Saturday, November 06, 2004
Who's Watching the Watchers? WE ARE.
I just got back from the meeting of local Dems from the region, sort of a confab for those who were pollwatchers and canvassing board watchers during the election, to compare notes and talk to lawyers and party bosses, and I am pissed. Really pissed. I followed up with a bunch of phone calls and compared notes around. Everybody’s pissed. And here’s a list of reasons why:
ORGANIZATION. We’re disorganized as hell. Total fascist efficiency would scare me, and I wouldn’t want that, but come on…Two county HQ’s didn’t even have computers, and no central list of volunteers even on hard copy. GOP HQ’s in all counties, on the other hand, all had computers, and runners to get the numbers in real time on E-day, and now have a complete list of who did and did not show up in their precincts on E-day to vote. Think that’ll be handy in the next election? Think the county part bosses can use that info? The Dems have voter registration lists, that’s all, no record of who voted. While the GOPers had lunches taken to their workers, and regular runners to check on them, at fifty of the precincts no Dem runner even showed up to check on things, and cell phone use was banned, and if you left the polls you weren’t allowed back in, so nobody could call in a lawyer if they needed to. Five pollwatchers were sent to precincts where there were already pollwatchers, and had to be moved, and so didn’t see the machines fired up. Of course, when they got there, the GOP-watchers were already there. Only twenty precincts had any Dems 100ft. away to watch what was going on outside and wave people in. Anecdotally, it seems the GOPers had people with signs at damn near all of the polls. LESSON: Organize, goddamit!
IRREGULARITIES. Everybody reported nothing but minor problems at the precincts themselves. This is the good news. The bad news? In at least one county, the clerk’s office opened up the bags containing the absentee ballots and later, the provisional ballots, without even a single outside witness. They broke the seals open and sorted the ballots and then proceeded to see which ones they would disqualify without any outside monitoring. And not in the presence of the canvassing board, either (and in many states, the county commissioners are the canvassing board—yet another reason to organize and run locally, me hearties). And the clerk was a GOPer. In one county, they allowed absentee counters who entered votes that were rejected by the machine to “interpret” the ballots differently than the machine would have; e.g., counting an undervote as a straight party ticket vote. It took a judge to send a TRO to stop that and get a recount according to machine standards. The clerk wasn’t going to do it because the staff was “tired.” Talk about “Oh, it’s only a few votes, don’t worry.” Some of the provisionals were rejected because the voters had been purged for inactivity—but nobody could verify right then when they had last voted. In one county there was only one Dem to watch ALL of the provisionals being counted. Plenty of GOPers, though. Redistricting sent many voters to the wrong precinct because they never bothered to check and see if it had changed, and many didn’t bother to find the right one after that. Point is, even in counties where the precincts didn’t report problems, weird shit might have gone on, or (especially in Ohio and Florida) be still going on at the county courthouse, and your local Dems might be not even be there to watch. LESSON: If you don’t know who’s watching the count, find out. NOW, before the SoS certifies the election and the lawyers go home. Find out who’s watching the canvassing board. Ask questions. Be a pain the ass. At party HQ, too. The party has rights Joe Citizen doesn’t, to appoint watchers, for example.
TIMIDITY. Then, the Dem bosses wanted to argue about whether or not to challenge these rejected ballots and counting irregularities legally, or go to the press, or both, because the GOPers might scream that we were “whiners.” Argue? Hell, yes! all the pollworkers all said. One party boss said we should wait to go to the press until after contacting the SoS, because the SoS is the one to take legal action. One guy pointed out there was no reason not to do both. In fact, logically, it might even build a fire under the SoS if there’s a lawsuit behind it. So, supposedly, they’re going to have a lawyer “look into it” at the next party meeting. You can bet it’ll end up in the papers, though, oh yes. At least in the letters. Whiners indeed. So now it’s “whining” if you insist on having every vote counted?
FOLLOWUP: If it’s like this around here, what’s it like in your area, your county, your precinct and local party? Yeah, these records have to be stored for a period of time, and the Dems could review them at any time, but #1 and #3 seem to be standing in the way. Whether it changes the election or not, isn’t it reasonable to insist that every damn vote be counted? And take steps to assure this NEVER happens again? Nationally, I mean? Because if elections are left up to locals, and states, the GOP will do it again. And again. They are a deadly efficient machine, especially locally.
I guess my point is this: Dems can’t be standing on the sidelines waiting for a final tally, folks, assuming that No! They would never do that! Or thinking that just because it looked clean on the precinct level, that means it’s clean. Things happen in your canvassing boards and county clerk’s office and party HQ, too. Bad things. Immoral things, if you believe in democracy for real, having every vote counted.
I came away thinking that we will never know the real results, myself. I think I’m becoming cynical, again. Or I may just have to switch party affiliations from Green to Dem and show these fuckers how it’s done. I dunno. Right now, I take a taste of medicinal whiskey. Any other pollwatchers or canvass watchers out there?
