What I Saw

So I know I'm off schedule with posts, and I'm going to do my damnedest to make up for lost time in the next couple of days.  This may not be a traditional Hegemommy post, but I'm just overcome with a sense of immediacy and I don't want to over-think this experience, so I'm breaking a rule and just putting it out there.  

Last night I worked as a vote protector.  I was an official representative of the DFL and my job was to make sure every eligible voter who showed up to vote got the chance to.    There was also a GOP representative there, except he had a different job and a different title.  He called himself a "challenger" and his job was to challenge voters' eligibility to vote.

I promise in the next post I will get into what happened at the polls, and the nitty-gritty of voter suppression tactics (and how they were SQUASHED! by the way), but for now I just want you all to catch a glimpse of why the Republican strategy of voter deterrence is tantamount to treason in Hegemommy's world.

At 6:00 am there was a line that wrapped down the hall and around the corner of my assigned poll.  Polls open at 7:00.  This particular polling place was in the basement of a nursing home.  None of the people in line were nursing home residents.  

Yesterday I saw an African immigrant cheer and almost cry when she turned in her ballot after voting for the first time as a citizen.  I saw parents come with their adult children to cast ballots together.  I saw hoards of senior citizens, some from the facility and some not, wait with oxygen tanks, in wheelchairs, and some with helpers to read or write for them, just to vote.  I saw  group of young African-American men proud to show off their "I VOTED" sticker.  I saw people who had come to register that day COME BACK with neighbors, family members, friends, to register them as well.  I saw voters who had waited in line for an hour at a polling place only to find out they were in the wrong precinct wait another hour to vote at mine.  At 7:57 I saw a single mom running down the hall with her toddler to get to the poll by 8:00.   Her son was in his featie pajamas, and as I played peek-a-boo with him while she filled out her registration card, I heard the Election Judge comment that this was the first election where this mom was eligible to vote.

Yesterday over 1200 people voted at my polling location.  We registered over 200 new voters.  My side didn't get all 1200 votes, but all 1200 people who showed up to vote were able to.