the Bucks County Journal – election day

Yesterday was historic, nation-changing, incredibly rewarding. It was also exhausting and deeply disturbing.
The day started at 6 am. As an election observer, I was tasked with making sure a specific polling place was open and ready for business before 7. My precinct was up and running and ready to go, although not without a bit of confusion and scrambling around. By 7:30 the line was 45 minutes long, and it didn’t go down till well after 9.
From there I was sent to observe the polls in central Doylestown PA – a picturesque, tidy downtown with lots of good restaurants and shoppes. After checking in at one site, I was moved to another. It quickly became apparent that there were way more Democrats helping at each site than were really needed; I left and returned to what had been home base for the last two days – the Warminster Obama/Murphy GOTV office (get out the vote).
I walked in, was handed 150 door tags labeled with the correct voting site, a coded map, and assigned a co-canvasser and told to hit the road. My partner for the next four hours was an Indian-American retiree from ATT, a gentleman deeply committed to the democratic process who had been in Bucks for ten days, staying with a family friend. We walked in sporadic rain up one typical suburban street and down the next, knocking on doors, ensuring targeted folks had voted and if not knew where to go. The neighborhoods were spread out, with large lawns and lots and lots of walking. A quick lunch at 3 and back at it with a fresh list in a new neighborhood, this time solo. After two hours, dark and rain and lousy street lighting ended canvassing.
Returned to the Warminster office, and things got very interesting. I was sent with a local expert, a woman who had spent much of the past year working to increase voter registration in poorer areas of Bucks.
Make no mistake, Kathy and people like her won the election for Obama.
Now to the ugly stuff. Sorry, as much as we’d all like to revel in the wonder that is this country, rejoice in a new and amazing definition of ‘opportunity’, and pat ourselves on the back for contributing to the greatness of America, all is not good.
Kathy and I were sent to a polling place in a poor, very mixed neighborhood. There we found a single Democratic poll watcher over-matched by three very aggressive Republicans. I’ve come to learn there is a fine line between voter education (providing information) and voter intimidation (scaring away voters or otherwise disenfranchising them). The R workers pigeon-holed voters, blocking their way up a narrow ramp, encouraging them to split their vote while telling them about a candidate’s personal history. One R accosted voters, loudly telling them about how a candidate had personally helped her family.
This at a polling station where earlier in the day election officials had asked every voter for identification – a practice that is illegal in Pennsylvania for citizens who had voted previously at that location. And canvassers had heard on their walks through the neighborhood from voters told they had to bring their voter registration cards – again not true.
The local Judge of Elections allowed one of the R poll watchers into the voting area while she was wearing campaign buttons – also illegal. Repeatedly. This same R poll watcher stood immediately next to the door, buttonholing voters on their way in – also illegal, as the law prohibits electioneering within ten feet of the polling place.
When we protested, the Judge began screaming at us, called the voting constable, and threatened to have us arrested, claiming that until we showed up everything had been working fine. We politely and respectfully disagreed. By the time the constable showed up, it was almost closing time. I’ll spare you the rest, but it wasn’t pretty, and would have been more believable if it had happened in a third world country than in the US.
The net of the story is this – despite what appeared to my eyes to be a concerted effort to suppress the vote, this precinct went heavily Obama, as did Bucks County.
This was the only instance where I thought the Ds were outmaneuvered by the Rs; in a heavily Democratic precinct, the Rs put their resources where they would do the most good – targeting people likely to, or in the act of, voting. It could be the Rs were misinformed about Federal election laws regarding voter intimidation, or the Judge was ill-informed, or somehow over a dozen residents misheard a request for ID.
Anything’s possible – as the election of an African American President proved last night.
From there, to Obama headquarters in Doylestown to wait and watch. PA was called before we got to the office, so when we walked in their were high fives and toasts all around -even though most were dead on their feet. Shortly after, New Hampshire was called, and the celebration, although muted, went up a notch. Then Ohio went for Obama, and it was over.
Or rather just beginning.
Tomorrow, back to the world of managed care.