Monitoring the U.S. Elections Online?

shahman wonders: "I'll be on the road all day this election day, so the only access I'll have is through my PDA/Phone. I was wondering if any Slashdot readers know of WAP-enabled services or low-bandwidth sites that are providing (semi) real-time election coverage?" Nobbin has a similar, but less bandwidth-restrictive question: "I was wondering where I could find live results for the coming U.S. election, online. I live in Australia so I can't get them through watching CNN and so forth. I'm looking for something similar to the Austalian Electoral Commission's virtual tally room. So far, Google hasn't turned up much."

Does this exist?

[l810c]

Where can find detailed information about all candidates down to the county level? Positions on issues, voting record, etc. would be great. I know the positions of all of the National and most of the State candidates. I do not have a party affiliation and usually vote for the candidate whose platform most closely resembles mine.

I live outside Atlanta. The Atlanta Paper [ajc.com](Get login from bugmenot.com) has Great information about all of the candidates in the 'Metro' Atlanta area. I'm 2 houses away from that area in Newton County, GA. My cable providor is from an adjacent county, so I haven't been able to see any ads about the ones in my county. The local paper [newtoncitizen.net] is useless.

Why libertarians/conservatives can't support Bush

[ShatteredDream]

For a long time I have been critical of Bush and his policies. For those that are looking for a systematic reason why a conservative or libertarian shouldn't support Bush, I have one here [blindmindseye.com]. I think that I have covered basically all of the bases for those on the right, including most of the major reasons that hold outs use to support him.

Re:www.electoral-vote.com

[Ancient Devices King]

There is a similar site at election.princeton.edu [princeton.edu] which has the same idea (averages polls to make predictions), but gives more detailed statistical information. I'm not sure if he'll be updating during the day tomorrow, but he's been updating all day today.

Watch the stocket market

[macdaddy]

For me all I have to do is watch the value of one of my stocks. Specifically I just have to watch the value of my StemCells, Inc (Nasdaq: STEM) [yahoo.com] stock. I own 3000 shares of it. If Kerry is doing well then so will my stock. If Kerry isn't doing so well then my stock value will probably go down. Personally I am predicting a record payday for me tomorrow. So are many others apparently. Stay tuned...

REAL monitoring

[nordicfrost]

You see, Colin Powell invited representatives from the OSCE (org. for security and cooperation in Europe) to actually monitor the election. Now they are BARRED from the place wherre people cast their ballots, due t local rules. Member of Parliament in Norway, Bjørn Hernæs, said he was stunned but admired the ammount of self-rule the lokal states have.

Personally, I think it is because the lokal election stations are so badly run, the states fear what might happen if someone saw and documented it.

Re:Absentee Ballots

[RicoX9]

Actually, absentee ballots aren't even counted if there are less of them than the difference in votes between candidates.

Lets say that in voting precinct 911, John Doe gets 5382 votes, and George Doe gets 6853 votes. You'd have to have 1471 or more absentee ballots in that precinct before they'd even open the ballots. Basically, 1470 absentee ballots can't affect the outcome.

(This is my understanding from what I remember of the Florida idiocy 4 years ago, correct as necessary)

Re:18% Bush, 43% Kerry

[Temporal]

Somewhat off-topic, but most polls, including those on Slashdot and real ones -- like tomorrow's election -- are decided in the first few hundred votes. After than the proportions change very little, unless there is some reason why the makeup of the voters would be different later on. So it is not surprising in the least that those percentages have been constant all day.

Blogging the election : the legal side

[abenoboy]

Lawyers and judges decided the last election. This year, each side's got an army of lawyers waiting in jets on standby-- University of Pittsburgh Law School's legal news site, Jurist, will be blogging the election night from the legal point of view.

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/ [pitt.edu]

This is exactly what you're looking for

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.vote-smart.org [vote-smart.org] is a website that lists the stances voting records, special interest group ratings, campaign finance....the works.

I went ahead and plugged yours in for example and convenience:

Newton County, GA [vote-smart.org]

CURRENT STATE ELECTIONS
Presidential Election 2004
Congressional Election 2004
Georgia State Legislative Election 2004 (Senate)
Georgia State Legislative Election 2004 (House)

CURRENT OFFICIALS
U.S. Senate
Senator Zell Bryan Miller Senior Seat - (Democrat)
Senator C. Saxby Chambliss Junior Seat - (Republican)

U.S. House
Representative David Scott District 13 - (Democrat)

Georgia Senate
Senator Faye Smith District 25 - (Democrat)

Georgia House of Representatives
Representative James Scott 'Jim' Stokes District 72 - (Democrat)

Georgia State Offices
Governor George 'Sonny' Perdue - (Republican)
Lt. Governor Mark Fletcher Taylor - (Democrat)
Agriculture Commissioner Tommy Irvin - (Democrat)
Attorney General Thurbert E. Baker - (Democrat)
Insurance Commissioner John W. Oxendine - (Republican)
Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond - (Democrat)
Public Service Commissioner Herman Douglas 'Doug' Everett - (Republican)
Public Service Commissioner Stan Wise - (Republican)
Public Service Commissioner Angela Speir - (Republican)
Public Service Commissioner Robert 'Bobby' Baker - (Republican)
Public Service Commissioner David Burgess - (Democrat)
Secretary of State Cathy Cox - (Democrat)
State Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox - (Republican)

CURRENT CANDIDATES
Presidential and Potential Presidential Candidates

U.S. Senate Candidates
Mr. Allen Buckley - (Libertarian)
Representative John H. 'Johnny' Isakson - (Republican)
Representative Denise L. Majette - (Democrat)

U.S. House Candidates
Representative David Scott District 13 - (Democrat)

Georgia Senate Candidates
Representative John Douglas District 17 - (Republican)

Georgia House of Representatives Candidates
Terry Evans District 112 - (Democrat)
Douglas Holt District 112 - (Republican)

Re:Nothing to see here. Move along...

[general_re]

Of course it's not out of your hands. You've just voted.

At which point, you're done contributing, and nothing you do has any further impact on the outcome.

You're saying that people will vote for a candidate because they've already heard they are going to win!

No, I'm saying that people will not get out and vote for a candidate that they've already heard will lose, and I've got history on my side - early calls in 1980 clearly affected turnout in the west. Larger turnout wouldn't have saved Carter, but depressing it probably cost the Democrats at least one seat in the House, maybe two. Given that, why on earth should you get the information that much earlier, particularly when the time of its release has no material impact on you at all, and the only potential impact on the outcome is negative for one side or the other?

Re:Australia has the Fox News Channel!

[tigersha]

I was just about to post the Bild link. LAst weekend Bild had a headline on the front page (on the goddam day the EU constitution was signed!) that the earth is going to flip on its axis and cause massive tidal waves. That was the MAIN headline.

The only one I ever bought involved someone stating that astrologic signs have gone out of alignment since antiquity (they have) and then the paper lamented about how the hell we are now supposed to know our future and if we are all really different than the stars predict. Main headline.

Re:better yet,

[mt v2.7]

I think I'm going out on a limb here... but I think we can say the majority of hackers are liberal.

Re:Australia has the Fox News Channel!

[Rayonic]

> the rest of the world watches news - america watches fox

I don't tend to watch TV news very often, but I don't see what's so bad with Fox News. The only complaint I've really seen leveled at Fox is that sometimes they cover stories CNN won't.

Also that their opinion programs give voice to Conservative (as well Liberal) viewpoints.

The BBC, on the other hand, has people weeping for Yasser Arafat [bbc.co.uk].