8:47am: I am writing to you from my post as a Pollwatcher in my Precinct and I haven't seen too many Greens out yet this morning. In fact, when I voted, they tried to hand me a "green" Democratic Party ballot and then had to dig the Green Ballots out of a cupboard before I could vote. Also our election judge is orally only offering Democratic or Republican ballots when folks are checked in.
So please be diligent when you are voting and call out election judges that are not being impartial.9:00am: After reporting an election judge for not orally offering Green Party ballots (when he is offering Dem and Rep) he was visited by the Board of Elections and then he called me a "fucking dick." I asked him first to either list all three ballots or simply ask people what ballot they prefer, he said "I can if I want to."
This shit is crazy.
9:09am: Craig (my committeeman and roommate) was just handed a "green" democratic ballot and got all the way to the little voting booth before he realized what had happened.
Dear lord.
9:45am: The Election Judge, who now seems to have an attitude, when asked if Green is a real party, said "unfortunately" and stated that it "isn't a real party." The person he was talking to was an electioneer for Bradley's campaign and not a voter but there certainly were other voters in the room.
10:12am: A spanish-speaking gentleman just came in and handed a Democratic palm card to the election judges. She tried to hand it back and another election judge, seeing this, thought she was offering the voter a Democratic palm card and took it and threw it out. An electioneer with the Bradley campaign overheard the interaction (which was in Spanish so I couldn't understand it) and claimed that the election judge told him not to vote for this slate of candidates (meaning the Bradley approved candidates). After a confusing dispute between the electioneer and the election judges, the electioneer left to request a change of judges.
We'll see where this goes...
10:41am: From the ChicagoTribune-- "There was a delay in voting of between one and two hours at one 35th Ward polling place on the Northwest Side when the equipment was delivered to the wrong location. Voters left, and officials were contemplating keeping that location open later."
This isn't my Precinct but it is my Ward. I want to find out where.
11:17am: I have sort of taken over looking up polling places for folks. The Early Voting place for the 35th Ward was the Library (which is where i am pollwatching) and this has screwed up a lot of voters. Every other voter that arrives is actually in the wrong polling place and I have been unofficially nominated as the Board of Elections Lookup person. This is mostly because I am the only person with a computer up in here.
I chased a lady down on the street to tell her the correct polling place because she was so pissed that she went to the wrong place. She actually thanked me--although I think she was surprised to see me a block away from the library.
11:36am: Now the Election Official has returned per the call from the Bradley campaign annnnnnnd....nothing is happening. Nicely though the Election Judge behaves himself whenever this guy is around. All of the Election Judges are off-duty police officers so they are a little imposing.
12:04pm: There has been a sum total of 3 (count em 3) Green Ballots taken up in here today. Hopefully turnout is better in some of the other precincts. Each of the 3 live in my house. Haha.
12:53pm: Two members of our own Local have encountered problems that may prevent them from voting today. Dave showed up at his polling place (which happened to be the one mentioned in the Chicago Tribune story above) and found it locked. They tried to send him to another precinct to fill out a provisional ballot--which would have resulted in just about nothing. So he hasn't voted yet. Then, in good turn, he convinced Erika that she needed a photo ID to vote (which is not the case) and so she avoided going to her old polling place because her ID shows a different address.
Dave's Experience was posted on Capitol Fax: http://www.thecapitolfaxblog.com/
" City: Chicago Ward: 35 Precinct: 28
I went to go vote at about 7:15 AM. I could see a couple people inside at tables, but the polling place was locked. There were two guys just standing around right outside the entrance.
I asked one of them where the entrance to the polling place was, and he replied that the machines for this precinct had been shipped somewhere else, and hadn't arrived yet. This is 75 minutes after polls opened! He told me that I could cast a provisional ballot at another precinct (WHICH IS FALSE), or come back later. THE GUY WAS NOT AN ELECTION JUDGE.
I left because I had to get to work. I didn't say anything to the goons outside, but I was furious at the disinformation that they had tried to give me. I called the Chicago Board of Elections as soon as I got into work. They had had one other complaint at 6:20am, but no one had followed up.
The agent at the CBoE was very knowledgeable and nice and called me back to let me know when the machines were up and running (about ten minutes after I called, now a little after 8am). The election judges at the site, in addition to the goons, were also telling people they could cast a provisional ballot at another precinct (AGAIN, NOT TRUE), and she had to "correct" them.
I'm still pretty upest by it. I'm going to have an opportunity to go again after work, but I have to imagine there's a lot of people in my precinct whose only opportunity to vote was sometime between 6am-8am."
Meanwhile, I have been overwhelmed with Polling Place lookups and frustrated voters. I keep encouraging people to persevere and please please vote in spite of having to traipse across the entire Ward several time.
Ugh. Democracy in Action.
2:10pm: Interestingly, an old acquaintance stopped by my polling place just now and asked to speak to someone about his concerns that his Green Party vote was inaccurately recorded. He ended up speaking to me by happy accident. It turns out that when he was voting the Election Judge marked both Green and Democrat on his voting ticket that he was required to sign--they told him that this was the appropriate manner to record Green votes. I asked him to call Election Central and report the matter.
2:21pm: Now ballot choices have been reduced to:
"Are you Democrat?...or Whatever?"
2:26pm: About 20 minutes ago an Electioneer from the Bradley campaign (the one that continually comes up in here) was checking in with the female Election Judge, who appears to be acting as his Pollwatcher (not appropriate), and then sat in her place at the table and began recording information on her forms and his own. Any possible shred of impartiality surrounding the Election Judges in here is ruined. Now the Election Judges are pissing and moaning about why they keep getting reported and joking about sending the pollwatchers home (they know it is me).
Dave nicely pointed out that I am acting more impartial than the Election Judges as I have been regularly redirecting voters to their appropriate polling places for hours now--thereby boosting Democratic turnout more than anything else.
For pete's sake.
3:54pm: Oh lord! Now we have found out that one of the ladies that we thought was a biased election judge was actually a Poll Watcher for the Bradley campaign sitting among the election judges and actually helping facilitate the election (handing along official documents and checking people in). This caused an awful stir where the main Election Judge (my favorite one who now referred to me as "buddy" rather than "dick") got pissed and went out for a cigarette and the voting technician (who has no official powers) tried to shutdown discussion because he felt it should not be public. After a lot of dialogue (some of it heated) she moved to the end of the Election Judges but is still sitting at the main table.
The environment up in here is very partisan and makes me feel a little uncomfortable. It turns out that my favorite judge is a Republican Judge. I really don't understand where he gets off claiming that we aren't a real political party in Chicago. Whatevs.
4:34pm: We were just visited by two rather intimidating men in trench coats from the State's Attorney's Office. They interviewed some of the Pollwatchers and then spoke with my favorite election judge for a bit. Now he is sweet as pie.
5:08pm: I just got the official write-up from the old acquaintance that visited earlier:
"Today, 2/5/08, around 1pm, I went to vote at the 35th ward, 21st
precinct. The election judge asked me if I wanted "Democrat or
Republican" When I asked for Green Party, she marked off Democrat
AND Green party. When I asked why she did that, she said "because
they were the same thing" I insisted, "No, the Green party is
separate from the Democratic party." She then asked another judge
who thought they were the same thing. They eventually handed me a
Green party ballot, after almost offering me both Democratic and
Green party ballots."
5:37pm: Not much to report. Things are picking up a little with voters coming in after work. Everything is still going fairly smoothly. I am still redirecting a lot of people to their appropriate polling place. I am a little tired of hearing the curt sound of repeated "democrat" chirps from one of the Election Judges whenever she hands over a ballot. It is like listening to the steady drumbeat of the status quo.
At least a good number of complaints somehow brings about tranquility. That guy over there has finally stopped playing PSP on the job but he is still doing weird vocal impersonations. I need some cookies. That is the one good part about elections in Chicago, Old Money Democrats are pretty good about feeding the election judges--greasing the wheels with fried chicken and brownies.
6:33pm: Things are winding down. I am telling people exactly how many minutes they have to run to their correct polling places, the judges seem more interested in dividing up cookies and burritos than helping voters, and my butt really really hurts.On the plus side, I have received a lot of thanks.
7:02pm: The doors are closed. I am trapped in here until the ticker tape has been copied. We had 298 voters travel through these doors today and another 97 or so voted Early. I think that of those folks that came in today only about 5 were Greens. I will verify this on the tape but I am still pretty pleased for folks coming out and voting in our entirely uncontested primary up here.
This was an incredible experience. I will post the final counts before I head to Decima Musa. Remember to join us starting at 7:30pm at Decima Musa 1901 S. Loomis to watch returns and have a drink with our progressive selves!