Get to bed early on NC/IN primary night

One indisputably good thing to come out of the amazingly long Democratic primary process: Patterns are beginning to emerge and stabilize. By learning to recognize and work with these patterns, the politely-interested observer can pack it in at a reasonable hour tonight rather than wait till the wee hours for the cable TV experts to read the tea leaves.

So, to allow you to experience tonight's primary returns as efficiently and painlessly as possible (which, arguably, is to say to not experience them at all):

The overall story arc, courtesy of Al Giordano, covering every obligatory move from both campaigns and the media, from dawn until late tonight or early tomorrow.

The 20 sentences you're most likely to hear uttered by cable commentators, provided by Time's Mark Halperin.

(If only Halperin had offered up four more, so that--with 24 squares and a free square--truly dedicated political junkies would be able to play Democratic Primary Coverage Bingo.)

Between the two, there's really not a lot to be gained by actually watching the returns.

If you don't want to use the extra time tonight to get some extra sleep, you can at least watch Reaper.


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Last minute voting registration change could lead to your vote not counting

Okay, that's a tad melodramatic, but it got your attention. And, technically, it's true--if you don't pay attention to your mail.

The burgeoning Democratic voter rolls in Oregon produced one teeny possible snag (if you don't count inevitable GOP voter suppression efforts to come): According to a story that KGW is running this morning, some last-minute registration changes may have come in after election officials already sent voter rolls to the printer.

[…]so those ballots will go out in the mail with the voters' previous party.

Later, voters will get the ballot from the correct party.

According to the Oregon Secretary of State's Office, it's alright if voters fill out both ballots since the state database will catch the mistake. […]

However, if voters send in only the out-of-date ballot, the votes in the partisan races will get tossed out.

According to the Washington County Democratic Party office, the out-of-date ballot (which probably will arrive first) will be marked Registered and the correct ballot (which will arrive shortly thereafter) will be marked Re-registered.

So let's recap. Assuming you changed your registration at the last minute from Republican or non-affiliated to Democrat (it won't affect people registering for the first time):

Complete and mail in the "Registered" ballot: Good.

Complete and mail in both the "Registered" and "Re-registered" ballots: Pointless but still okay.

Complete and mail the "Registered" ballot but not the "Re-Registered" ballot: Bad.

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