Election Blues

Well it looks like Hillary Clinton is still in it. For another couple of weeks, anyway.

In other news, the New York Times has an editorial today dealing with two pernicious electoral tricks, Vote Caging and Robo-Calls, that Congress is apparently trying to deal with.

Vote caging is a little-known but pernicious technique. Political operatives mail letters to voters, targeting areas where the opposing party is strong. If a letter is returned as undeliverable, the voter’s name is put on a list to be challenged at the polls. The challengers try to persuade election officials not to let the person vote, or only to let them cast a provisional ballot. Some voters end up disenfranchised. No matter how the challenges turn out, they often create confusion and long lines, reducing turnout in the targeted precincts.

Minority voters have been especially victimized. In an infamous case in Louisiana, a Republican political operative boasted that a vote-caging program “could keep the black vote down considerably.”

Hopefully these issues will be dealt with, but odds are against it, I guess.