I had a post all done last night about working as a GOP "poll watcher" on Election Day here in battleground Ohio. At the last minute however, I decided not to post it. By Sunday night it seemed that lots of attention was being paid to the issue of the Ohio poll-watchers, as all parties awaited the decision of the federal judge on the matter. I didn't want to post anything that might have the potential to be used by the opposition to undermine the good faith efforts of hundreds of Ohioans who had volunteered along with me.
Forget that it would have marked the first time anyone on a national level had ever paid attention to this relatively obscure blog. I was figuring on Murphy's Law prevailing. We were aware that the Democrats would be poised to try any and all tactics and pretenses to get the GOP observers thrown out of the polling places, so we were on our guard not to give them any excuse to do so.
I had expressed some of my reservations about the GOP poll monitoring program in an earlier post, but that was before I really knew what was involved, and what our role as "credentialed" election officials was to be. And I didn't sign up to do this so I could blog about it anyway. I signed up as one way I could help contribute to the re-election of the President, and to do my part to help deter and/or identify vote fraud.
Now that a judge has ruled against allowing the poll-watchers in Ohio voting places, it looks like I'll have to go to work tomorrow after all. There is an appeal in progress, and I suppose I could get a call tonight if the judge's decision is overturned, but the tone of this report from ohio.com (Akron Beacon Journal) makes it appear that a successful appeal is unlikely. Indeed, even the top two State officials involved, both Republicans, don't agree on the desirability of using poll-watchers in this election. Seems they are likely opponents in the race for Governor in 2006. Go figure.
It was very interesting though, how the Beacon Jornal reported the judges decision in its online version (since removed) this morning. They reported that the judge had ruled that the presence of "GOP voter challengers" would be unconstitutional, making no mention that the other party would have a counterpart for every Republican present in the polling place. The Cincinnati Post got a hold of one of the training manuals used to orient the GOP poll-watchers, and put out a summary of it today, distorting much in the process. Here's how they characterized the criteria for a voter "challenge":
The 26-page pamphlet outlines general guidelines for challenging voters, including when an individual's name was not on a precinct's poll list, when his signature did not match the one in the poll register, when first-time voters had inadequate identification, when individuals appear to not be of legal voting age and when the person may have requested an absentee ballot.
First of all, the charter was never to simply challenge a voter in ANY of the above circumstances. Voters whose names are not on the precinct lists (perhaps those who have registered since 1/1/04 or have recently moved into the precinct) DO have to provide a picture ID or other document; a check stub, utility bill or other document that shows a precinct address. To observe whether or not this requirement is being fulfilled as a matter of practice in that polling place is a legitimate function of an election observer, and can be done without "challenging" anyone.
If the list of registered voters showed that a person had requested an absentee ballot, they should in practice be given a provisional ballot instead of a regular ballot, and those provisional ballots must be put into a different colored envelope, and kept in a separate location from the regular ballots. Observing whether or not this required practice was being followed by election workers was something we were alerted to do, again without challenging any voters.
Indeed we were told to get explicit direction from party officials by cell phone, on a case-by-case basis before challenging anyone. And of course, anyone who had been challenged could have voted by provisional ballot, pending resolution of any questions, thereby assuring that nobody ws "disenfranchised".
In other words, our charter was to observe, document, ask questions of the presiding judge at the polling place if we had concerns about how the process was proceeding, and get direction from party officials if we observed practices that we knew to be at odds with election laws and accepted practices. When I met with 300 or so other volunteers for a 3-hour meeting on Sunday afternoon, who had along with me agreed to work a 14-hour day at the polls on Tuesday, I didn't see a bunch of "Republican crusaders" as Michelle Malkin characterized us today (Peace, Michelle, you're still my hero). I just saw regular people who support the President, and were willing to work with the campaign in whatever way they could. Nice people. Grownups. People who value our electoral system and perhaps feel it losing its integrity, and want to help do something about it. OK, come to think of it, maybe we are crusaders in that respect.
UPDATE: Oops, my bad. As of about 8:30 p.m. EST, Fox News announced that a federal appeals court judge has overturned the earlier ruling barring poll observers from Ohio polls. Looks like we're on for Tuesday.
Posted by dan at November 1, 2004 06:31 PM | TrackBack