This was our first time at the Li'l Roxie, and we hope it won't be our last! (Please, please, say the rumors aren't true!) We squeezed past the teeny-tiny hallway and into a long, narrow, but spacious, comfy, and well-proportioned closet, and settled into our squeaky chair (we apologize to all our neighbors) for 90 minutes of SF DocFest electoral rage. We also picked up a ballot on our way in -- before you ask, it was an IndieFest optical scan, where choices (or "ratings") are marked with a circle. Call It Democracy, by Matt Kohn, is an exploration of the problem of electioneering in the 21st century -- from the oddities of the electoral college to Supreme Court shenanigans to missing electronic ballots to Colorado's electoral-vote splitting movement in 2004. Okay, we're not too liberaler-than-thou to admit it -- electoral reform is really not the most interesting topic in the world to us. So it's with a great deal of relief that we can report that this movie is not like one of those long DailyKos tinhat-wearing posts that you skip, or a long filmstrip with blue states and red states, or anything like that. The clips are interesting! The movie moves at a brisk pace! We didn't find ourselves trying to gouge our eyes out with a stick! That's good, right? Cameos by stapler-throwers John Bolton and Kevin Shelley, after the jump. more ›

RCV results are in! more ›

Ever since the election, there's been a lot of grumbling about our misfortune in being attached to the rest of the country. Finally, somebody did something about it: posted the Web site USoutofSF.com. As the site says, "that's right, America, we here in San Francisco are officially sick of your s*** and we're not going to take it anymore." Included are links to an online petition calling for California to secede from the Union and other secession related sites. Works for us. Wonkette (who we're still a little upset with for giving us Game 6 of the 2002 World Series type flashbacks with her daily exit polling), warns, however, that, "you know how it'll go: In nine years, we'll just invade again. . . and spend a lot time searching the leaders' spider holes." We would use this as an excuse to show everyone's "so-best" photo of said leader and his wife but as the Gavster had a rough week, we'll leave him be- it isn't often that you're single-handedly blamed for a crushing national political defeat. more ›

A fatal exception has occurred down at City Hall -- the results of the instant runoff races has been delayed because of a software crash in the computers tallying the votes, which probably won't be fixed for another two weeks. more ›

In all the hubbub about Bush's "mandate," new dark allegations about possible voter fraud in Florida and Ohio, and general wailing about the death of the Democratic party, it's easy to forget the usual state of liberal-on-liberal violence in our very own home town! We've gotta keep an eye on these things -- since the local government's all we've got left now! more ›

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All the local counties will be posting live election results once the polls close at eight. San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa and Marin counties all have website with results from their respective districts. Want to know how your favorite propositions are doing? Then up-to-date results and percentages of precincts tallied are just a click or two away. more ›

SFist of course does not recommend any Jonestown-style group hari kiri, and a good belly laugh over a pint could be just the ticket to remind you that presidents, good or bad, only get to serve two terms. So head on down - it's free, and the comedians will keep their wits tuned to the telly along with you. The showcase will be hosted by local comedy impresario Susan Alexander. more ›

Sorry for the lateness of our postings -- we're all out voting today. And we'd love to hear your balloting stories! Any funny antics involving ranked-choice voting? See any precinct hookups while waiting in line? Any babies wearing Kerry-Edwards shirts thrown out of the booth? Any young cherubs refusing to accept Halloween candy from Republicans? more ›

So tomorrow you'll have done your homework, stood in line, gotten your sticker and have been a good citizen. more ›

get out the vote-related news more ›

Global Citizen Center. David, who is running against the heavily favored (not to mention heavily funded) Michela Alioto-Pier has the endorsement of Matt Gonzalez, Chris Daly, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian. more ›

Trouble With Tribbles being a Season 1 episode when everyone knows it's Season 2. more ›

SFist was kind of ambivalent about blogging when we first heard about it a few years ago. Seemed like the kind of self-absorbed nonsense one might expect from high school poets, or discussions of technical issues way over SFist's head. Either way, the voices in the blogosphere at the turn of the century didn't resonate with us. more ›

The next time you complain about how busy you are, take a look at Jane Kim's packed schedule. Between her job as youth program director at the Chinatown Community Development Center, her position as co-director and co-founder of Locus Arts, and her many volunteer and philanthropic activities, she has somehow found the time to run for the San Francisco District School Board. more ›

What are you up to in the next five days? If you've got some spare time and you're itching to do something worthwhile, maybe you should get yourself hooked up with Driving Votes. That's a great organization that puts together group trips to swing states from safe states around the country for progressives who are just itching to have a different president and want to do something more about it than just voting at their local precincts. There are two trips to Reno and three to Las Vegas leaving from the Bay Area this weekend. They need bodies and they need cars, especially for Vegas. Get on it! (And while you're in Vegas, play a few hands of high stakes poker for your pals back in Ess Eff.) more ›

Whether it's San Francisco's exalted sense of self or its well-noted love of tolerance and debate, the San Francisco Voter Information "Pamphlet" clocks in at around 200 pages. Highlights include a sample ballot, information on how to vote (much important these days) and a glossary of terms. The "pamphlet" also includes a guide on how to recycle the "pamphlet" which gives us a great sense of relief when we consider how many trees must have been cut down to prepare these voter guides. more ›

Obviously SFist loves computers. We're here, aren't we? But we are still not sure about this whole electronic voting thing. It sounds good doesn't it? Heck, if we could vote from the comfort of our ultra-modern space pad-like living room in our jammies we would totally be the best advocates for democracy, like, ever. But we've had enough trouble with online shopping sprees gone awry and that time we lost our term paper to hold on to just a wee bit of Luddite suspicion in our heart. more ›

Previously on Proposition It, we learned how Proposition 65 begat Proposition 1A, how Prop 60 begat Prop 60A and Prop. 62. We also learned that there’s a really cranky lawyer in Mountain View. In today’s installment, we take on frivolous lawsuits, unique tax schemes, and hi-tech gadgetry. Not to mention those crazy Indian Gambling bills. more ›

Michael O'Connor--Running for Supervisor of District 5 more ›

Hopefully you've had a chance to read our interviews with Jennifer DePalma and Renee Saucedo, started doing your homework along with SFist Jon on all the propositions on the state and local ballots, cleared up any misconceptions with the Essefficist and clicked through to Gothamist's interview with Oscar-winning filmmaker Errol Morris. Check over there on the right hand side for links to our latest election coverage. We're not going to make any endorsements, since SFist is not unanimous in our opinions, but let's just say if you don't like your Windows machine crashing all the time, with massive loss of files, programs running mysteriously in the background and easily exploited security vulnerabilities, have you thought about switching to Mac OS X? more ›

. Rita asks, more ›

invade a country without having any idea what to do afterwards. more ›

If you live in District 9, then you've probably witnessed one of Renee Saucedo's bike tours as she's ridden around town with friends drumming up support for her campaign for Supervisor. SFist loves that kind of personal approach to campaigning - and it means we can recognize the candidate even with a bike helment on. more ›

SFist interviews Jennifer DePalma, candidate for United States Congress from the 8th district. more ›

It's no secret that people tend to display their political leanings on their car bumpers, and it's also no secret that emotions are running high. SFist will also confess that when we see the rare Bush/Cheney bumper sticker on the road, we sometimes speed up and pass them just so we can see what they look like. But a Mountain View resident who got the personalized license plate NO*BUSH went outside Sunday morning and found that a disgruntled Republican had taken a baseball bat to the rear window of his SUV and dented the plate. more ›

The League of Pissed Off Voters continues with their 40 Parties in 40 Days (though we're now only at a fortnight more of parties) with a big Thursday-night bash. more ›

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia -- oh, we're just the good ol' reliable Bay Area in Election 2004, no one cares about us -- no one's wooing us, no one's filling up our airwaves with "I'm George Bush and I approved this message" disclaimers, America Coming Together and Berkeley's own moveon.org aren't hosting Springsteen and Dixie Chicks concerts at the Shoreline, and no one's marketing W ketchup at our local farmers' markets. So us lovelorn political junkies are bubbling with enthusiasm over this week's triple bill -- John Edwards at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, raising $1.5 million and showing his support of the striking hotel workers, Jesse Jackson speaking at the Commonwealth Club last night, and John Ashcroft at the Tech Museum in San Jose today, ominously intoning that "Young people must learn ... of the risk of intellectual property theft." In Cleveland, Ohio or Erie, Pennsylvania, they'd probably just view that showing as pretty second-tier (and they'd be right), but for us -- wow! People actually coming here to promote national political agendas! It really must be the cheese! more ›

The Easy Voter Guide is a great resource for new and busy voters. more ›

We do love our protests here in the Bay Area. We love them so much that we follow protests in other cities like some folks follow football. Except it's always the same two teams: the protesters versus the cops. You can guess who EssEffist is rooting for. Medea Benjamin, founder of Code Pink, led a delegation in the massive march on Sunday that some estimates placed at half a million people. The march was led by local boy made good Danny Glover, among others. He walked arm in arm with Michael Moore, who was invoked to jeers and laughter by John McCain during his address to the delegates yesterday evening. Speaking of delegates, the California delegation, led by Regent Parsky, Chairman of the UC Board of Regents (what on earth did he and Dolores Huerta talk about?), is definitely looking forward to tonights speech by the Governator. Look for the recap in tomorrow's Chron. While we've yet to hear 'The Miami Model' used, protest suppression seems to be running along similar tactics. Police have used mopeds and vespas to bring down bicyclists from Critical Mass and the Bike Bloc. Apparently bicyclists are especially dangerous - some estimates have put the number of confiscated bikes near 1,000, including the hi-tech graffiti bike from Bikes Against Bush. After demonstrating the technology to an MSNBC crew, he was arrested for vandlism, even after demonstrating that a water-soluble chalk was used to officers. Other tacticts have included mass arrests by officers without badges or other ID; protesters penned by riot police and orange plastic netting, and then arrested one by one; protestors being chased down by officers on motorbikes who are snaring them in nets; and reports of beatings by both riot squad and plainclothes police. Another tactic, which we've seen here in SF, is cops videotaping the proceedings as well as the protestors. Protest tactics have involved small demonstrations all over the city in order to spread the police forces. Union, Herald, Times and Madison Square have all seen action today. San Francisco political punk legend Jello Biafra was spotted at "The Man in Black Bloc" demonstration singing along with other protesters to "Ring of Fire" and "A Boy Named Sue." We know what Wonkette means when she says New Yorkers must feel like they've all been moved to San Francisco. For the latest in reports from the street, check out NYC Indymedia (which the Secret Service has reportedly been harassing), Indybay or listen in to Critical Mass (89.1 FM) or Pacifica Radio (94.1 FM). Boing Boing is on the geek-tech angle, and of course Gothamist is bringing it with the local coverage. more ›