I’m a Poll Watcher

I spent Tuesday watching polls. I visited seven polling places for the County Democratic Party. No one was particularly thrilled to see me, but I was friendly and open about what I was there to do. Most of them warmed up to me.

At the first two places, I just asked how it was going and took notes. My precinct had a mismatch of numbers from the book (where they write the name of each person who has voted) and the machines (you know about those). At the last five polling places, I compared the list of registered Democrats to those who had already voted. An election official turned each page for me, so I didn’t even need to touch the registers. When someone came to vote, I stepped away. I took my check list of those who voted back to more volunteers, who called those Democrats who had not yet voted. I chatted with the Republican poll watchers in a couple of places. They were assigned to stay at the same polling place all day, listening for names of voters and marking them on their lists (to be picked up mid-afternoon).

Other than the miscount at my own precinct, I saw no lines longer than a few minutes and no unhappy voters (except those who had paid attention to the address on their voter card). A friend of mine was part of the Denver voting fiasco. She waited 2.5 hours on her birthday to vote. Still, that is a lot better than some people had.

I loved watching the polls. I was actually proud to be there, seeing the system (apparently) working so well. I took my children with me to watch democracy in action.

The issues of insecurity with electronic voting will not go away—nor will those fighting to ensure a safe vote no matter who is in office. Don’t forget, and keep supporting efforts to make voting fair.

Organizations Working for Fair Voting

• Black Box Voting. They are making Freedom of Information requests on the 500 reports most likely to generate evidence.
• Video the Vote. A lot of videos of (mostly young) people voting.
• Youth Noise.  More videos in their Veek the Vote section.
• Velvet Revolution. In addition to offering a $500,000 reward for evidence of election fraud, their Election Strike Force is a great collection of information and action.
• Election Defense Alliance. Their goal is to “build and coordinate a comprehensive, cohesive national strategy for the election integrity movement, in order to regain public control of the voting process.”
• Protect Our Votes. Collecting Election Outrages. They have a good list going already.
• Verified Voting. Sponsoring nonpartisan citizen poll watchers.
• Voters United. Sending the book, “Myth Breakers: Facts about Electronic Elections” to officials across the country.
• Voter Story. Collecting stories of election incidents from voters. Download these as a zip file. Add the widget to your blog. Cool tool and great idea.

News Roundups on Fair Voting

• Alternet. Election Theft Roundup.
• Truth Out. Voters Rights.
• Yes! Magazine. Voting Integrity.

Stories on Fair Voting

• Alternet. Great Outcome, Flawed Votes.
• Truth Dig. Voting Machine Crusaders. (Seriously, Crusaders? Have the writers read any history?)

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