Get Out The Vote
(Note: John McCain supporters are excused from reading this post. Nothing to see here. Please move along.)
Today's the day, fellow Democrats!
If you're already helping to get out the vote for Barack Obama, way to go!
If you're not, please considering taking some time - even an hour would help - to volunteer with your local Obama campaign office or Democratic Party.
Over the past few months, the campaign has compiled a huge list of voters who've said they are supporting Sen. Obama, and every single one of them needs to hear from us today, with a reminder to go vote.
The polls are looking very positive, and many new or occassional voters are likely to think, "Oh, we've got it made, there's no need for me to bother voting," but if enough of them think that way, we can - and will - lose this election.
To to BarackObama.com to find the nearest campaign office, and call or show up right now to find out what you can do to help.
Please help today, for her tomorrow.
I sent out my 'Get out and vote' text messages yesterday AND sent a 'tsk tsk' to the very few people I know who aren't registered. We're having an election party this evening, complete with Obama brownies! LOL I'm sad that Deion might not be able to vote with me today. Hmm.. I wonder what time my local polls open... love to all three of you!!!!
ReplyDeletePolls are open 7 am to 8 pm in Blue State.
ReplyDelete(Check your local listings, if you live elsewhere.)
Elena - I love that you take Deion to vote with you. I have fond memories of going with Anonymama to vote as a kid.
Also, of course, of working outside polling places for her during school board elections.
(Yes, I'm a dork.)
I absolutely plan to take Peeper voting with me, and to teach her what we're doing.
It would be kind of cool to be able to tell her someday about how she went with us to vote for Barack Obama, but our voting's been done, and although we are allowed to go recast our votes in person (don't worry, they have a system to know who did that and to throw out the appropriate absentee ballot), it's not worth standing around outside in the chilly weather with a bunch of strangers breathing on her.
Health before history, says I!
And, I figure she was with me when I cast my absentee ballot, anyway.
I never heard of recasting one's ballot. How do they sort out the duplicates and throw them out without slowing things down?
ReplyDeleteI always enjoyed taking ya'll to vote and especially to work the polls. Train Ellie right. And keep her away from germy strangers!
I don't think we will win in Texas, but we should take our corner of the state. We know where we will all be tonight.
Absentee ballots are cast by mail (or dropped off at the courthouse in person).
ReplyDeleteYou fill out the ballot and put it in an plain white envelope, printed with the words "Official Absentee Ballot."
Then, you put all that in another envelope with a form on the back that you fill out with your name, precinct, signature, etc.
After the absentee voting deadline (last week), the ballots are sorted by precinct, and are physically sent to their respective polling places, along with all the other election materials.
Technically, if you voted absentee but it turns out you are able to vote in person, you are supposed to go down to the polling place and vote.
I'm thinking very few people do that.
When the polls close at 8 pm this evening, each polling place counts its own votes.
In our county, we use paper ballots, which voters put directly into a scanner.
If they over voted (voted for to many people for one office) it will spit it out to be corrected.
Undervotes, of course, are accepted.
The machine internally sorts ballots with write-in votes (you have to color in a dot beside the name of the person you write in) into a separate bin, to be hand-counted.
I believe that they do a print-out of the votes there, and then take the disk/card/something from the machine to be officially counted at the county office.
But, back to the absentee votes.
When the polls close, they will go through all those signed envelopes, looking up each absentee voter in the sign-in book to see if they also showed up today.
If they did, their absentee ballot is destroyed, unopened.
If they didn't, their outer envelope is opened and the inner envelope (with no identifying information) is removed.
Later, all of those are opened to reveal the ballots themselves, and they are counted.
I'm not sure if that's done by hand, or a scanner.
This just off Yahoo. Congratulations on a job well done.
ReplyDeleteTV networks project Pennsylvania | 8:10 p.m.
ABC and NBC project Obama will win the battleground state of Pennsylvania and its 21 electoral votes. Heading into Election Day, Obama held a comfortable 10-point lead in the polls over McCain. Obama's campaign invested heavily in Sen. Biden's home state, with more than 60 offices throughout the state. The last time Pennsylvania went red was in 1988.
They just officially called the election for Obama. Congratulations!
ReplyDelete