On Sunday we got another door hanger for Obama, informing us of our polling place. Thankfully, Virg was smart enough to know it was actually the wrong location! We ran outside to catch the people posting false polling information, but they had already disappeared.
We've discovered that Pennsylvania doesn't mail sample ballots to voters, nor do they mail us information booklets to tell us what candidates are running or what measures are on the ballot. So, we picked up the Sunday newspaper, but even that had no information. We eventually found some info on a random web site, but now I can't even seem to find that anymore. I therefore gave up and decided just to vote for president.
This morning we woke up early to get to our correct polling place before it opened at 7am.
Everything we read said that a driver's license would be sufficient identification, but we each brought our voter registration card, not wanting to take any chances. When we arrived at the polling place, there were Obama and McCain campaign signs around the entrance, which seemed pretty suspect.
There were already two long lines. There were murmurs in the crowd as to whether it made any difference which line you were in. Virg snuck inside to ask one of the poll workers, and sure enough, there are two precincts at this location, and you need to know your district number in order to vote. Thankfully, the number was on our registration cards. Still the poll workers were too inept to post signs or make any announcement to identify which line corresponded to which district number, so Virg kindly shared her information with others in line. Most people didn't seem to know their district number anyway, so they waited to get to the front before knowing which line they should have been in.
There were four electronic voting machines for each precinct. Apparently all four machines for our precinct were broken. And so 100% of the people in our precinct were already being given paper Emergency Ballots. To obtain one, I needed to show ID, at which point they gave me a numbered card without explanation. Another person then took the card, tore it in half like a movie ticket, and gave me back my voting stub. Then another woman handed me a ballot. "How do I fill it out?" I asked. "On those tables." "With what?" The woman handed me a pen, saying "There are more pens on the table." There weren't.
Virg and I sat at a table together and tried to make sense of our Emergency Ballots. There was a bubble that let you vote "Democratic," letting you vote the entire democratic ticket in a single bubble. But marking this and leaving the Obama bubble unmarked made me very nervous. Plus, we didn't know if the ballot would be counted by machine or by hand--if at all. So Virg and I read through the directions at the top very carefully. The directions described two options for voting: (1) vote for a single party, or (2) vote for a single party, and then mark the exceptions. There was no indication of how you might just vote for individuals, or how you might vote for some offices but not others. I took the ballot over to the poll workers and asked one of them what I should mark if I just wanted to vote for president. She looked at it, and told me she had no idea.
And so Virg and I decided to hedge our bets by using different strategies to mark our ballots. I marked both the "Democratic" and "Obama" bubbles, and nothing else. Who did I vote for with those bubbles? Like the poll worker, I have no idea. Did I vote for all democrats, or just Obama? Did I vote for all democrats except Obama? Or did I invalidate my ballot by marking both?
We were told to seal each ballot inside an envelope. But in order to get them to fit, we had to fold the ballots in quarters. I can't imagine they'll be able to score folded and sealed ballots by machine.
At last, Virg and I left, with no confidence that our votes will be counted. I really hope Obama can win Pennsylvania without us...
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Harold & Kumar Escape From Censorship
The writer/director team and lead actors kindly autographed this HK2 DVD for me. The four of them did an audio commentary track that's hysterical, in part because they're very funny people, and in part because it's the first time Kal Penn is seeing the unrated version, and his mortified reaction to it is priceless. Also, long-time Dave fans will be pleased to hear me cited during the library scene.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Getting Out The Getting-Out-The-Vote
Last week I began reading a book that I'm enjoying immensely--an autobiographical coming-of-age story about a man coming to terms with his identity and with the role of race in America. But it reads more like a novel, and the writing is poetry, and I can't seem to put it down. And in the middle of my reading, I got the rare opportunity to see the author in person.
The experience reminds me of when you hear a good joke, and then later you hear someone else tell the same joke, but this time it ends "... and that man was Bill Clinton," or "... George Bush", or some other super-celebrity. And you think, but the original joke was funny in its own right. Why do people feel the need to cheapen it by dropping some big name at the end?
That's kind of how I feel about the author of this engrossing book growing up to be the famous Barack Obama. And yet, of course, I would never have started reading it, otherwise.
It's a fascinating book, because it's very honest, having been written before Obama's political career. And it was against the backdrop of my reading that I got to see Obama himself speak at a rally in Pittsburgh's Mellon Arena. Virg and I waited in an endless line outside the Arena (which ultimately still left half the seats empty). Every time we advanced a few more feet, another volunteer would remind us that we couldn't bring any banners, that we had to remove our Barack Obama pins in order to get through the metal detectors, and that we should turn our cell phones on (the implication being so that we could prove they weren't bombs). We were probably approached by 20 such volunteers, each concerned that it might take us a good 30 minutes to unfasten our Obama buttons.
And each volunteer asked if we were registered to vote. Did they really think we had the energy to make our way downtown and stand in line in the cold to see Obama, but that ultimately we couldn't be bothered to stop by to vote at the polling place near our house? Each volunteer also asked if we were interested in volunteering for the campaign, and were pleased to learn that Virg is already a volunteer. Do they really need more volunteers? They already have 20 people to tell us to take off a campaign button. And it seemed silly that the primary job of a volunteer was to recruit more volunteers.
Waiting for the rally to begin, we watched bemused as campaign workers passed out campaign-approved banners to the people nearest the podium. At long last, Obama came out to much applause, and his speech was well written and masterfully delivered as always. We were very glad we went to hear him. But the contrast to his book was striking. Here was the author who wanted to see himself as an American, but lived in a racially divided America that could only see him as a black American and continued to place him in black communities. I can just imagine Obama chuckling to himself after addressing the sea of white faces at the Mellon Arena.
Still it seemed to me that Obama was preeching to the choir, and it was hard to imagine what purpose the rally served. When I got home, I read about Obama's own experience in attending a rally event early in his career as a community organizer in Chicago. He wrote, "To my mind the whole thing came off a bit flat, like a political convention or a TV wrestling match. Still, the crowd seemed to be enjoying itself."
Virg has been phone-banking for the Obama campaign this week. On Thursday night, she spent a couple hours calling volunteers to remind them of when they needed to come in to phone-bank. At home, sitting by myself and finishing writing recommendation letters, the phone rang. It was a volunteer from the Obama campaign. She was calling to remind Virg to come in to phone-bank on Monday. It's as if Obama has too many people lining up to campaign for him, so he creates fake work for them. As if he's organized a community of people and tricked them into thinking they're community organizers.
The experience reminds me of when you hear a good joke, and then later you hear someone else tell the same joke, but this time it ends "... and that man was Bill Clinton," or "... George Bush", or some other super-celebrity. And you think, but the original joke was funny in its own right. Why do people feel the need to cheapen it by dropping some big name at the end?
That's kind of how I feel about the author of this engrossing book growing up to be the famous Barack Obama. And yet, of course, I would never have started reading it, otherwise.
It's a fascinating book, because it's very honest, having been written before Obama's political career. And it was against the backdrop of my reading that I got to see Obama himself speak at a rally in Pittsburgh's Mellon Arena. Virg and I waited in an endless line outside the Arena (which ultimately still left half the seats empty). Every time we advanced a few more feet, another volunteer would remind us that we couldn't bring any banners, that we had to remove our Barack Obama pins in order to get through the metal detectors, and that we should turn our cell phones on (the implication being so that we could prove they weren't bombs). We were probably approached by 20 such volunteers, each concerned that it might take us a good 30 minutes to unfasten our Obama buttons.
And each volunteer asked if we were registered to vote. Did they really think we had the energy to make our way downtown and stand in line in the cold to see Obama, but that ultimately we couldn't be bothered to stop by to vote at the polling place near our house? Each volunteer also asked if we were interested in volunteering for the campaign, and were pleased to learn that Virg is already a volunteer. Do they really need more volunteers? They already have 20 people to tell us to take off a campaign button. And it seemed silly that the primary job of a volunteer was to recruit more volunteers.
Waiting for the rally to begin, we watched bemused as campaign workers passed out campaign-approved banners to the people nearest the podium. At long last, Obama came out to much applause, and his speech was well written and masterfully delivered as always. We were very glad we went to hear him. But the contrast to his book was striking. Here was the author who wanted to see himself as an American, but lived in a racially divided America that could only see him as a black American and continued to place him in black communities. I can just imagine Obama chuckling to himself after addressing the sea of white faces at the Mellon Arena.
Still it seemed to me that Obama was preeching to the choir, and it was hard to imagine what purpose the rally served. When I got home, I read about Obama's own experience in attending a rally event early in his career as a community organizer in Chicago. He wrote, "To my mind the whole thing came off a bit flat, like a political convention or a TV wrestling match. Still, the crowd seemed to be enjoying itself."
Virg has been phone-banking for the Obama campaign this week. On Thursday night, she spent a couple hours calling volunteers to remind them of when they needed to come in to phone-bank. At home, sitting by myself and finishing writing recommendation letters, the phone rang. It was a volunteer from the Obama campaign. She was calling to remind Virg to come in to phone-bank on Monday. It's as if Obama has too many people lining up to campaign for him, so he creates fake work for them. As if he's organized a community of people and tricked them into thinking they're community organizers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
