Saw John’s post from last night and the comments and I wanted to elaborate on the Tea Party plans to confront individual voters.
I’ve been a voter protection volunteer in Ohio for the last two cycles, and I’m entered to do that work again this cycle. Election law is state law, so my experience is specific to Ohio. There are federal laws that come into play: the Voting Rights Act, the Help America Vote Act, but the election day work is primarily state law.
Commenter ZuZu’s Petals volunteered to do this job in Ohio, in 08, and I’m sure she’s not the only Balloon Juice commenter or reader who has personal experience in this area.
Tea Party members have started challenging voter registration applications and have announced plans to question individual voters at the polls whom they suspect of being ineligible.
The first (challenging voter registration applications) they can do if they’re trained in the state law process and able to apply it. From the linked article, it sounds like they have had some success attempting to purge minority voters from the rolls in Texas, with the help of a conservative lawyer.
The second (announced plans to question individual voters at the polls) is typical Tea party bullying, and mostly bluster. They’re probably feeding this to media to suppress the vote, ahead of the vote. It’s going to be difficult for them to harass individual voters inside a polling place, because there are rules, a lot of rules, different in every state, and you have to know them, and follow them.
They may enter and remain in a polling place in Ohio if they are: a voter in that precinct, assisting a disabled voter, a poll worker or other election official, or an “entered” observer.
I “enter” as an observer in Ohio by filing an entry with the county Board of Elections. That’s how I gain access to the polling place. That has to been done well prior to the election, because I can’t act as an observer if I’m a convicted felon or have violated election law in the past, and the Board of Elections has to verify my entry. We have election protection volunteers entered in every polling place in Ohio.
Further, even if they are voters in the minority neighborhoods they’re targeting which would give them lawful access to a polling place – highly unlikely given the demographic makeup of the Republican Party/Tea Party-they can’t stick around filming people or confronting voters, because there are rules about that.
Election protection observers in Ohio are lawyers, and a lot of us were once poll workers in the precincts and counties where we enter. This is a little more complicated than plans to beat a protester at a Rand Paul rally. They can’t throw the scheme together in 20 minutes. I think it’s unlikely that some roving band of vigilante Tea Party members screaming FRAUD are going to intimidate us, in the counties where we live and work. We know the rules and will insist conservative activists follow each and every one of them.
Remember: these are the people who elected a candidate for the United States Senate who is apparently not familiar with the Bill of Rights, but chose to belligerently challenge the First Amendment, in a televised debate. Their candidate for Vice President of the United States famously had to take a crash course on civics and geography at an Arizona ranch, none of which she retained.
They’re not big on preparation, or, well, work.
RalfW
They’re big on imagining what the Constitution says, but get really, really upset when they find out it says things different than what they made up in their minds or, ugh, learn from Michele Bachmann.
Town
The tea party bullies are going to run up on the wrong one at one of these minority polling places. That’s all I’m sayin’.
mistermix
My Mom has been working the polls in various capacities (she now supervises poll workers) in the Dakotas for 40 years. She, and the people she supervises, are extremely careful (some might even say persnickety) about following election law. She’s known every cop and sheriff’s deputy who works in our area since they were little kids. The only person who’s going to be intimidated at her polling stations is the jackass who tries to mess with a voter.
I would imagine that most districts where teabaggers live, which tend to be older and whiter, have people like her running the polls. And I doubt that teabaggers have the balls to pull this shit in minority neighborhoods, since fear of minorities seems to be the main motivator of the entire movement. So, as usual, it’s a bunch of smack-talking that will probably only be acted upon by one or two crazies who have a house full of ammo and semi-automatic weapons.
Charlie
I bet if you confront those conservatives who question your ligitimacy at the poles about their political affiliation, they will lie and portrait themselves as neutral. Lying, secrecy, fraud, misrepresntation, and misdirection are all the conservatives have to get elected in America as their real platform and beliefs are not popular with voters.
Culture of Truth
they can’t stick around filming people or confronting voters, because there are rules about that.
Is stomping on people still allowed?
Kay
@mistermix:
Good for her. Being a pollworker is both boring and difficult. All the action and need for attention to detail happens in the last hour of a 16 hour shift, when you’re bleary and tired.
The Tea Party preemptive strike makes me laugh a little, because people who are (allegedly) confident that they’re “taking back their country” have given themselves a fall-back excuse if they lose.
Like all bullies, they’re really cowards. They’re afraid they’re going to lose, and they can’t handle that.
jwb
@RalfW: They treat the Bible the same way, so it’s not really a surprise. But still…
General Stuck
The wingnuts are outdoing themselves in the “libtards are stealing our victories again” department. It is not by accident, though maybe largely subconscious preparation for the possibility their landslide predictions are not realized on election day.
Psychological preparation for plan b, on matters they have already decided on deep in the lizard brain cortex. Or, we may have to deploy 2nd amendment remedies, and need to give ourselves permission with justification.
We are witnessing a segment of the population lose contact with and becoming un tethered to reality, even more than normal. It is a prelude to rebellion, this kind of self delusion, to this degree, if the subliminal threats they have been broadcasting are not heard by a majority of voters to give them back power. They need to believe they are victims, and not perpetrators for “taking back their country’ by whatever means necessary.
Daddy-O
They may or may not be well-prepared…but it seems that they’re dead serious.
Michael Bersin
They’re not big on preparation, or, well, work.
And, unfortunately, neither is our old media, so the teabaggers’ work is done.
Dork
They cant, but they will. And as soon as they’re confronted/dismissed/arrested, suddenly FAUX NEWZ ALERT — LAWFUL VIDEOTAPERZ ARRESTD 4 FILMIN ILEGUL VOTER FRAWD!!
Then, of course, quickly picked up by every MM outlet, and suddenly they’re all martyrs. Cant have a functioning democracy when the media is he-said/she-said 24/7.
Kay
@Daddy-O:
I don’t think it works like that. Passion or some belief in some alternative legal system that we don’t actually have isn’t going to carry the day. Polling places always remind me of courthouses. Same general feeling. This stuff is serious.
The best they can do is try to create chaos. It will be the voter’s job to walk past them and enter the place where even conservatives have to know and follow a set of rules.
mistermix
@Kay: What’s sad is that if there is some violence from teabaggers, some of the nice old ladies who work the polls might quit in fear, and they’ll lose the opportunity to participate in a pleasant social activity, as well as one that is a real contribution to the community.
Jinchi
That just means that they’ll be packing heat.
elm
Presumably the Rand Paul Curbstomp Experience will protect KY’s polls from minorities, women, and Democrats.
beergoggles
@Dork: Yeah, I wouldn’t expect the rest of the media to actually break away from whatever propaganda Fox will start spewing.
Just curious, is Clarence Thomas’ kid old enough to be voter suppressed?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
The one thing I worry about with baggers is them standing outside an election place – the one I vote at is inside an elementary school – and when the “right” person walks up to go inside to vote, the bagger gets hold of them, stares at the other person’s voter registration card for a bit, and makes up something about how it is invalid, causing the person to leave without voting. They could even be hovering in the parking lots.
I wonder if it would be useful to have some people in those areas as well, so that when this happens they can catch up to them and tell the person to go in and talk to the real election people.
Kay
@mistermix:
They’re great with the “social activity” part. They bring tons of food. I eat all day. When I was a pollworker they politely and discreetly exempted me from food duty because my contribution just wasn’t up to local standards. I was throwing apples in a bag at 5 in the morning.
“Here. Enjoy.”
jwb
@General Stuck: Yes, we’ll see. My gut tells me the Dems are going to squeak this one out, but my gut has been known to be wrong…
I must admit that I still really don’t trust those voting machines, especially with the wingnuts’ well-known penchant for projection and hearing them presently screaming “voter fraud” at the top of their lungs. Let’s just say it all makes me very suspicious.
Kay
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
I wander around. I’m often in the parking lot so I can use a cell phone, where I contact the board of elections if the conservative poll workers are misapplying the ID rules, re: provisional ballots.
They take a sort of belt and suspenders approach to ID. They demand more than is required. That’s against the rules they wrote.
Randy P
Speaking of Tea Partiers, this didn’t take long.
Tim Profitt has demanded that Lauren Valle apologize for his stomping on her.
MJ
I am reposting this comment I wrote in response to the earlier thread about voter intimidation:
Hey BJ’ers,
Sorry that I’m a bit late to the party, but as a karate instructor an attorney who volunteers as a poll monitor and does some voter education work, I’d like to invite you all to check outa really great Election Protection website (http://www.866ourvote.org/) that provides good state by state (http://www.866ourvote.org/state/) information about voting rights. The site also provides specific guidance about how voters should handle challenges to their eligibility.
If you’re too busy to slog through all of this information, you should feel free to call or email the Voter Protection hotline with any general elections/voting questions, or to report any voting problems.
Call: 1-866-Our-Vote
Email: [email protected]
adolphus
MY parents have been poll workers for 30 years in a small military town in MD and I have been a poll worker since I moved to Florida in 2007 (I am an Independent and not all states allow for I to work because there are balance laws R v D, just one of the many small ways third party and no party people are marginalized. But maybe that’s why Florida voting is so screwed up. Too many non R&D’s)
I would like to echo what Mistermix said and expand it. Poll workers (like jurors in my experience) take their jobs VERY seriously and don’t take shit from ANYONE. In MD the no campaigning rule applies to buttons and shirts. My 4’10”, 65 year old mom will send a beefy construction worker to his truck to turn his shirt inside out. In my Florida polling station I have seen poll workers go out to cars and carry people in to vote if they aren’t able to walk in. My job is to operate the accessibility machines (for low vision or those who can’t handle pencils) and we have worked with people for over an hour to make sure they vote. And many times we do so even when we know this person will not vote the way we wish they would. The only near violence I have seen in the polling place is when a young lady tried to call her boyfriend from the booth to ask about one of the referendum questions. No calling from the polling place! We had to void her ballot, make her go outside and come back in. She was not happy and almost tried to force her ballot in the box.
Poll workers are pathologically civic minded.
Also in Florida, no one is allowed in the polls but workers and registered observers, and voters while they vote and like Ohio observers have to be registered and vetted. If someone needs assistance Law enforcement are not even allowed in our polls unless voting or called by a person deputized for the day. You wanna see something cool. Watch some elderly African-American poll worker walk up to a 20-something cop and say, “Excuse me sir, you already voted. You need to leave.” From Jim Crow to kicking out the man in 60 years.
My point is, I agree with Kay and Mistermix. I am not saying it can’t happen, but most of this is bluster and meant to keep people from even going to the polls. Once voters get to the polling place, there are just too many people there who take the act of voting seriously and hold it sacred to put up with this. They are zealous and typically been trained what to do and what the laws are.
Not 100% mind you. But I think there are reasons we have so few actual cases of voter fraud in this country, and the zealousness of poll workers is one of them.
redoubt
Our old friend Hans von Spakovsky is in this somewhere, probably.
JGabriel
Randy P: You beat me to it, I was just about to post that. These assholes are fucking shameless:
.
geg6
One, just one, of these mother fuckers starts any shit outside my polling place, and they will wish the hell they stayed home that day.
My polling place is quite diverse, but there are a lot of local Teabaggers who, I have no doubt, will be milling around in a menacing way. Thankfully, they can come no closer than 10 feet from a polling place and definitely won’t be let inside. It’s like a church in there and no more than 10 people (excluding official poll workers and registered observers) are allowed in the room where the machines are at any one time.
greennotGreen
I worked on GOTV for the 2008 election here in Tennessee, and after the polls closed at 7:00 p.m. but everyone who was still in line was going to be allowed to vote, I was sent to one of the polling places to observe. Now, I was already listed with the local Democratic office, so maybe that enough, but I don’t remember filling out any special form, and I sure didn’t have any special training. That said, I wasn’t in the room where the voting actually took place because the line was *way* out the door. I just stood around and chatted pleasantly with my (probably Republican) counterpart and watched for any irregularities.
TooManyJens
Speaking of which, why don’t state and local election officials go on the air to counter this intimidation? Surely some of them are interested in actually ensuring that everyone gets to exercise their right to vote.
(The only Republican I voted for this year was our county clerk, who believe it or not is doing an amazing job in making voter registration and voting easier and more accessible. For college students, even. It’s weird.)
beergoggles
@jwb:
Nothing will be done about the voting machines till hackers start making some green party candidate start winning. At which point both the Dems and Reps will feel suitably threatened to do something.
Redshift
@redoubt: Our pleasant, smiling “I’m not an extremist” Republican governor put von Spakovsky on the Board of Elections for my county, the biggest Democratic-leaning county in the state (VA.) Since the governor is a Repub, they get a majority on the board, and have been issuing rulings like prohibiting the county from printing election materials in any language other than English.
Grrr…
Redshift
@greennotGreen: You don’t have to have any special permission to be outside the polls. How far away depends on the state — in VA it’s forty feet from the door of the building.
Morbo
You ready for a surprise? You’ll never expect this, I swear. No one could possibly have predicted it.
Profitt thinks he deserves an apology.
Satire is dead.
SpotWeld
I predict there will be a wide range of actions taken on my Tea Party groups. They will range from the mostly harmless (groups of Partiers in parking lots at polling places looking for ACORN bumper stickers). The stupid (Partiers being “aw shucks, I didn’t mean nuttin'” when they find out their “All American BBQ and ID check tailgate” at the polling place is probably not legal) and a few rare cases of either really competent actions (they actually do find a case of a voter going to multiple locations) or really dangerous (a ‘bagger attemping a ‘citizens arrest’ on a likely terrorist or something).. of those last two senarios I suspct the later to happen rather than the former.
Redshift
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
That’s the domain of the local Democratic Party. I’m a precinct captain for my local precinct, and we’ve had a strong push this year to make sure we have registered observers inside and people outside, both to hand out sample ballots and to watch for shenanigans, even in reliable precincts where we know the poll workers won’t put up with any crap if they see it.
Bubblegum Tate
@Dork:
Also: “We’re getting in trouble for doing exactly the same thing the New Black Panthers DIDN’T get in trouble for doing. Obama is a racist!”
Rick Massimo
@Kay: Yeah, but as was alluded to above, you have to expand your definition of “carry the day” to include:
“WAAAAH all we were doing, Mr. News Cameraman, is asking innocent questions of certain possibly legal voters, and we got thrown out! We demand that the Republican candidate officially be declared the winner and if he isn’t we get to scream about tyranny and innocently carry loaded guns to all the Democrat usurper’s speeches for the next two years!”
“So yeah, controversy at the polling place. Back to you, Jim.”
kommrade reproductive vigor
I’m sure it’s all a prelude for post-election butthurt (or proof that anti-voter fraud measures work), but the problem with screaming Voter Fraud! is someone in charge will eventually need to push laws that prevent it AND do it in a way that allows these dipshits to a) pretend it isn’t about keeping brown folks away from the polls while b) assuring Das Base that it’s about keeping the brown folks away from the polls.
Oh, and AZ’s voter ID law just done got gutted.
Apparently the little old ladies are different in your neck of the woods. I wouldn’t cross the local old dears on a bet.
Bella Q
@JGabriel: And his future criminal defense counsel reads that and shudders. Good fun. Lotsa luck defending that.
JGabriel
Imagine their surprise when they find out it’s Ann Coulter.
.
Cris
I’ve worked elections several times, including one year as a Presiding Judge (where the proverbial buck stops for a given polling place). Those times were my most positive experiences in our electoral system.
One thing I consistently found is that while the poll workers came from all ends of the political spectrum, none of them had an axe to grind, none of them were trying to pursue an agenda, none of them were using their position to advance any cause other than facilitating the vote. It is humbling to be in this environment, where people take the law and the system seriously, without sacrificing friendliness and courtesy and even a sense of camaraderie.
I’d like to do it again, when time permits again.
toujoursdan
My God.
From most advanced nation in the world to African kleptocracy to rigging elections in 30 years.
redoubt
@Redshift: Down here in Georgia the GOP Secretary of State promises to have “SAFE Elections” by “preventing absentee voter fraud” and “opposing drivers licenses for illegal immigrants”. That the DOJ had to sue them to get them to stop automatically doing this anyway is, well, overlooked.
WaterGirl
There is no apparent reason for it, but I have a gut feeling that democratic candidates will do significantly better than the predictions. I believe that no matter what they say, a lot of republicans, when they are in the privacy of the voting booth, will find themselves unable to bring themselves to vote for these crazy people.
I also believe that phenomenon may be part of what carried the day for Obama in 2008. Party loyalties aside, and no matter what they said in public, some republicans just couldn’t bring themselves to vote for the fumbling old man and the “hot librarian” babe with no brains.
Southern Beale
I was an election protection volunteer for the Obama campaign in ’08. I wrote about it here. Kinda sad but funny, too.
I wonder how many “overzealous volunteer” stories we’ll be hearing? I think this is a lot of hoo-hah over not much. Teanuts for the most part tend to back down when confronted. They’re happy to rattle their campaign signs and shout offensive things in large numbers but send one of them out to a poll and they’re basically milquetoast. Plus, I’m not sure they are organized enough to really pull anything off. I think this is just a media fear story more than anything.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@toujoursdan: Please, this is deja vu all over again. These creeps are the heirs of the creeps who made national voting rights/anti-disenfranchisement laws necessary in the first place.
Maybe the GOP will figure out that even the threat of fat bastards hassling voters based on the way they look makes people angry and/or disgusted.
Maybe.
Triassic Sands
Although I’m ambivalent about mail-in voting, voter suppression at the polls disappears as a problem when counties or states dispense with polling places altogether.
I live in western Washington and it has been several years since I even had the option of casting a ballot at a polling site. This year I expect to hear lots of tales about aggressive, even violent confrontations, as Republicans continue their patriotic crusade to limit voting to legitimate voters — i.e., Republicans. Fortunately, none of them will be from around here.
In the past, after close races, I’ve volunteered to observe the official recounts. Observers are not there to challenge the legitimacy of ballots, but rather to make sure that rules are consistently applied. Our county auditor (the official responsible for local elections) is a Republican and I would not trust her to carry out fair recounts unless she knows she’s being watched.
Benjamin Cisco
In my little of corner of NC the process went extremely quietly. There were some Republitea Party reps handing out literature, but they were the prescribed distance from the door and they didn’t give me any guff when I walked up to them. I even took one of their handouts (gotta deplete the supply, right?), then proceeded into the building and voted against every single one of them. Felt damned good, I tell ya…
Death Panel Truck
I don’t know why the entire nation hasn’t just gone to vote by mail. I live in Washington, and I’ve voted by mail since 1996. I used to get absentee ballots sent to my house before vote by mail became the law, and I only lived three blocks from my polling place. I’d like to see some of these motherfuckers come to my house and challenge my eligibility to vote at my leisure from my easy chair. I think a glimpse of my Glock 17 might dissuade them just the tiniest bit.
Admiral_Komack
@MJ:
Thank you for this information.
I have placed it in my phone.
I’m not expecting trouble, but I’m not taking any shit from anyone when I go to vote.
Anya
Kay, thank you for all your hard work. I have nothing to add other than my monetary support to any effort that guards voters rights to exercise their right to vote. I live between Toronto and NY till my three year contract ends so I am a bit out of the loop this year in terms of volunteering and such but I really appreciate the hard work and commitment of individuals like you.
Pangloss
@Jinchi: I live in Chicago. Unfortunately, too many of our citizens have a lot of practice shooting at actual people in the streets as opposed to still targets at the shooting range.
Zuzu's Petals
Hi Kay –
Thanks for the shout out! Volunteering in Ohio in 2008 was a real high point for me.
The other thing I would add is that in Ohio, non-resident observers like me were required to stay a specified distance from the polling place (100 feet?). We were allowed to identify ourselves with an Obama sign, so plenty of people approached us to ask questions about the ID requirements, etc. But the rules were strict.
It’s hard to imagine someone standing no closer than 100 feet will be able to do much in the way of physically intimidating voters, but then again …
MJ
@Admiral_Komack:
You are welcome! Please note that the hotline is live right now and is staffed by a variety of pro bono attorneys, all of whom have been through a training designed in collaboration with variety of progressive legal, civil rights, community & media organizations.
Additional Resources:
They are encouraging voters to use Twitter to protect the vote by tweeting about any issues folks run into at the polls.
Voter Protection Resources in Spanish:
website: http://veyvota.yaeshora.info/
hotline: 1 (888) VE-Y-VOTA (888) 839-8682
MJ
Prior comment in moderation, so I am trying again:
@Admiral_Komack:
You are very welcome! Please note that the hotline is live right now and is staffed by a variety of pro bono attorneys, all of whom have been through a training designed in collaboration with variety of progressive legal, civil rights, community & media organizations.
Additional Resources:
They are encouraging voters to use Twitter to protect the vote by tweeting about any issues folks run into at the polls.
Voter Protection Resources in Spanish:
website: http://veyvota.yaeshora.info/
hotline: 1 (888) VE-Y-VOTA (888) 839-8682
JenJen
Terrific post, Kay.
I was the victim of actual voter intimidation right here in Ohio during the 2004 Election, and the person who intimidated me was a poll worker. I’ve told this story here before, but for anyone who hasn’t heard it, I was holding a sample ballot sheet provided by the Hamilton County Dems to help remind me which judges I wanted to vote for, and also because in 2004 we had a write-in candidate for Sheriff with a complicated name. I waited in line patiently and the poll worker, an older man, was ushering people to the various voting machines as they became available. When it was my turn, he bent down to take a look at the sheet in my hand and said, “You can’t have that.” I told him, “Actually, yes, I can have it” and as I walked past him to the open machine, he stood in front of me and said, loud enough for everyone there to hear (I’ll never forget this as long as I live), “You know, young lady, you have no business voting if you need a piece of paper to tell you who you’re supposed to vote for.”
The women sitting at the registration table audibly gasped. And I have to be honest, I didn’t maintain my composure and I was so red-faced and angry that I was half-crying when I started to yell at him. One of the women got up from the table and tried to calm me down, telling me “he’s just joking, he didn’t mean it” and of course I replied “he most certainly is not joking, and I’m going to take care of this as soon as I’m done voting.” She put her arm around me, took me over to the open machine and I could hear that asshole grumbling and bitching about me. She whispered to me, “Please don’t get him in trouble.”
Well, he ruined my voting experience and as I stood there and cast my vote for John Kerry I was shaking and tears were running down my face. When I was finished, I placed my ballot in the box, walked right past that man who was still glaring at me, and went outside. I recalled a group of MoveOn volunteers standing in the gauntlet of campaign workers when I walked in and I went over to them and told them my story, and asked if anything could be done. While I was recounting it for them, another voter who was in line behind me came out and completely corroborated my story, and told me how shocked he was at the way I was treated, and that he’d never seen anything like it. Let me tell you, the volunteers each whipped out their cell phones and started making all the right calls. They asked me to please remain there until an election judge could arrive (I believe she was a Board of Elections employee but I’m not certain), and when she did, she walked me back into the precinct, asked me to identify the man, asked the other poll workers if my story was accurate, and she removed him. She then patiently went through the election rules with the remaining workers.
Now, look. We all know what happened in Ohio in 2004, and to this day, I think that man did what he did with full knowledge and purpose, and I absolutely believe it happened elsewhere. My voting experience in 2008 was in a different precinct and everything was handled in a completely professional manner, but this year I decided to vote by mail, and honestly, I think my days of walking into precincts to vote in person are over. It’s a nice option and I’m glad Ohio has it, and it’s a surefire way to beat voter intimidation.
After my 2004 experience, my mom was so disgusted by my story that she volunteered to be a poll worker, and has worked every election since. Thank you so much, Kay, and all good and decent poll workers everywhere, for what you do.
ETA: Good grief, is this ever a long post. Congrats to anyone who made it through. Sorry!!
Zuzu's Petals
@Southern Beale:
I like it !
catclub
@Cris:
“It is humbling to be in this environment, where people take the law and the system seriously, without sacrificing friendliness and courtesy and even a sense of camaraderie.”
I bet people used to say that about school boards, too.
Then the GOP learnd to politicize everything.
Of course, school boards had budgets and could hire friends, so maybe it was never that way with them. The hiring budget of pollworkers is much slimmer.
John Bird
Since when has that ever stopped them?
I’m being serious. These little cells of theirs do not care a ton about planning for things like “what if we’re doing turns out to be illegal?”
They proceed with the assumption that if what they’re doing is illegal, it’s due to an injustice, which allows them to mentally convert whatever they’re doing into civil disobedience against the oppressive state.
That said, I think you’re right that this is an attempt at voter intimidation, probably mainly targeted at older black voters, not an announcement of their actual plans on Election Day.
However, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see at least one publicized incident of violence at the polls stemming from a confrontation with Tea Partiers. This whole ‘plan’ is going to draw out the craziest of the crazy.
quaint irene
Looks like he’s been taking lessons from Ginnie Thomas.
It’s the Republican way. Remember the statements from that poor lawyer who got shot in the face by Cheney?
catclub
@WaterGirl:
“There is no apparent reason for it, but I have a gut feeling that democratic candidates will do significantly better than the predictions.”
Although I agree with you, I bet in 2008 there were McCain
supporters saying just what you are saying – but switched.
Felonious Wench
@Town:
Yep. I volunteered for voter protection in my area; I’m in Tom DeLay land, but in a minority-dominant district. I got laughed at.
It’s different in different parts of the country, I’m sure, and in city vs. rural areas. Texans in general don’t take kindly to “outsiders” interfering in their neighborhoods or communities. Liberal, conservative, moderate, doesn’t matter.
Southern Beale
@MJ:
I hope we get our shit together enough to have a hashtag that EVERYONE knows to use …
JenJen
@Southern Beale: That blog post was awesome, and yes, sad/funny! And I absolutely loved the video you posted too, of the woman in Tennessee.
Thanks so much for posting it, because it felt good to relive all those 2008 feelings.
By the way, I am beyond impressed with the Ohio Democratic Party this year. I’ve received emails, phone calls and postcards reminding me to return my ballot by mail before the November 1st postmark deadline, which I did about a week ago now. (I was amazed they knew I hadn’t done it yet, who are these people, my mother?) But today, I received another postcard and started to wonder if my ballot was received at all, or if it was rejected on some kind of technicality, so I called the number on the postcard. The worker instructed me to call my county Board of Elections to confirm my ballot was received and was in order, and gave me their phone number, and his personal extension so I could call back after I spoke with the BoE. The Ohio Dems are on top of their game this year, and I’m really hoping it’s enough to make the difference, especially in the Strickland – Kasich gubernatorial election.
Felonious Wench
@Redshift:
I take the day off every major election and work the parking lots for exactly that reason. I make sure people have what they need to vote and that they’re not bothered in the parking lots.
During the 2008 election, there were some local Republican party assholes out there telling black voters that Obama was a Muslim, not a Christian, which is misinformation that matters in Texas. I am in an area with many African immigrants, and for them, Christian or Muslim and what part of Africa someone is from is…very important. All 5’1 of me went over there and said “He’s lying to you. Obama is a Christian. He thinks because you’re black you’re going to vote for Obama, so he’s targeting you with misinformation. Vote for whoever you want, but not based on lies.”
And that ended that.
Paula
Hmm. The more I read on MSN.com that Democrats are “doomed” (the word that’s currently blaring on their news featurette), the more optimistic I am that this won’t be the kind of bloodbath people are predicting. Why is that? Denial? Irrational optimism? I didn’t feel this optimistic 2 months ago.
WaterGirl
Great kick-ass post from Al G. at the Field about who will be responsible for the outcome of the elections on Tuesday.
JenJen
@Paula: The fools on Morning Joe today were pre-spinning the results as though they were blenders. The common theme was “If the Democrats just barely hold on to the House and Senate, well, that’s the worst-case-scenario imaginable for Democrats and especially the President.”
I guffawed, and then Donny Deutsch said “Oh, I agree, and I’m a Democrat, and I’d rather lose the House than hold onto it narrowly.”
Ummm, WTF? So is he going to vote GOP?
MattR
@JenJen: Exhibit #42,968,325 for “even when Dems win, the media still says they lose”
Origuy
No offense to any WWE fans, but I don’t see this as a bad thing; the more Linda McMahon is tied to pro wrestling and its fans, the better.
Quiddity
Republicans raise the charge of voter fraud every time there is a general election, but never during the primaries. I wonder why?
Exurban Mom
As an Ohio voter, I want to thank Kay for his or her service. I am really involved in a local campaign this fall, and the teabaggers have been out in force, mostly planting their signs where they are not permitted, and other stupid stuff like that.
I really hope we don’t have any issues with election intimidation, but I know our local party is on the case….
Zuzu's Petals
I just completed my California mail-in ballot.
The envelope with ballot weighs 1.1 oz on my home mail scale.
If that’s correct, I wonder how many people realize they’ll need an extra stamp when they mail in their ballot?
Oy.
RalfW
County attorney for Hennepin (Minneapolis MN) Mike Freeman:
“Freeman said he made a commitment to get the [Tea Party alleged] cases taken care of before the 2010 elections. He noted that .00006 percent — six-one-thousandth of one percent — of the voters in Hennepin County had been charged with improperly voting.”
Oh Noes! Fraud is clearly totally out of control.
Karen
It just takes one teanut without impulse control and carrying heat to barge into a polling booth and shooting a voter. Yes, they will be arrested and jailed but not before taking a voter out.