The Republican party just shed itself of the last shred of human decency it had left.
3
Please stop saying our new voting maps "will help democrats." You are sleeping with the enemy here... I have lived in State College, Pennsylvania for 11 years and have had no voice at all because of gerrymandering. In fact 52 percent of Pennsylvanians have been disenfranchised by the old map, despite the fact that millions more votes were cast for Democrats but never realized in terms of seats in Congress, all because Republicans cannot win on their ideas and their dreams, so they cheat. This is a real and serious threat to our democracy.
So stop saying the High Court's decision will "help Democrats," when in fact they have merely allowed our voices to be heard in a State that has favored Republicans and stolen elections right out from under us for years.
22
Well, if nothing else, the election workers are well nourished.
The Pennsylvania election today should not be this close. It still means almost half of our country supports the Republican party as it is today. That is the scary part of being an American now.
5
Another key Pennsylvania election to watch: the lieutenant governor's race. Fetterman is an inspiration and I think we need more Democrats like him right now. Proud to have voted for him this morning!
2
You have a curious way of describing front runners. The polls I read showed that Greg Vitali is likely to get the second highest number of votes. I hope he wins. He is a great state legislator.
Voted early this morning and concerned about low turnout. My polling place usually has a beehive of activity pre-work. At 730 am I was the only voter...and the parking lot was empty. Poll workers were scratching their heads...where is everyone? The Democratic primary will decide who represents this district in Congress...
9
After today citizens can file lawsuits against the democratic courts over reach. After today we can say we have been harmed. The state Constitution is clear...the legislator, elected by the people draws Congressional boundaries, not the Courts.
1
Didn't democrat do just that? Hence the removal of GOP gerrymandering? Democrats won in court because what the GOP did was found illegal by the courts.
1
Ahem....
For its state legislative lines, the Pennsylvania constitution further requires that districts be contiguous and compact, and that they respect county, city, incorporated town, borough, township, and ward boundaries "unless absolutely necessary." [Pa. Const. art. II, § 16]
That's why the PA Supreme Court threw out the Republican-drawn districts from 2011. The 7th District was so contorted that it looked like two cartoon characters and was as wide as a single house in one place.
9
For all the cautions to "don't make this election about Trump," this election is about Trump; it's inescapable.
The obvious point though is that any decent candidate must offer more than just "I'm against Trump" ... (and yes, I mean Republican too).
There are no never-Trump Republicans running anywhere, so far as I know. Don't you think that's a bit surprising? Not even in a district Democrats are strongly favored to win?
There are Democrats running in conservative districts who are not supporting Nancy Pelosi. Yet she has no equivalent of the Trump University fraud, the "Access Hollywood" tape, the women who have come forward to say they were groped, Stormy Daniels, Manafort, Flynn, Cohen. There is no equivalent of being aided by Russian interference; no investigation like Mueller's.
Plain basic decency ... none left in the GOP candidates.
It's all like Donovan v. Grimm. For those of you outside NYC, it's the primary race between two Trumpers in the only Republican district in the city. Grimm went to jail for tax fraud, and that was for hiring illegal immigrants and not reporting their earnings. He's the one who appears to be leading in the polls.
That's today's GOP candidates and electorate for you.
17
This state where I grew up has changed from Philadelphia and Pittsburgh surrounded by Alabama to Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Erie, and Allentown surrounded by Mississippi. What happens in this election is nowhere near as conseqential as November's. Democrats can't win it here today, but they can lose it.
6
Go Chrissy Houlihan in the PA-06th District, Go!!!
1
I live in the Rothfus district and I'll be happy to see him go. He's a wet noodle of Trump loyalism. However, while better, I'm not sure that Lamb is the answer either.
3
Comments are moderated for civility?!?
I am married to an American, my children and most of my family are American but everyday and in every way I see America disUniting and failing itself and its values.
There is only Pyrrhic victory when winning means the country will be further divided and dialogue becomes impossible and listening to the other side is treason.
Buckley, Goldwater,Nixon, Reagan and Trump have won. For most readers of the NYT the midterms should be a time of reflection because victory in Pennsylvania will not narrow the divide and the courts and the country will not reflect the values you cherish for at least the next two generations.
Merrick Garland was not considered for the highest court in the land because he was a uniting jurist respected by both sides. A house divided among itself cannot stand.
10
Ah, quoting Jesus:) But our "one nation under God" does not really read or follow the commandments.
Key takeaway - no matter who wins the primaries, the only way to end the rampant corruption in DC is to vote Democrat. Every race. No matter who wins the primary.
29
John,,Stowe is depressed enough. Democrats will turn Stowe into a ghost town.
Good things are happening up there now because of consumer confidence and tax cuts.
Do you really want to go backwards?
The only way to end the corruption in DC is to quit voting for the same two parties thinking things will be different. And to move the capitol to someplace like Tulsa, Oklahoma which would require lobbyists to quickly try and buy nice condos to rent out at $50 per month.
2
Joe Paper - How are tax cuts for the 1% helping the people in Stowe?
Somehow I am reminded of a time when our son, who had spent much of his young adulthood entertaining himself without worrying much about being self-supporting. He had a finely tuned process by which he kept his parents on permanent stand-by to bail him out of any financial difficulty that befell him. In what was in retrospect inevitable, he eventually went too far and the entire gravy train came to a screeching halt. Now he is putting himself through college.
But, like the Republican Party's unbridled romp of the last fifty odd years, it was no doubt good while it lasted.
3
This vote is about ousting a crime family that has taken over the government, nothing more, nothing less.
23
This should be moderated as uncivil discourse.
DSS, Ottawa
Do you mean the US government, the PA government, or the Ottawa government????
I hope that the huge FIOS outage in areas of PA, i.e., Philadelphia, Allentown, etc., will not affect the reporting or voting in today's important primary in this recently redistricted state.
3
Vote out the GOP! Our democracy and liberty depend on it!
21
For the NYT to continue to "predict" Democrats will win seats in the House and/or Senate this Fall is a form of propaganda which could work for either Democrats or Republicans. Please stop and let the candidates and voters speak for themselves. You just may dissuade voters from participating for either reason.
5
I think you bring up a good point. Perhaps there should be NO reporting on elections until after polls close.
1
The Koch brothers and their Robber Baron brethren, including supposed "christians" will throw hundreds of millions of dollars at the election to try to maintain their hostile financial takeover.
I'm betting on Socially Conscious Women candidates and voters.
16
I was excited to cast my vote for Rachel Reddick in the PA-01 -- her fresh, common-sense approach resonated with me. Like Ms. Reddick, I grew up in a Republican family -- but now find today's GOP does not represent me. I hope I can vote for her again in November.
16
I agree, Sarah. My parents were staunch Republicans.
Now as a senior citizen, I would hope that the GOP of today is not the same party that my parents supported. I changed parties in 2008 and never looked back. The November 2016 election of the Trumplethinskin was more that I can stand.
12
Pennsylvania is a good example of why we need a nonpartisan commission to draw districts. In 2012, Democrats won the statewide vote share in House races, yet ended up with 5 of the 18 House seats because of gerrymandering. In this beacon of democracy, our elections are also manipulated through voter suppression.
And we have a vote-counting system that tabulates our votes in secret on proprietary software. There is a vast amount of exit poll data which Indicates that some election results are "statistically impossible," and pattern evidence such as large discrepancies between exit polls and the official vote appearing in competitive elections, but not in noncompetitive races
At one time, there was concern about the vulnerabilities with computerized voting, but then it became taboo to talk about it.
- NY Times: Computer Voting Is Open to Easy Fraud, Experts Say
- NPR: The Approaching 2006 E-Voting 'Train Wreck'
- Washington Post: [Maryland Governor] Ehrlich Wants Paper Ballots for Nov. Vote
- Wall Street Journal: Reversing Course on Electronic Voting
Computer experts, including researchers from Princeton, Rice, Johns Hopkins, Michigan, Ohio and Stanford Universities, the Brennan Center and the GAO, have proven over and over electronic voting machines are easily hackable and it can be done with self-deleting code.
Hacking Democracy - The Hack https://tinyurl.com/y7c9oopu
The full-length Emmy nominated HBO documentary https://tinyurl.com/y7mydv7z
#HandCountedBallotsNow!
31
"The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." — Joseph Stalin
Republican Stephen Spoonamore, Computer Security Expert, on Electronic Voting Machines: https://tinyurl.com/y7wk5pgq
Part 1: It’s a network, people
Part 2: Electronic voting machines are a national security threat
Part 3: The genie is out of the bottle
Part 4: Fifty ways to steal an election
Part 5: Mike Connell: Bush IT Guru
Part 6: The Rapp family: Ohio election coverup
Part 7: Evangelical Christians and electronic voting machines
Part 8: What part don't you understand ... [hand-counted] paper ballots please
Part 9: McCain/Palin by ...
Part 10: People should doubt the vote ... because it's being stolen
Josh Mitteldorf: Intro to Election Theft in America (part 1 of 4)
https://tinyurl.com/yanc473c
“As we have learned, there is stiff resistance to looking at the ballots with human eyes. So we are left looking at statistics and anecdotes, trying to determine whether vote counts are honest and reliable. The evidence does not inspire confidence. But whatever you think of the evidence, there is no justification for a system without the possibility of public verification.”
Other democracies count their ballots by hand. It’s the international gold standard. Germany, Ireland, The Netherlands, and Norway went back to hand counting after realizing the vulnerabilities with computerized voting.
#SayNoToFaithBasedVoting
12
When I hear people talk about polls I wonder which country they live in. We vote by mail while it sounds like most of the country stands in line at the DMV on election night.
3
Tom,
Your assumption is not correct. Early voting, vote by mail, and other types of voting are factored into the exit poll numbers.
A 2012 Times article on why mail-in ballots are a bad idea:
“In the last presidential election, 35.5 million voters requested absentee ballots, but only 27.9 million absentee votes were counted, according to a study by Charles Stewart III, a political scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He calculated that 3.9 million ballots requested by voters never reached them; that another 2.9 million ballots received by voters did not make it back to election officials; and that election officials rejected 800,000 ballots. That suggests an overall failure rate of as much as 21 percent.
“There is a bipartisan consensus that voting by mail, whatever its impact, is more easily abused than other forms. In a 2005 report signed by Jimmy Carter and James Baker, the Commission on Federal Election Reform concluded ‘Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.’ On the most basic level, absentee voting replaces the oversight that exists at polling places with something akin to an honor system.”
Error and Fraud at Issue as Absentee Voting Rises https://tinyurl.com/ydbr84qa
Election integrity advocate Jonathan Simon explains that “vote by mail is a good intention with very bad consequences." His piece is on his website, Election Defense Alliance (the website is currently down).
2
Amazing how more compact and more simple the new districts are. It is time to put in some restrictions that would void district maps, if the party against party ratio of probable representatives elected exceed the party to party ratio, by a certain percentage, of the overall state wide vote by a certain percentage in the last two elections. This is not a perfect solution especially, since voter turnout is depressed in solid one party districts.
2
Come on, PA, vote for your interests and those of your family this time -- remember, your past votes have been manipulated by corrupt gerrymandering Republicans.
31
Brian Fitzpatrick and Dean Malik, both Republican candidates for the House from PA-1, recently had a debate at Bucks County Community College. Here is an excerpt of their remarks from the Bucks County Herald, which will tell you all you need to know about their political differences.
“It seems compromise has left the political scene,” said Fitzpatrick from his podium on the left of the stage. “Both parties seem entrenched in their viewpoints,” which he said has led to a political stalemate.
“It is not both parties that are entrenched,” Malik retired. “It is only the Democrats. I will fight for what is right for this county and this country. My job as a congressman is to tell the voters what is right for them and lead them to action.”
Fitzpatrick: “My job as a congressman is to listen to my constituents, not lecture them. Your job,” Fitzpatrick addressed to Malik, “is to support proposals that are good for your constituents and oppose those that are bad for them.”
Malik retorted, “I will support the president. I believe he is best for the country.”
This, in a district that went for Clinton in 2016. How does any candidate expect to get elected by saying, "My job as a congressman is to tell the voters what is right for them?"
That's essentially saying. "Vote for me and I'll become part of the DC swamp." Crazy!
52
hdtv,
You have captured the essence of the divide in your country. Both candidates have expressed the truth as they know it and there is no compromise.
Liberal democracy depends on bottom up governance with the voters in charge. Republicans believe in top down governance. The definition of conservative is belief in top down governance and that is what conservatives believed in 1776.
In my over a decade of comments I have tried to explain that America was designed to be democratic and men like Scalia hated America and its constitution.
"As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods."
The judiciary and the constitution have been so perverted that the America you believe in is now an historical footnote.
4
One of the first at the polls today. Hoping for a strong democratic showing.
20
Five Democrat judges have ignored the Constitution and rigged the election to support their party. Gerrymandering by politicians is one thing, but now judges?
1
Get your facts straight and educate yourself about gerrymandering. The Republican Party hacks in Harrisburg rigged elections year after year with partisan gerrymandering. They have no one but themselves to blame. The judges adhered to Pennsylvania’s constitution. And now stay out of our politics and on your side of the river.
13
Wow, a fact-free comment! As elsewhere noted, more PA voters went for Democrats than for Republicans in House races last time around. Yet Republicans "won" 13 of the 18 seats. They should have won fewer than 9, since they got fewer than half of the votes, but they rigged the election. Now, thanks to how unjust their cheating ways were, PA voters will get to elect the people they vote for.
10
Cleo ... Gerrymandering is illegal ... that's the "one thing" the judges found.
4
Repeat after me democrats voters.
Outside liberal districts vote for moderate progressives like Lamb in western Pa., a while ago.
If you don't and elect identity obsessed, never met a war, trade agreement, Wall Street banker campaign I did not like candidate like Hillary you will condemned into making the blunder you made in 2016 and help re elect republicans in the congress and Trump in 2018.
7
I'll give you everything but the identity obsession. Treating everyone equally isn't identity obsessed.
It's Republicans that want to divide people into haves and have nots based on gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation etc.
6
Thank you for your reply Dr. There is a fine line between equal rights and rights obsession.
Attaining Civil Rights was a great thing in the 1960s for blacks. Being obsessed with making them all equal to whites in every way, shape or form whether they deserved it or not by putting up to one million of them & and others on the welfare rolls in NYC during the 1970s almost destroyed the city.
Same thing with women's right, the great enormous strides made in the 1980s, then the extreme feminists came in and demanded everything in thought, word and deed be equal whether women deserved it or not.
The blue collar workers in the midwest did not care if half of all CEO's were women. They just wanted a job.
While Hillary was obsessed with gender identity, the ego maniac Trump demagogued the jobs issue.
If the democrats had nominated somebody like Bernie who gave the issue coverage, all he needed was to changed 80,000 total votes split between Wisc., Pa, and Mich. and he would have mostly likely been our President.
Yes, let's hear it with the comey thing, the bigots, the email scandal etc. Yes these things were an issue but if you look at where Hillary lost the election it was the above.
Again equal rights yes, not identity obsession.
It helped elect the ego maniac, pathological liar demagogue Trump.
Learn from history or forever be condemned to repeat its' worst mistakes.
2
Paul - Thank you for taking the time to respond.
I'm a bit puzzled. How is it that women and people of color don't deserve to be equal? Please tell me that you aren't really stating that white men are automatically superior and more deserving.
I will be watching the primary for two special elections here in Wisconsin. The KochRoach Gov Walker had to be forced to hold them by the courts. He was afraid of drowning in the blue wave.
15
No matter what state you call home, if you are not registered to vote, go do it today.
18
Always nice to see Republican hijackers sent out to pasture.
Nobody has worked harder to undermine democracy than the Grand Old Pirates.
Too bad the right-wing hijackers don't go to jail for their grand larceny.
Vote, America !
Republicans can't stand democracy.
55
Something else to watch for in the returns tonight is the comparative turnout — Democratic vs. Republican — in races with competition on both sides. Which party will put more voters in voting booths?
21
Yes, that is the real story here. How many Democrats will turn out vs. Republicans? And how many will show up again in the fall?
6
When are the Pennsylvania legislators who crowed about rigging their elections by gerrymander and voter suppression going to be jailed?
66
We in the now 16th District are still in the same boat after redistricting. It's the 100,000 people of heavily Democratic Erie lumped in with the solidly conservative rural hinterlands between here and Pittsburgh. Even as the largest city in NW PA and its economic and educational engine, we are still left with no chance of having a congressman who represents our needs and issues. Our congressman doesn't even have an office here! Hillary didn't even bother to campaign here, barely a campaign sign, and untypically, lost the county. It seems the Democratic party now has also written us off as well as the NYT, who didn't even mention the race up here in this article. Meanwhile, we're deluged with negative Republican mailers and TV commercials. No wonder the area is trending more red today. The upshot is that we will end up again with Mike Kelly, a guy who is barely rational. Thanks, Dems.
27
There are 3 democrats on the ballot as opposed to 0 in 2016. In 2014 Rep. Kelly won a contested general election by 22% and by 13% in 2012. Maybe it'll be closer in November.
11
Dr. Robert D. Multari from Farrell is a candidate in a 3 way primary. If the Dems spend time walking the streets in Lawrence and Mercer Counties, with the Erie block, they can win. Bigly.
Kelly voted to cut Medicare and Social Security and supports the Trump agenda. That makes him vulnerable, even with Republicans from Sharon and New Castle and Ellwood City, many who are anti-Trump.
Congressional districts represent about 711,000 people.
If you look at the numbers even the majority of Democrats in your district don't come from Erie.
5
Great i now hope more women will be Democratic congress and senators. They are more inclined to vote with their heart than the war monger it men of the GOP. They all got my vote.
17
Maybe voting with minds rather than hearts or guts is the better choice.
13
kwb - Like the great minds that got us into the wars in Iraq and Vietnam?
kwb: Look where that's gotten us.
Can't wait to vote today in the Philadelphia suburbs. I wonder, of course, if today will prove to be the litmus test we think it is for the "blue wave" of November - but I guess the results tonight will tell us what to expect in a few months.
I'm hopeful that the majority of Democrats I've seen are campaigning not on an anti-Trump platform (as was Hillary's doom), but instead on a sounds policy platform with an abundance of energetic and talented candidates, especially young women from outside politics. Go Madeleine Dean!!
30
Hillary had a sound policy platform. The media didn't cover it.
14
Hillary had a sound policy platform. But all the media wanted to cover was the shiny objects being flashed in their faces. So we got a lot of her "email" and none of her policy.
I dont understand why people think it isnt a good idea to vote for politicians if that is their training and they are good at it. It is like saying you prefer a plumber to do your brain surgery rather than a well trained and successful brain surgeon. We dont need any more rank amateurs with nothing more than a deep pocket, rich backers and perhaps a stealth agenda.
22
Each side has theirs excuses already written, they’re just waiting for the polls to close.
1