Month: March 2013

Honest mistake or voter fraud?

A recent article on addictinginfo.org examines the case of an 86-year-old with Parkinson’s disease, accused of voter fraud. From the article:

Hooray! In their efforts to disenfranchise tackle that ever-so crushing 0.0002 percent problem of voter fraud (equivalent to the number of UFO sightings and the money spent on House Speaker Boehner’s tanning bed solution), the GOP finally nailed one of those sneaky, derelict voters. Never-mind that the guilty party is an 86-year-old woman with dementia, who says she forgot she had already sent in her absentee ballot when she went to her polling place in November. Whip out the Mission Accomplished banner and send this octogenarian to Gitmo!

The article goes on to say that Margaret Schneider mistakenly voted twice in the 2012 primaries, and that Margaret’s stance on it is that she should not have been allowed to vote twice, and thus the election judges are just as guilty.

At least here in Harris County, Texas, those at the polling places know who voted by mail and early voted, and those people are not allowed to vote again. Those responsible for running the election in Nicollet County, Minnesota, apparently didn’t do that in this instance, or someone didn’t mark the election rolls correctly.

I’ll be honest here, I’m all for getting rid of voter fraud, by which I mean intentional “stuffing of the ballot box” and other such manipulation of election results to something other than what would result from a true, accurate count of the popular vote. This, to me, is not voter fraud. I normally don’t like the inclusion of intent or “mens rea” into the definition of a crime, as often it can be manipulated in the favor of the prosecution where it should not be. In this case, however, I don’t think there was an intent to defraud, and so this case cannot possibly stand up at trial with any decent jury rendering a verdict.

The troublesome part, to me, is this:

Schneider, convinced that it was an honest mistake and therefore will not be seeking out legal counsel, is scheduled to appear in court on April 2.

Make no mistake, Margaret needs a defense attorney just as much as anyone accused, probably more so because to have any decent hope of winning this case, it needs to be taken to trial. Now, whether or not she can afford one is another story, and it is unfortunate that public defenders are primarily in the business of making plea bargain deals.

I can’t see prosecuting a senior citizen for election fraud to end well for anyone. It’s bad PR for the county, and when this makes national and possibly international news, it makes all of America look bad. If for some reason Margaret is sucessfully prosecuted, I certainly will have lost a lot of my remaining hope of our American legal system truly being about dispensing justice.

Editorial notes: change in profanity policy

In the four years and change this blog has been around, I’ve kept it on a mostly low-sodium diet, which is to say low in profanity, except for a couple of exceptional cases. I’m not the potty mouth (potty fingers?) I used to be online, but I do feel I should make my readers aware, going forward, that there are cases where this blog may become NSFW (not safe for work) or NSFK (not safe for kids).

The most notable time where I “broke the swear barrier” happened to be in a post about censorship, and even then it was mainly because I felt it silly to censor a story about censorship itself. I’m not going to go digging for it but it should be easy enough to find. Going forward, “uncensored” articles won’t necessarily be about topics to censorship. I won’t fill an entire post with S-bombs and F-bombs—I’m too intelligent to risk looking stupid by doing that—but you may see the occasional word that would get beeped out on TV/radio. It’s not about shock value, it’s about being real; let’s face it, life is not a G-rated movie.

That said, if you have Internet access in multiple locations where at least one is running content filtering, keeping me abreast if for some reason this blog—or for that matter my other blogs/sites—start getting censored would be a big help. I can check from the local libraries here (Harris County and Houston) but not that often, and that’s at best only two data points.

And to those readers who are still around, thanks. I do appreciate your loyalty even though at times it may not be easy.

Welcome to the American League and “dynamic pricing”, Astros fans

As recently posted to the Houston Press Hair Balls blog, the Astros are naming their new ticket pricing a “dynamic pricing model.” From the Houston Chronicle as quoted in the post:

Astros president George Postolos said Thursday prices for the Astros-Rangers opener on March 31 are simply a reflection of demand and the club’s increased emphasis on dynamic pricing, which will be used more often in 2013 and in all areas of the stadium for the first time. The Astros’ 2013 home-opener and AL debut is also MLB’s season-opener. Thus, the March 31 high ticket costs are an anomaly.

The problem with this scheme and its labeling is that tickets have yet to go on sale, yet dugout seats are already going for over twice the price of last year for opening day. A true dynamic pricing scheme would raise prices after the demand, not before.

So it seems to me (and John Royal, writing for the Houston Press, seems to concur) that it’s just an excuse for the Astros to raise prices when they feel like it, for whatever reason. This is not the recipe for success for a team moving to the American League after a season with 107 losses out of 162 games, behind even the Chicago Cubs who only lost 101 games out of 162. Yes, the same Chicago Cubs whose attendance is more sensitive to beer prices than whether or not the team is winning.

Maybe the Cubs can get away with raising ticket prices as long as the beer is still relatively cheap. The Astros do not have that luxury; right now the public transit options to get to Minute Maid Park are limited (unless you like walking five blocks from the Main Street rail station or dealing with bus schedules that don’t change just because there’s a baseball game). There are plenty of great bars in Houston where one can go for cheap suds. As far as I have been able to tell, Houston fans are just as happy watching the game on TV if the Astros are in a “rebuilding” phase.

And make no mistake about it, it would be a big surprise to me if the Astros finished anywhere near .500 as an American League team, after the debacle that was the 2012 season, their last as a National League team. As the late Ray Combs (game show host) might have said, it’s a damn fine way to go out of the NL. But the AL is certainly no easier: against the Yankees, Red Sox, and White Sox I would be surprised if the Astros managed better than about a .250 winning percentage over those 17 games, or less than 13 losses. If they go .500 against everyone else (I’m being generous here), that’s another 72 losses, for a total of 85. Fifteen more than that and it’s another 100-loss season.

This will be a great season… for the bars, after Astros games. My advice to the Astros front office: make a dynamic team first, then try this “dynamic pricing” thing.