What are those of you signed up to Monitor "Early Voting" seeing on the Ground?

[KoKo]

Many DU'ers are out there trying to protect our vote. Some are working for OFA and some are working with Common Cause.

What are you seeing? Reports I'm hearing are Repugs going to the people on long lines (outside the boundaries of the Poll where it's 100 feet violation) and asking folks if they want info on Repuglican Judges.
In NC the Judges don't run on Party Lines...so that's questionable. There have been other incidents but this one is hard to deal with. If you are "without the 100 ft. polling prohibition on soliciting for Party....then it's questionable but not illegal to go down the Long EV Lines and give out your literature. Some casual voters might be intimidated by this.

My feed is that there are long lines of early voters since the EV started here in North Carolina...which we Dems need for back up to volunteer with our local Dem Party and others like Common Cause to watch what's going on. Remember NC went for Obama with a slight margin and we may be needed once again to bring Obama OTT.

Anyone seeing some "Stuff?"

[elleng]

1. Not there yet; will be on election day,

and hope I can keep intimidators away. (Somewhere in Virginia.)

[KoKo]

3. We are signed up with Common Cause...so we stand with "non-partisan" sign...but OFA

has some good folks there. The Repugs have more...

We all do what we can do. We have own business so can be more flexible than many others.

Thanks for posting!

[SoCalNative]

2. You know there's an easy way to end this practice

ALL elections should be vote by mail only.

[liberalmuse]

4. I wholeheartedly agree! eom

[KoKo]

5. Or...hand counted paper ballots. It doesn't take long to do it really.

but, I can see your point, too.

[KoKo]

6. Here's what my "other half" encountered yesterday monitoring Early Vote:

My other half was doing Poll Monitoring for "Common Cause" and came home with some interesting encounters here in North Carolina.

I never thought he'd end up with the subtle voter intimidation encountered ....but, believe me the Karl Rove tactics are out there and more subtle. Guy in Texas Rangers hat with five young African-American Students, (who couldn't vote) but were obviously supposed to look like they were following this guy. A female Black candidate for NC Congress being intimidated for crossing "Poll Line" and almost refused her vote...(she caught them out and gave them an earfull) and other stuff I won't go into because this is an open board and open to folks cataloging and unfortunately...spying.

There's more going out there than even the Machines who might Switch the Vote. It's "subtle voter intimidation" and you've got to be politically savvy and have a good eye. Thanks to our "Older Dem" volunteers who know this stuff for years...who can spot.

But, more folks ...especially the young needed to be out there. I think they ARE there in Certain areas but, this intimidation is taking place in areas that aren't "low income" in places you would never expect to see it...

[Ms. Toad]

7. Ohio - OFA

Extraordinarily heavy turnout in the county where I'm serving as an observer.

In my (Republican) county, the treatment of everyone is superb - most of the time. I've observed a couple of instances of misinformation given out, but what I have observed has not been targeted in any manner I can tell. One, at least, was clearly new pollworker confusion about a very confusing issue. I suggested she ask for clarification (since the officials were in a board meeting). I reported it to the (Republican) head of the office and she spoke to the pollworker within a minute of our conversation. I still don't think the pollworker understood - but she at least said the right words after that.

In Ohio, people need to make sure that anyone who returned the form sent to them by the Secretary of State looks for and votes the absentee ballot they were sent. A number of people believed the official notice to be a caging attempt and returned it, not realizing it was a request for an absentee ballot. They are surprised when they show up at the BOE and are told that they requested an absentee ballot. Once requested, you MUST vote the absentee ballot. The only other option is to vote provisionally. My big concern is that people will show up on election day, not realizing they requested an absentee ballot, and will be stuck voting provisionally.

Also - make sure you correctly fill out the absentee voter ID. If you mess up, this year - for the first time - you must actually show up at the Board of Elections to correct it. In Florida for the winter? Too bad. At college? Too bad.

OFA is aware of, and working to minimize the potential impact from, these policies.