ohio sucks sometimes

So, propositions 2-5 on the Ohio ballot, all intended to reform the way elections are conducted in the fraud-riddled Buckeye state, FAILED yesterday. Frankly, I didn't follow the campaign closely enough to understand why this happened or how close the vote might have been, but I can bet that none of my friends at Kenyon who waited NINE HOURS exactly a year ago to vote at one of the TWO machines at their polling place...yeah, I know none of them voted against the measures. Not that the liberal-arts college students are the barometer you want to use for Ohio as a whole, but SERIOUSLY, who votes AGAINST making voting easier and fairer? Or a panel to examine possible corruption in voting processes? Is this just a matter of "my candidate won, therefore any criticisms about the legitimacy of the vote must be partisan muckraking in disguise"? How pathetic.

It's an off-year, election-wise, and I gotta wonder who these oxymoronic anti-democracy base voters are. Because (and I'm stretching here, perhaps) if these are the old-school conservative people who are bitter about losing their manufacturing jobs who ALSO apparently hold democracy in such distaste, well, I know lots of countries like, say, China, where they can manufacture plenty o'stuff without having to vote at all, or ruin it for the rest of us.