Thank you Daily Kos, Lizardbox, and Indiana

My boyfriend took a job with the Obama campaign in Merrillville, Indiana and I joined him there to help out and document our experiences.  On election day, Lizardbox from Daily Kos called the office supervisor to ask if we needed food and then ordered pizza for the flood of volunteers that we received that day.  I just wanted to post some pictures and stories as a "thank you" to Lizardbox and everyone else here who helped out on what was the campaign's biggest day since the Iowa caucuses.

This photo was taken about one hour before Tim Russert called the nomination race for Obama, and you can see the mounting excitement in our faces:

Election day was madness in Lake County.  I had been watching the poll numbers and the expert predictions floated on the blogosphere by Al Giordano and poblano with a great deal of skepticism because they all underestimated African American turnout in Lake County.

Several things kept our team optimistic:  

First, every single voting age high schooler in Gary, Indiana had the opportunity to vote.  Every.  Single.  One.  This was the subject of some local controversy since Mayor McDermott of neighboring Hammond criticized the Gary school board for bussing students to early polling locations.  In keeping with the strong Democratic tradition of suppressing the black vote, Mayor McDermott successfully inflamed racial sensitivities, which we witnessed first-hand.  (More on this later).

Second, the GOTV efforts in Lake county were tremendous.  In our district, we knocked on every door not once, but several times.  In Obama strong areas, we knocked on our supporters doors almost every day leading up to the election.  In Gary, the SEIU and canvassers from Chicago knocked on 100,000 doors in the week leading up to the election. The early voting efforts were so successful that election day canvassers had more trouble finding voters who hadn't already voted than they did finding Obama voters.  Similar to Wisconsin, the GOTV knocked-and-dragged voters to the polls in an amazing effort that exceeded the expectations of every professional pollster.  This, by the way, is the kind of effort that will herald a Democratic landslide victory in the fall.  And having seen it up close and personal, I'm a believer.  

Third, Clinton voters weren't motivated.  I sensed this in the mood of Clinton supporters I contacted while canvassing, but was convinced when Obama won Hammond, ostensibly a Clinton stronghold.  Excitement on our part coupled with apathy on their part was really what pushed Lake county into our column and gave us such a decisive margin there.  (If you recall, SUSA believed Clinton would win Lake County by a point.)  

An illustrating example:  When we returned to the office from last-minute canvassing and poll-watching, the Valparaiso office called to let us know that polls there were still open because of technical problems earlier in the day.  With little hesitation, 8 volunteers jumped in several cars and headed down the highway to Valparaiso to help out.  Unfortunately we were misinformed about the new closing time and arrived too late, but the dedication among volunteers was still something to behold.

Even when the early results and exit polls suggested an 8 point victory (Kossacks were factoring in the exit poll bounce which has historically favored Clinton), we were working hard to get every single vote in our district, and as it turns out, our hard work and optimism were well-placed.  

Here's the team watching the results come in:





So thank you Daily Kos for the pizza, information, and support!  

***A Word about Voter Disenfranchisement***

The most insidious result of the Supreme Court's ruling on Indiana's Voter I.D. Law is that it frames the issue of Voting Rights in terms of securing the system from the individual rather than securing the individual's fundamental right to participate in the system.  

From my experience, many poll workers approached the job of distributing ballots much like a liquor store clerk approaches the business of distributing liquor.  On election day, a prominent businesswoman who had volunteered with the campaign was denied a ballot because the worker claimed she didn't resemble the picture on her valid I.D.  The voter asked for her supervisor by name, much to the shock of the poll-worker.  She didn't know that the voter was a friend of her supervisor, who was able to personally vouch for her identity.  
This story was not atypical.  Many poll-workers were more interested in denying some the "privilege" of voting than ensuring all were given what they were entitled to by our Constitution.  Anyone who has worked in bureaucracies knows how this sort of  framing can trickle-down to lowest-level, empowering workers with the full authority of the State.  It's dangerous and antithetical to democracy.

Late in the day, we were asked to pick up a 100-year-old African-American lady who needed a ride to the poll.  When we arrived, we discovered that she wasn't able to make the journey and had been told by the county that two poll-workers would come to her home to distribute and collect her ballot.  Even though she had requested this service weeks in advance (unique to Lake county, I believe), the county dropped the ball and she was unable to vote.  

To address voting problems, the campaign employed attorneys at several heavy-traffic precincts to monitor the polls and help voters who were turned away.  Most voters were turned away because they had come to the wrong location, and the campaign was able to look up their information to send them in the right direction.  It's quite appalling that the campaign can look up any voters registration information in a matter of seconds, but poll-workers routinely tell voters that "they aren't on the books" without mentioning that they should check their information online or, at the very least, fill out a provisional ballot.  

While visiting with one of the voting rights attorneys, we were accosted by another Democrat who was distributing sample ballots to voters entering the polls.  She was upset because the attorney was encouraging voters to tell their friends to come out and vote and asking them if they had any problems voting.  She insisted that Lake county doesn't have any problems with race discrimination and accused us of being racists for focusing our efforts on African-American voters.  After we left, the attorney used the restroom at the polling facilities and was threatened by a local city councilman who claimed he could have him arrested.  It really incensed me that Democrats would be intimidating civil rights activists and attempting to suppress the black vote . . . apparently we still have a lot of work to do.