Omni magazine, politics

[rivkat]

Relevant to your interests? The complete run of Omni magazine, free.

Now, election-related:

I need to do this next time: want shorter lines to vote? Volunteer as a pollworker.  This year, I voted absentee-in-person because I’m not at home, but with luck next time I will be able to help out.

Interesting to finally see white people’s race-based voting treated as something that needs explaining in reasonably mainstream media.  “Obama's support was so broad that if white people had simply split 50-50, rather than favoring their ethnic candidate, the president would have won 58 percent of the popular vote.”

I try not to do this too much, but: sweet, sweet schadenfreude.

Comments

[sanj]

I love the ending of the Slate article: "Obama won the Latino vote, 71 to 27. He also won the Asian vote, 73 to 26. Those voters all look the same to the losers. That's why they're the losers."

[brownbetty]

...pollworkers are volunteers in America?

[rivkat]

I think usually they get paid $100 or something like that? But yes, the basic "check off people's names as they vote" is not part of an official's job.

[brownbetty]

I mean, maybe it's because we've got a bureaucracy in place to run elections (Elections Canada) but everyone who shows up to work on Election Day is getting about 1.2-1.5 x minimum wage. They're temporary labour, and mostly retirees, but they're definitely not *volunteers*.

(I just found a doc with wages. The lowest paid person there is getting $9.90/h)

[rivkat]

Temporary labor/retirees about covers it here, too. Who else can take a day off from their regular jobs? Well, hopefully, me, but there's an inherent constraint on who can do it.