part of Vote
![]() download file After they'd sent out the last of the canvassers and door knockers and sign wavers; and after I'd helped deliver one disabled senior citizen to his polling place, they found a job for me: drive to all the precinct polling places in the 4th and 5th wards (the north side) and report back problems. So from about 5 until the polls closed at 8, I was booking to each polling place and scoping the scene, making sure that if anyone was in line they knew what their rights were. And checking up on the observers and poll challengers to find out if any suppression tactics were going on. It was really cool. By the time I got out there, most of the voting had died down from a morning flood to an evening trickle. And I observed hardly anything resembling suppression . There was one precinct where the election judge said she'd had challengers hovering over her making "helpful suggestions" and kind of slowing things up a little bit, but no real challenges. And one precinct site was right across the street from another, which caused some problems when people would wait in line for an hour only to find out they should have been across the street (nice maps, Ward 5!) But it was peaceful. Here's a shot of my golden city from the southern end of Ward 5, at a site where the Dem challenger said his GOP counterpart hadn't even bothered to show up. We rolled those guys on the north side, baby. |