Controversy in Arizona, Landslides in Utah and Idaho; Could this be a shift?

Another day has past and another election has ended. This time, it was Utah, Idaho, and Arizona. Democrats voted in all 3 states while Republicans voted in 2, Utah and Arizona and as you may have heard, Trump and Clinton won the night. There is a small detail that seems to be missing however, Trump and Clinton winning Arizona was not the biggest news of the night, not by a long shot. To further explain this, we must look at Utah, Idaho, and Arkansas separately.

Looking At Yesterday's Result

Utah

In Utah, there was massive turnout in voting. On the Republican side, there were roughly 129K people voting. On the Democrat side, not as many people as there were roughly 65K people voting. However, both side showed that they did not support the front-runners and they showed it in a big way. How big, you say? Well, by at least 40%! In essence, both Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders won the state of Utah in a complete landslide.

Idaho

In Idaho, there was also massive turnout in voting, although not as much as Utah or Arizona. Roughly 24K people voted on Tuesday and just like Utah, they showed they did not like the frontrunner. Like Utah, Bernie Sanders won in a complete landslide with a difference of around 40%.

Arizona

Arizona… yes, there is a lot to talk about Arizona.

First and foremost is how cringe-worthy the whole process was in Arizona last night. Let’s talk about what many have called “voter suppression.” It has been reported that many who wanted to vote last night were instead given provisional ballots and turned away. Although the number varies, last I heard were tens of thousands. That is a whole lot of people. State Election Officials have stated that they were turned away because they were registered as Independents and due to the rules, were not allowed to vote. The problem however lies with many of those people stating they changed their status to either Republican or Democrat prior to the deadline. Several of them were also turned away due to wrong address. Hence, they were all given provisional ballots which by my understanding, do not matter. This sort of action disenfranchises a whole chunk of voters. On a brighter note though, I have read that usually, provisional ballots will be counted within a week after voting so an overturn of the Hillary Clinton win or Donald Trump win may be possible but by that time, the story would be lost.

Another problem in the Arizona Primary occurred in Maricopa County. It was decided that in order to save money, they will cut polling locations. By how much seems to be appalling by all statistical standards. It has been reported that with 300,000 voters, they had 200 locations for the 2012 election. However, in an election with somewhere along the line of at least twice as much, they only had 60 locations. This resulted in massive lines that frustrated many of the voters to the point where they gave up. For those who actually waited in those long line, they waited for hours to vote. Polling in Arizona closed at 7pm their time, yet there were reports of people waiting to vote as late as 1:30am, that is a 7+ hour wait in line. These events have caused many throughout the United States to start several petitions to have Arizona revote, have UN officials oversee the voting, and a possible class action lawsuit. Even the governor or Arizona, Doug Ducey has called for changes to the voting process. It has just been reported that a protest in Maricopa County is being set up. At this point, regardless if Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump won Arizona officially, the whole Arizona Primary has been tainted by the action of those put in charge.

Shift On The Horizon?

To be honest, I think Bernie Sanders' win with a landslide in Utah and Idaho is a major shift in this election. A few weeks ago before I started this blog, I stated that almost all of Hillary Clinton's guarantee states were over. From this point, there are no more guarantee states for Clinton. The states that are coming up now are classified as more liberal and they are in turn, in more favor to Sanders than Clinton. To put it simply, do not be surprise to see Bernie Sanders catching up to Hillary Clinton in the delegate counts up to this point.

On the Republican side of things, I do not see any change between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. However, that does not mean Cruz is not a threat to Trump.

So exactly how much of a threat is Cruz to Trump? The answer is a major threat as Trump may not get the needed delegate count to get the nomination. How about Sanders to Clinton? Remember, Sanders is a candidate that no one knew about and over time, has taken away Clinton's inevitable nominee status. As of last night, MSM has reported that Clinton may not get enough delegates in time for the convention. I will like to say that alone makes Sanders a major threat to Clinton.

Edits:

Edit #1

Things have certainly gotten interesting in Arizona. As stated before, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey has publicly called for a change to the voting process. What has also been reported since then was that Phoenix, AZ Mayor Greg Stanton is calling for an investigation from the Department of Justice into the issue with long lines. On top of that, a special meeting has been called for Maricopa County on Monday March 28 at the Arizona State House.

There has also been reports of Bernie Sanders campaign office in Arizona getting hacked. This lead to Anonymous getting involved with an investigation of their own. To sum things up, they are trying to answer the following:

1. Whether the allegation that Sanders' campaign was hacked true?

2. How easy is it to changes someones election status?

3. Did this only affect Sanders' or did it affect the other campaigners as well?

4. Why were less than 35,000 votes tallied in Maricopa County when they have a population of roughly 4 million?

The End of Late Night on the MBTA and What It Means For Commuters

Of all things that could get me started using blogger, this was the subject that got me to actually start a blog. Then again, it is a service I use on a weekly basis. Due to this, I think it is worthy of being my starting post.

Before we talk about what is happening now, let's go back to the original "Night Owl" service of Boston’s MBTA. I was one of the few to remember the service and it was a service I appreciated. I will be honest, I really didn’t use it much due to the fact I was a freshman at college at the time. However, I did use it at the end of it’s life, including after the 2004 ALCS win of the Boston Red Sox over the New York Yankees and after several work days where I left at 1am. I will admit, the service was certainly a convenience but I didn’t really need it too much.

Jumping ahead several year, I really didn’t see a need for late night service. Lucky for me, I take Bus 111, one of Boston’s busiest bus routes, which leaves after 1am from Haymarket as it needs to wait for the last train with many times a full bus (50+ passengers). Many of my work shifts would end between 11:30pm-12:30pm because I was still a college student. It wasn’t until years later until I realized how important a late night service is to people who work late nights.

Since I was no longer a college student, my responsibilities increased at my work. So much so that some nights, I will not leave until 2am, sometimes even later. One question that I seem to see on many comments regarding the end of late night is “how did they get home before?” I cannot speak for everyone but I can speak for myself. During the nights where I will be working late, I had 4 options, car pool with another employee, take a taxi, driving in, or in the worst case scenario, walk. All three options had their own issues.

 

My Personal Experiences

Car Pooling

This may be the most explanatory solution of the 4. It is extremely convenient to have a co-worker who lives in your area and who drives in. Most of the time, they will give a ride since it is on the way anyway. The down side though is if the co-worker is not working that day, then you are basically out of luck.

Driving In

This is most likely the most convenient of the 4 options, or what it appears to be. Boston has, what I believe, a major parking issue. First and foremost is that there is not enough street parking in the city but the biggest issue is that parking in Boston is not economically feasible on a daily basis. Most garages are roughly $30 or more. If you were to look at it mathematically for someone who works 5 days a week, that will be $150+ per week or $600+ per month. Let’s say that the person is only getting a pay of $11/hr and works 40 hours per week and the cost of parking will be roughly 30% of their income before taxes are taken out. I will also like to mention that this does not include any tolls the person may have to go through to get to and from work.

Taxi

The taxi should be an easy solution but in actuality, it isn’t. If you ever tried to get a taxi after 1am, you will know that it is extremely difficult to get one. I remember a time I got out of work around 2am and not getting a taxi until around 3am.

Not only is it difficult but there is no guarantee you will get a taxi or that the driver will cooperate. I know now that this is against the guidelines/law (not sure what it is exactly) for taxis but there have been times where I will be asked to get out of a taxi after saying my destination.  In essence, the taxi driver did not want to go over the Tobin or through the Callahan/Sumner Tunnel due to the fact they have to pay tolls. This means that if you live in Everett, Revere, Chelsea, East Boston, Winthrop, and so on, you may not be able to get a taxi at all.

Last negative with taxis is also that it isn’t economically feasible either. Although it is not as expensive as driving in, it still takes a good chunk out of your income. I will like to mention that some of the charges is also due to the tolls the taxi has to go over. Let’s take an example of Haymarket in Boston to Bellingham Sq in Chelsea. The ride will come out to be around $20 with toll fees included. If I were to use the same example as I did for driving in (someone working 5 days at $11/hr), weekly expenses will be $100 and monthly expenses will be $400, which comes to roughly 20% of one’s income.

Now before I end this section, I will admit the pricing is based on the distance and tolls. For example, going from Downtown Boston to Back Bay would be cheaper than going from the same place to Brighton. Same goes for Downtown Boston being cheaper for those going to East Boston than it is to Revere, although I believe Downtown Boston to Brighton is cheaper than Downtown Boston to East Boston due to the toll.

Walking

Now this is something no one wants to do but to me, it has partially happened. One night, I was not able to take the taxi as I had no money (this was before taxis were required to have card readers). My last resort was to call someone but when that failed. I decided to just walk. If you want to know how dangerous that was, since I was going to Chelsea, I had to follow Rt 99 from Boston through Charlestown through Everett to get to Chelsea (looking at it now, it would have been a little more than a 5 mile walk). Lucky for me, though, I was able to get someone while I was at the Bunker Hill Community College area but if I wasn’t able to, I would have continued walking.

I will be completely honest, I have shown my disapproval of the MBTA’s decision to late night service. It appears I wasn’t the only one as the Federal Transit Committee also came out with disapproval. From my perspective, they could have done things much differently to save money than cutting the whole program entirely. After all, they did have the data to do see what can be done.

My opinion on what could have been done

Bring Back the Night Owl System

I mentioned the Night Owl earlier in my post but did not go into much detail regarding it. The service when it was running replaced all subway lines with busses and only major routes will have a bus operating. In all honesty, I do not know why they could not bring this back in a modern form. My suggestion would be running Subways until 1am (giving an additional 30 minutes to normal service rather than an hour) with busses replacing the Subway from 1am to 1:30am. That way, there would be a savings on the cost for keeping the subway running while people are able to use the system.

 
Make the System Seasonal

The biggest issue I have seen firsthand is that there would be low ridership in the winter months while high ridership in the summer months. In my opinion, the MBTA making the late night service from Q1-Q4 (March-December) or even Q2-Q4 (June to December) would have definitely be a solution. Notice I ended both in December. That is because Q1 (January – March) is typically cold where people do not want to walk to the nearest station and would rather find other means of transportation. Mind you, their term for Q1 may be entirely different that what I think it is.

Increase Fares for Late Night Riders

This may not be popular but it could be understandable. Making the late night, say $5 for subway and $3 for busses (even maybe as high as $7 for subway, $5 for busses) stating at 12:30am would have been more reasonable than cutting the whole service. It definitely would have been cheaper than the other options (I will talk about Uber and Lyft later, and maybe Bridj).

What I think will happen now

Oh boy, this is only speculation but I can definitely see this happening. I must remind the readers that this is my opinion on what I believe will happen.

At Subway/Bus Stops

People are creatures of habits and since this program nearly lasted for 2 years, I believe people have made a habit of their schedule by now. I would not be surprised to see people go to a subway station to be surprised that it is closed at 2am. Same can be said about bus riders waiting at bus stops for the next bus that will not come.

Taxis

I can see an increase of taxis being used but at the same time, I can see the actions of my experience with taxis become more common. The fact that they all have card readers is a plus but I can see some taxis refusing to provide service to passengers. For those who will be using taxis, remember these two things. Taxis cannot refuse a passenger due to where they are going and for Boston Taxis (not sure if it is everywhere else as well), they cannot and are not suppose to operate without a functioning card reader. Notice I said functioning because some drivers may say the card reader is not working.

Uber/Lyft/etc.

Services like this have come out saying they will help those who need it. Unfortunately, the help they will provide will be temporary. Between 1am and 2am is when clubs and bars let their patrons out and they will be demanding these services as well as workers. With that said, do not be surprised to see a normal $5 dollar rider turn into a $50 ride.

Bridj

Last but not least is a company I really don’t know much about, Bridj. This company is definitely something that should be watched at in the near future, especially since they do look like they are going to be the best option. The only concern of mine is the same with taxis, tolls. Will Bridj charge a fee for going over tolls or will Bridj work side-by-side with the MBTA/MassDot so they won’t have to deal with tolls? Time will certainly tell.