When Connecticut Common Cause helped to get the Citizens Elections Program passed in Connecticut, we always expected enemies of clean election reform to try and raid the fund.  What we didn't expect to  see was Leaders who helped pass the reform vote to use the fund as their own personal ATM machine.  Yet last night law makers voted overwhelmingly to raid $5 million from the Citizen Elections Fund to help address the looming budget crisis here.

There were other options.  $25 million in unclaimed bottle deposits could have been claimed instead.  However, lobbyists for the beverage companies moved quickly to influence legislators and save the $25 million to line the pockets of the companies they represent.  Instead, they took the untainted Citizen Election Funds that are designed to clean up Connecticut elections.

While the $5 million taken from the Citizens Election Fund represents 0.27% of the overall $18.4 billion budget, it is a major hit for the Citizen Elections Program itself.  This program was created in order to remove the taint of corruption from Connecticut politics and restore public trust in their elected officials.  How can trust be restored when Leaders who helped pass this program vote to raid it at the first opportunity?

As the old saying goes . . . if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.

Common Cause New York this morning released a new report titled, "The Cable TV Industry: Hardwiring Influence." The report brings together New York State lobbying and campaign finance data for the first time to demonstrate how the cable television industry has used its financial resources to fight for industry self-interest at the expense of New York cable subscribers, who Common Cause deems to be the ultimate "Loser" in the report.

Hardwiring Influence (and its additional background) documents the veritable "army" of lobbyists employed by the cable TV industry, which paid more than $24 million for these lobbying efforts in recent years, as well as $4.3 million in campaign contributions made to politicians, their political parties, and party slush funds.

Wanted to report on the election protection efforts of Common Cause on Election Day 2008. I was on calls reporting on efforts in CA and the nation. As of 4pm, election protection efforts have fielded more than 72,000 calls nationwide and 5,096 calls in CA.

We heard on the 10am call that there were long lines in Los Angeles and that many polling places didn't have the supplemental registration lists for those registering late. So those folks had to vote by provisional ballot. In addition, many polling places in LA didn't have enough ballots. In some cases they didn't have any.

It may not be glamorous, but there's something exciting about pictures like this -- what just one of the many Election Protection command centers look like around the country, with trained volunteers and legal professionals taking calls and logging it into our database for any follow up.

This is from LA, where polls remain open and calls continue to pour in.  You can view the breakdown of calls we've been getting all day at the OurVoteLive site.

At 6:30pm, I received some disturbing news from Amy Zeller, DM coordinator at Penn State. A Penn State student went to vote, her name was not listed in the voting rolls, and the poll workers refused to give her a provisional ballot. They claimed, "they were not giving out at provisional ballots." This, of course, is completely illegal. Every single person has the right to cast a provisional ballot as a last resort.

The student found Amy and told her what happened and the two of them marched back over the polling place and confronted the poll worker, demanding that they give the student a provisional ballot. The polls worker claimed that the local election office has instructed them to not hand out any provisional ballots. Amy and the student called the 1.866.OUR.VOTE hot line and got in touch with an election lawyer who then called the local election office. An election lawyer for the Obama campaign also got involved and argued on the student's behalf, demanding she be allowed to cast a provisional ballot.

One thing to watch in Colorado...

Overuse of provisional ballots.

According to Election Protection Officials, including Common Cause Colorado, many counties are immediately driving voters to use provisional ballots at any sign of a discrepancy.  Protocol is for poll workers and election officials to call their County Clerks to double check the database.

There has been reports of voter intimation early on in Weld County, were police officer were checking IDs and camped out in primarily Latino Voter Precincts.  Also at Colorado College.

Colorado Independent has been keeping good track of problems in Colorado.

After a day that featured few voter challenges at the polls -- a welcome break from 2004 -- we've just heard about intimidation in Lake County, home to Gary, Indiana, from one of our staff who is on the ground as a poll monitor.

Voters in Gary showed up with valid registration cards but were inexplicably left off the voting rolls.  At first they were turned away.  Then, when the county elections office decided to start letting people vote but to track them in a log to confirm their voting eligibility, two Republican attorneys who had been at multiple polling sites over the course of the day began challenging every one of these voters.

It is difficult to make general statements about whether or not Pennsylvania experienced serious systemic problems today. Days and weeks will be needed to do that sort of analysis and at this moment there are still a few hours to go at the polls. What is clear is that many of the problems in Pennsylvania, long lines, too few machines, too few well trained poll workers were predictable and could have been avoided. How long should voters be expected to stand in line? Certainly an hour is reasonable but some voters waited as long as three hours in State College, Philadelphia and in Allegheny County. At what point does a voter give up, forfeiting their right to vote for personal considerations--essentially being disenfranchised because of the government's inability to collect votes in a reasonably swift and accurate way?

Clearly, the system needs more resources, voters need more time to vote via early voting and an Election Day holiday, poll workers need training, and machines need to be accessible and trustworthy. When we address these issues in the future, and we must, most of us will just be curious about the results come Election Day, we won't have to wonder if the election was clean or if people were wrongly shut out of the process.

Summary of top problems Election Day Afternoon