cruelly torn asunder. Ron Paul joined the Democrat party in stealing our money, and the Republicans flip-flopped on taking more of our money for the Socialist Medicare program.

I am very, very upset.