October 19, 2015

Voter given used ballot at Fredericton polling station

Source: CBC

When Fredericton's Stephanie Merrill went to her neighbourhood polling station this morning, she was in for a surprise. The ballot she was handed was already marked — by another voter.

Merrill declined to comment on her tweet, though she did say she asked for, and received, a fresh ballot.

Elections Canada spokesperson Francoise Enguehard would not comment on a specific case, but did say there is a protocol in place for spoiled ballots.

She says all spoiled ballots are to be put in a separate box and, at the end of the day, they are counted.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/pre-marked-ballots-dirty-vancouver-1.3267769

---

This is not the only report of this. There's a Reddit thread here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/3pdudu/reports_coming_in_from_all_over_canada_premarked/
collecting further reports and stories of voters receiving pre-marked or used ballots.

Please, if you have not yet cast your vote in Canada, double check the ballot you receive!

October 19, 2015

Check your ballot! Reports of pre-marked ballots!

If you have not yet voted, please double check your ballot before casting your vote. There have been reports of ballots being handed out with marks already beside candidates, usually Conservative.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/pre-marked-ballots-dirty-vancouver-1.3267769

https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/3pdudu/reports_coming_in_from_all_over_canada_premarked/

Please make sure you're checking! Don't let the Harpercons game another election.

October 19, 2015

John Oliver risks jail to tell Canada to Heave Steve!

Hopefully this video will make it out to a few undecided Canadian voters today before we hit the polls. Let's all work together to get rid of Stephen Harper, and make sure that John Oliver's (possible) sacrifice in fines and jail time is not in vain!

Thanks to John Oliver, Mike Meyers, that poor moose, and that questionably musical beaver.

October 16, 2015

Globe and Mail uses torturous logic to endorse CPC, but not Harper:

The Globe and Mail has endorsed the CPC as deserving of another mandate in the upcoming election, but says that Stephen Harper does not.

Link to the article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/editorials/the-tories-deserve-another-mandate-stephen-harper-doesnt/article26842506/?click=sf_globe

Some samples of the pretzel logic they use:

The election of 2015 has been powered by a well-founded desire for change. But it has also been an election where the opposition has recognized the electorate’s desire for stability and continuity on all things economic. That’s why the Liberals and the New Democrats, while running on the rhetoric of change, put forward economic platforms built largely on acceptance of the Conservative status quo.

The key issue of the election should have been the economy and the financial health of Canadians. On that score, the Conservative Party has a solid record. Hardly perfect but, relatively speaking, better than most. However, the election turned into a contest over something else: a referendum on the government’s meanness, its secretiveness, its centralization of power in the most centralized Prime Minister’s Office in history, its endless quest for ever more obscure wedge issues, and its proclivity for starting culture wars rather than sticking to the knitting of sound economic and fiscal stewardship. It turned this election into a referendum on the one-man show that has become the Harper government.

The thing is, the other two major parties have so much respect for the Conservatives’ record on economic, fiscal and tax policy that they propose to change almost none of it. Did Tom Mulcair’s NDP run on a promise to raise income taxes? To massively increase spending? To run deficits? No, no and no. The NDP tax platform was, essentially, the Conservative Party’s, plus a small increase in business taxes. The slogan may have been about “Change,” but the platform was about trying to reassure voters that an Orange Wave would leave the Conservative economic status quo largely in place.

The Liberals have in one respect been slightly different from the NDP in offering change – their call for the federal government to spend more on infrastructure, financed by two years of small deficits, deviates from the Harper government brand (though not its record) of balanced budgets.

Canada needs a change. It also needs the maintenance of many aspects of the economic status quo. What Canada needs, then, is a Conservative government that is no longer the Harper government.

The Conservatives have been a big tent party in the past, and they must be once again. Fiscally prudent, economically liberal and socially progressive – the party could be all of those things, and it once was. But it won’t be, as long as Mr. Harper is at its head. His party deserves to be re-elected. But after Oct. 19, he should quickly resign. The Conservative Party, in government or out, has to reclaim itself from Stephen Harper.

So, their logic is the Liberals and the NDP have moved to the centre/right, but they haven't moved far enough to the right. They're indistinguishable from the CPC, but they're too far to the left of the CPC. We need change, but not -that- much change. So, vote change, vote CPC! And then just clap your hands and hope really loud that Mr. Harper just really nicely steps aside after he's elected.

It's just crazy. And what's all that talk about "If it's about the economy, the CPC could win, and deserve to..." What? Last I checked they've spent the last decade flushing the economy down the drain.

The Ottawa Citizen has also made the case for the Tories: http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/editorial-the-case-for-returning-the-conservatives-to-power

And once again, the logic here is that the NDP has moved to the centre/right, but not enough, and Trudeau just isn't ready (where have we heard that over and over and over?) and what we really need is change, so vote CPC. Straight out of the CPC talking points.

This para from the Ottawa Citizen article makes me want to yank my hair out by the roots:

Nevertheless, there are two serious issues facing Canada right now: Ongoing economic uncertainty, and an increasingly unstable situation in the Middle East. In the face of the worst economic downturn in a generation, Harper has made sure that Canada remains on secure economic footing, something both his opponents’ plans put at risk. When it comes to confronting ISIL and the threat of global terror more generally, only the Conservatives are prepared to treat the matter with the strength of conviction it deserves.

Ugh, Monday can't come fast enough.

Remember to get out there and vote, folks. And Heave Steve!

October 9, 2015

4 men stabbed, 1 woman hit at Jimmy's Famous Seafood in Southeast Baltimore

Source: Baltimore Sun

Four men were stabbed or cut with a knife and a woman was struck in the face during an altercation at a Southeast Baltimore seafood restaurant early Friday morning, according to Baltimore Police.

Police responded to Jimmy's Famous Seafood in the 6500 block of Holabird Avenue about 1:30 a.m. for a report of a cutting and located five victims — a 29-year-old man cut in the hand, a 24-year-old man cut in the neck, a 27-year-old man cut in the left thigh and left torso, a 22-year-old man cut in the wrist and abdomen, and a 24-year-old woman who was struck in the nose, police said.

The five victims were transported to an area hospital for treatment of injuries considered to be non-life-threatening, police said.

Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/blog/bs-md-jimmys-seafood-20151009-story.html