A day after Antitrust star Tim Robbins excoriated the Board of Elections in an open letter that described commissioner Gregory Soumas as a "petty vindictive corrupt scumbag," the bureaucrats have fired back with their own open letter! After some boilerplate about how the NYC BOE "takes special pride in the conduct of the November 4, 2008 election," and how they "recognize the need for all voters to be informed of all electoral procedural requirements," the......

If you thought Barack Obama's decisive victory might shut up Arlington Road star Tim Robbins, well, you don't know Tim Robbins. First he was outraged when poll workers wouldn't let him vote at his regular voting place on Election Day, then he was doubly incensed when the Board of Elections publicly blamed the snafu on him (for supposedly registering twice with a different address). Now the Fraternity Vacation star has gone all Huff Post on......

More on Tim Robbins Voter-gate! City Room has a thorough exposé on what went wrong for the Tapeheads star on Election Day, when he showed up to vote at the YMCA on West 14th Street and was told that his name was not in the Poll List Book. His misadventures got a lot of media attention after he refused to fill out a provisional ballot, accused poll workers of trying to "intimidate" him, and finally......

It's believed yesterday's presidential election had the biggest voter turnout since the 1960 election: American University's Center for the Study of the American Electorate director Curtis Gans "predicted that as many as 135 million people would cast votes - 64.8 percent of those eligible to vote, compared with 67 percent in 1960." However, the excitement of high voter turnout and a thrilling presidential race is tempered by the long lines many faced. NYC voters saw......

Think of it as an early Thanksgiving, putting long waits and polling site madness aside: Let's be thankful for the right to vote. The 19th Amendment--"The right of citizens of the United State to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United State or by any State on account of sex"-- was ratified in 1920 and the Voting Rights Act, which, according to the Department of Justice, "codifies and effectuates the 15th......

Politicker NY's Azi Paybarah was on the scene at 134th in Harlem when Representative Charles Rangel and his wife Alma went to vote at 6 a.m. and reports Rangel was thrilled with the line: "This is beautiful. This is exciting.. Who would have thought it? I've never seen anything like this." Rangel, who also said he was confident with Barack Obama's chances, was also overheard saying, "Those Europeans never thought the slaves would be in......

Americans all over the country are heading to their polling places to cast their votes for President as well as a number of other races. Polls opened at 6 a.m. in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, and they close at 8 p.m. in NJ and CT and at 9 p.m. in NY. Based on anecdotes, the predictions of high voter turnout are coming true. Overall, we're hearing that lines were forming early in the......

Tim Robbins made a big stink at the YMCA on West 14th Street this morning when he was told that his name was not on the voter list. According to City Room, Robbins has been voting at the same polling place since 1997, but for some unknown reason, his name was nowhere to be found when he went in this morning. The Times happened upon him sitting in a folding chair looking dejected and annoyed:......

Reminder! Now that you've done your civic duty and cashed in with free treats, head over to Babeland to pick up your Maverick sleeve (gentlemen) or Silver Bullet vibrator (ladies). We just talked to the shop, and with the stores only opened for a couple of hours, they've already had well over 200 people stop in asking for the toys. Get yours before it's too late! The three shop locations are at 462 Bergen Street......

The polls open at 6 a.m. statewide tomorrow, and given the recent concern about whether the NYC Board of Elections is prepared for an anticipated massive voter turnout, you might want to consider voting early. Polls close at 9 p.m., and you can check your voting location here or by calling 1-866-VOTE-NYC. In New Jersey, polls open at 6 a.m. and close at 8 p.m; you can look up your polling place here. Polls in......

Sure, it's going to be gratifying voting for Barack Obama Tuesday (sorry one McCain reader), but the folks at Babeland want to make you feel even more gratified. Like, between your legs, if you know what we mean. The sex toy shop just sent over a press release, declaring that every voter that comes into their shop next Tuesday (and through the 11th) will receive a Silver Bullet vibrator, or a Maverick (pictured). That second......

Mayor Bloomberg criticized the city's Board of Elections, after BOE officials said Election Day could be chaotic, "This is a joke...this public is badly served by this agency as any city or state thing I've seen." Yesterday, a number of reports noted concern over whether the BOE would be able to deal with the hundreds of thousands of new voter registrations and Election Day itself, and the BOE has cited under-financing as a reason for......

With only six days to go until Election Day, we should all be excited or relieved to finally cast our ballots and leave the worrying for when we wait for returns. But all signs are pointing to a rough day for NYC's 4.6 million voters, courtesy of the NYC Board of Elections--and Mayor Bloomberg. For instance, this is what BOE official Frederic Umane said yesterday, "We just hope that people would be as patient when they try to vote as they would be trying to wait for a hamburger at one of the more fancy hamburger places, which I understand the lines can be up to two or three hours."...

The things you see when you leave the New York City limits! This photo was taken on Grove Street in Jersey City last weekend en route to the PATH station after All Points West. Hung on a fence surrounding a vacant lot, the banner speaks volumes about the Garden State's famed anarcho-syndicalism, which has succeeding in directly carrying out the collective will through cutting-edge technology like text messaging. If only New York City developers......

Photograph, left, of Hillary Clinton at Herrera's Mexican Cafe in Dallas, TX by Carolyn Kaster/AP; photograph, right, of Barack Obama at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo 2008 by Rick Bowmer/AP Ohio and Texas are "too close to call" for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, which means it will be a long night - and very possibly another few weeks of primary madness. Obama did win Vermont (so far, 59% to Clinton's 39%) and......

After the NY Times noticed unofficial primary vote counts indicated Barack Obama received no votes whatsoever in 80 (out of over 6000) districts, the NYC Board of Elections launched an investigation. Now Newsday reports the BoE says Obama "did not receive any votes in 27 of 82 election districts." Unofficial counts, based on hand-written and hand-entered data from poll inspectors and police officers, are what the media - and campaigns - rely on to......

Senators and rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama met at the University of Texas in Austin tonight for the CNN/Univision debate. The debate was less a showdown than an "agree to disagree" type affair. You can read a transcript here and clips will start to appear, but, per Austinist, here are some of best lines of the night: “I have to confess, I was somewhat amused, the other night,......

Photograph of a Manhattan polling place by Daniella Zalcman on Flickr After the NY Times story revealed how NYC votes for Barack Obama appear to have been undercounted for the unofficial (yet official enough to be sent to the AP and other news outlets) results on primary night, State Senator Bill Perkins of Harlem spoke out. Perkins, who supports Obama, told the Post: "Every election has problems, but in this case, all the problems......

Photograph of an Obama volunteer in Harlem by Angela Radulescu on Flickr Your Super Tuesday primary vote did count, although it may not have initially. The NY Times did some digging around after noticing, according to the unofficial results the media relies on, 80 NYC voting districts recorded no votes for Obama, even in neighborhoods with large black populations. The city has now "confirmed some major discrepancies between the vote totals reported publicly —......

After losing by considerable margins in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia primaries to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton unveiled an ad attacking her rival yesterday. The voiceover says:Both Democratic candidates were invited to a televised debate here in Wisconsin. Hillary Clinton has said yes. Barack Obama hasn’t. Maybe he’d prefer to give speeches than have to answer questions. Like why Hillary Clinton has the only health care plan that covers every American, and the only economic......

Last week there were rumblings of the writers' strike coming to an end, over the weekend it was pretty much confirmed, and since then the TV-nation has been waiting with bated breath. Until last night, that is, when word came in that the WGA (trying to steal Obama's thunder?) announced that the strike has officially come to an end. Fin! In the last of what has seemed like an endless amount of WGA press releases......

http://gothamist.com/2008/02/05/get_out_your_pr.php...

ART: "Drawing Art and Politics" seems like a fitting event to have on the calendar today. "Spend an evening with New York’s renowned graphic artists Jules Feiffer, David Levine, Stan Mack, and Edward Sorel, as they examine the ways in which complex social and political issues are depicted by artists in today’s media. Jules Feiffer will moderate a discussion that explores the roots of political art and social realism in the context of John Sloan’s......

Photograph of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton at their Democratic debate in Los Angeles last week by Charles Rex Arbogast/AP Yesterday, the Daily News and Newsday offered editorials endorsing Hillary Clinton for Tuesday's NY State Democratic Primary. While the News calls both Clinton and Barack Obama are "compelling choices," disagrees with both candidates' strategies for ending the war in Iraq and finds Obama inspirational, the News ultimately finds Clinton to be the "stronger" of......

Earlier this week, the Post reported that "high-profile" Bronx Republican Fred Brown, who is a GOP district leader in the Bronx and votes there, actually lives in Battery Park City in lower Manhattan. Which means he's been voting in the Bronx illegally. Now, the Bronx's DA's office is investigating the matter. Brown, who is also chairman of the National Black Republican Council and would have been a delegate for Rudy Giuliani if had stayed in......

Rudy Giuliani's poor showing in the presidential campaign has plenty of people giving their opinions on why it all went wrong. Bronx residents gave the NY Times an earful about the former mayor ("I was waiting for this moment — he stinks...Giuliani was always for himself, never for the people.") while the Daily News reported on the "hick" comments of Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who said, "The New York lifestyle hasn't gone over [in]......

After the national debate about race turned into the national debate about how race discussed in the Democratic presidential campaign, Senators and Democratic rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have declared a truce. The stir was caused by Clinton's remarks about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s efforts ("Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act...It took a president to get it done.") and when Obama criticized Clinton......

• Londonist pondered who might be the next sponsors of the London Eye and whether or not readers would be willing to donate £1,000 each for a Londonist Eye.
• Shanghaiist was shocked to find a cameltoe in the city's only English-language paper.
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In the vicious waters of the 2008 presidential campaign, everything is fair game. President Bill Clinton learned that (again!) after a remark he made has drawn the ire of black leaders. So Clinton called into the Reverend Al Sharpton's radio show to explain why used the term "fairy tale" while criticizing Barack Obama. It turns out during a Dartmouth College speech (the day before Hillary Clinton's victory in the New Hampshire primary), the former President......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian struck on Woodward Ave. and Cornelia St. in Queens, a burn victim on West 52nd St. in Manhattan, and a carjacking on 141st St. and Riverside Drive in Manhattan. Chaka Khan joins the cast of the Broadway musical The Color Purple. I feel for you, ticket holders. Tomorrow is your last chance to register for voting in New York's February 5th primary. Using handheld computers to identify......