Questions Over Polling Place Safety?

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Polling Place Problem?

People concerned over security for Iraq’s upcoming elections are demanding that one polling site be relocated insisting it could be targeted by a suicide bomber. The thing is, the site is not inside Iraq, it’s here in the United States. In Nashville (search), Tennessee, one of five U.S. cities where Iraqis can vote.

A group of local churches an businesses say the location of the polling site inside a community center that’s near an elementary school is "totally stupid," as one person put it, adding that security is our main concern. But city officials quoted by The Tennessean (search) say it may be too late to move the polling site.

Meanwhile, a Chicago suburb of Niles, Illinois has forced a group organizing the global Iraqi vote effort to vacate its headquarters there, insisting even that work might make the building a target for violence.

Outcome Unchanged?

Three and a half weeks after Democrat Christine Gregoire (search) was declared the winner over Republican Dino Rossi (search) in a Washington State governor’s race, by a margin of 129 votes, The Seattle Times has identified exactly 129 votes illegally cast by convicted felons. The Times examined records from the state’s two biggest counties, King and Pierce Counties, and in those two counties alone found scores of votes cast by felons who are prohibited from voting while in prison. And even after released from prison until they meet some requirements.

In addition to the 129 felons who definitely voted illegally, The Times said it found another 23 who likely voted illegally. But The Times points out illegal votes from felons may not have changed the outcome of the race, because no one knows which candidate felons voted for. Not even Republicans are arguing that all convicted felons voted Democratic.

Bag The Idea?

The San Francisco Commission on the Environment (search) is urging the city’s mayor and board of supervisors to start charging grocery shoppers 17-cents for each plastic bag they carry their food home in. The commission wants to discourage consumption of plastic bags, which environmentalists insist are polluting waterways and often end up in trees. That of course leaves paper bags, which don’t have those problems. But the commission is urging the mayor and board to charge consumers for paper bags too. Why? As one environmentalist explained, "to be even handed."

— FOX News' Michael Levine contributed to this report