The day after, the counting continues

It's the day after, counties are still counting and there might be a lot of counting yet ahead. Manatee County is tallying 50,000 absentee ballots. A few races are so close that unofficial election returns show a difference of less than half of 1 percent, which will trigger a machine recount of all ballots cast in that race.

The three-member Statewide Canvassing Commission will meet Saturday evening in Tallahassee, after counties send their first unofficial returns to the state by Saturday's noon deadline. That is when the commission would order machine recounts in those close races with a difference of less than half of a percent. The recount could include Constitutional Amendment 3, which at the moment is passing with 60.4 percent of the vote, a 10th of a percentage point below the margin required to put it out of recount range. A statewide machine recount would apply to all 67 counties.   

Besides two very close state House races in districts 9 and 11, Secretary of State Kurt Browning said machine recounts may be needed in a circuit judge race in Monroe County and the contest for public defender in the circuit that covers DeSoto, Manatee and Sarasota counties.

Browning is still awaiting provisional ballot totals from all 67 counties. (They will be posted on the state elections web site, www.dos.state.fl.us, later on Wednesday.)

So why wasn't turnout higher? Projections had turnout statewide at 80 to 85 percent, but the final figure will be in the low 70s. Browning's explanation: "I don't have one. I really don't. I think everybody came to the party early." The level of the voters' engagement was "not to the extent that I thought they would be," he said.

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[Comrade Ayers]

Comrades! November 4th 2008 shall be inscribed in golden letters in the history of the international revolutionary movement as the day when American workers, peasants, and toiling intelligentsia finally rose to reject the archaic idea of American exceptionalism. Our agents in the academia, mass media, and trivial entertainment divisions have lived up to the Party's expectations in swaying the voting populace into throwing off the chains of accountability, integrity, and individualism - and embracing their true nature as a mote of a vast collective.

Below is a list of mandatory slogans for spontaneous pronouncements at congratulatory rallies, approved by the Central Committee of the Democrat Party of the United States of America (DPUSA) for the official four-year-long celebration of Change.

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Let live forever in the people's memory the unparalleled achievement of Barack Obama, the glorious Democrat strategists, and all those who fought against Republican terror and repression!
Long live the Democrat Party, the organizer of electoral victories and the experienced avant-garde of the American people in their struggle for liberation from their income!
Long live the indissoluble union of the mainstream media and the Democrat Party! Strengthen the social-political and ideological unity of New American society!
Citizens of the New United States - strictly adhere to politically correct speech, the Basic Law of our life!
Activists of literature and art, cultural workers! Carry high the banner of the Party and the multicultural character of people's art! Devote your talents and craftsmanship to shifting the paradigm, revising the cultural narrative, and strengthening the liberal orthodoxy!
Members of the unbiased media! Fervently implement the guiding principles of the Fairness Doctrine! Be watchful and uncompromising while investigating enemies of the people and eliminating pockets of resistance among their recalcitrant apologists!
Workers of the people's education! Mentors of youth! Teach the growing generation in the spirit of social and economic justice! Perfect the preparation of cadres for community organizations!
Community organizers! Actively participate in the management of local, state, and federal government! Long live community organizations - the political basis of New America!
Workers of public health! More actively support socialized healthcare while selflessly improving the medical service to the people!
Students and school children! Eagerly love the benevolent welfare state; persistently raise your awareness of government programs! Prepare yourselves to become dependent on the generosity of social workers and the Democrat Party!
Young men and women! Tirelessly educate yourselves in progressive convictions! Learn to live, work, and struggle like Barack Obama!
Long live the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the reliable assistant and fighting reserve of the Democrat Party, the vanguard of Change!
Long live the unshakable political unity of ethnic enclaves and other minority groups and collectives - a great achievement of the Multiculturalist policy of the DPUSA!
Card-carrying Democrats! Be in the avant-garde of the national struggle to fulfill the decisions of the current Congress of the DPUSA, be active organizers and teachers of the masses!
American trade unions! Actively expand your ranks with open ballots and agitate for increased productivity and the quality of work!
Workers of the United States! Struggle to achieve a complete equality of outcomes among all persons regardless of their skills, efforts, and citizenship!
Agricultural workers! Actively fulfill the agrarian policy of the DPUSA! Raise the effectiveness of ethanol production! Make better use of existing technology, fertilizer, and alternative energy sources!
Industrial workers! Hasten the pace of agro-industrial integration by building wind farms! Unflaggingly expand the production of renewable hybrid vehicles with clean coal technology!
Heroic workers of the national economy! Struggle to increase labor discipline! Stop stealing collective property - the source of our economic prosperity!
Scientists and inventors! Strengthen the connection between science and technology! Actively struggle to stop global warming and achieve energy independence by hastening the research of alternatives!
Citizens of the United States! Make careful use of our nation's resources! Struggle for their preservation by reducing your carbon footprint and cutting on pointless food consumption!
Workers of trade and social nutrition, consumer services, and communal housing management! Strictly follow government discipline, increase initiative, pay keen attention to the needs and requests of customers and their families!
Workers of government establishments! Improve the styles and methods of apparatus work, bring into wider use progressive forms and methods to achieve an even higher level of culture in servicing the American people!
Peoples of the world! Fight for the deepening of the lessening of international tension, for the expansion of hope to all continents on the basis of unconditional handouts!
Peoples of Muslim nations! Struggle for the strengthening of peace, cooperation, and good neighbor relations with Israel and each other, for the ensuring of safety in the Middle East by achieving a complete and irreversible Change!
Long live President Obama's foreign policy - the policy of hope among peoples, the unity of all forces struggling against Yankee imperialism and capitalist enrichment!
Under the banner of fairness, under the leadership of Barack Obama and the Democrat Party - forward to new victories in cutting America down to size, redistributing incomes, and equalizing outcomes!