(no subject)

[rivka]

I've signed up with the Obama campaign to go to Pennsylvania on Election Day, to help get out the vote. They've asked me to go to Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, which is a small conservative city in the southern part of the state. It's about 80 miles north of Baltimore.

The form e-mail I got assigning me to Harrisburg says that I'll either be canvassing or working the phones; I assume that on Election Day itself I'm more likely to be asked to work the phones, but it's possible that they'll still be going door to door even then.

So far I'm very impressed with their organization. They have a webpage aimed at "border state volunteers," people who live in safe blue or safe red states who want to travel someplace where the election will be close. They encouraged me to come for a four-day trip (and I wanted to!), but I was also free to sign up for whichever days I could actually travel. My field office match came complete with a link to a 16-page PDF booklet called the "PA Border States Volunteer Welcome Packet," which provided everything from the phone numbers and addresses of every field office in the state to a list of hotels offering discounted stays to a suggested packing list with wardrobe suggestions. The booklet also had a brief guide to the PA political scene and the parameters of the race in PA.

I was particularly struck by this:

Thanks to our hard work registering voters, there are currently 438,536 more registered Democrats in Pennsylvania than there were at the time of the election in 2004. Meanwhile, there are 175,472 fewer registered Republicans than in 2004. Democrats have nearly doubled their registration advantage of 580,208 voters in 2004 to 1,194,216 voters
through October 2008. The Obama campaign registered over 350,000 of these new Democrats.

I don't know how necessary I really am to the get-out-the-vote effort. Recent polls in Pennsylvania haven't been particularly close, for all that the McCain campaign has been insisting that they can win there. I guess I just want to feel like I've done my part, and there's not much I can do toward that end as a Maryland resident. Plus, I think it will be fun.

How about you, or at least, the Americans among you? Do you have Election Day plans? Do you live in a state where your vote might make a difference?

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I'll be doing the Chief Election Judge thing from 5:00 in the morning until I turn in my results sometime around 11:00 that night.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Not on Election Day, but I'm going canvassing in New Hampshire tomorrow. (I live in MA.)

I just plan to VOTE on election day. Yes indeedy.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to talk a Hillary supporter into not voting for McCain. (Yeah. I know. I really want to just slash his tires or something.) I'm going to vote at the time the local Dem HQ asks me to, so I can report on lines, ease of access, etc. (Hurray, now I can stop feeling guilty about not volunteering; they can't let any of their actual volunteers do this kind of thing, apparently.)

[txobserver.livejournal.com]

I'm betting they will mainly want you to canvass, since people will be more likely to go vote if you talk to them personally. (Basing this on our experience going to Washoe County -- Reno -- in 2004.)

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

i'm going to be an election judge, and have already voted absentee. minnesota keeps being called a swing state, but as long as we keep the diebold machines out of here, i think we're pretty solidly blue.

[boxofdelights]

I'm signed up to be a poll watcher. I think Colorado's going for Obama with or without me, but I want to be there defending everyone's right to vote.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

I'll be voting early (tomorrow), as I will be out of town on election day. Not that my vote will make a difference, mind you; current polls are predicting McCain 54:42 in Tennessee. This is at least marginally better than a month ago, when it was McCain 57:39.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

All that volunteering requires either a lot of sitting up or walking, so I'm just voting. It looks like my upstairs neighbor will be going with me and that means I'll fill out the assistant form and vote his list, too.

[lone-cat.livejournal.com]

If Obama were to win Kentucky, it would be as part of a gen-u-wine landslide. However, my vote might make a difference wrt getting the execrable Mitch McConnell out of the Senate, which would be no small thing, even if his opponent is no prize.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

I'm doing the Florida version of Counsel for Change (http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/vpcvol2), and you might want to hand around the phone number 866-OUR-VOTE for people to bring to the polls to report any problems they have in trying to vote, or if they aren't allowed to vote on election day or during early voting.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

You might not be strictly *necessary* in Pennsylvania, but it's definitely a (ahem) keystone state this time. If McCain loses Pennsylvania, he doesn't have much room to make up those electoral votes.

Just as importantly, every dollar he spends in Pennsylvania is a dollar he can't spend defending other territories. Even if McCain wins Pennsylvania, it might be at too high a cost in other states.

I'm assuming my vote won't make a difference in the Presidential race (I'm in Washington), but I happen to be in the district that Darcy Burner is running in, against a strong supporter of Bush's wartime lawbreaking. I'm trying to decide if I can afford another few dollars to help her win. And I wish I was more able to do phone banking or canvassing or such.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

I have already voted - absentee as I'll be in Italy on Election Day.

I'll be attending a costume conference with a bunch of other Americans - I imagine Tuesday night/Weds morning we'll all be looking for a TV or radio to tell us what's going on!

[ckd]

I think it's a pretty safe bet that my vote's not going to make a difference, with the possible exception of the three state ballot measures. Obama will take Massachusetts, there's no chance Kerry will lose his Senate seat, and every other race on my ballot is unopposed. (The state Republican party can't even field enough candidates for the state legislature to have a theoretical chance of getting a majority.)

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

Obama's going to win California handily, but I'm voting no on Prop 8, because bigotry and lying to institutionalize bigotry piss me off.

[cantkeepsilent.livejournal.com]

What you're doing is crucially important. Even if "safe" states, a high turnout and a definitive margin of error will send the message that the nation is hungry for respectful issues-oriented politics from thoughtful people who answer the questions they are asked. Plus, heck, if you all turn a hundred thousand first-time PA voters on to the realization that voting isn't like having a root canal, you'll be creating an army of lifetime voters. If you change the demographics of the electorate, you not only create more Democratic victories at every level of government but you also force the other parties to become more progressive in order to challenge us.

I'll be an inspector in NY, making sure that the line runs smoothly and passing out the coveted "I voted today" stickers. It's an incredibly long day, but at the same time it is energizing to be surrounded by people who are jazzed by civics.

[ewein2412]

I vote in Pennsylvania by absentee ballot. I love being in a swing state, I love feeling that my vote MATTERS (although, being an absentee voter, it probably doesn't).

Here in Scotland we won't really know the outcome of the election until 5 November, which also happens to be "Fireworks Night." We will be PARTYING if Obama wins--bonfire, fireworks, the lot.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I think it's wonderful that you're doing this. This is the kind of thing that makes democracy work, out in the trenches. It isn't glamorous, but it's useful. I'm so glad you're doing it.

[ratphooey.livejournal.com]

I've been donating money and sporting signs in my front windows. I'll also be working at the polls (as a poll worker, not for the campaign), which I've been doing for ten years no). And we'll be hosting a friend from NY who'll be volunteering for the campaign next weekend.

Oh, and voting! I hope PA will be blue this year.

Have fun in Harrisburg!

[elusis.livejournal.com]

I'm working all day, but I think I'm going to take snacks and water and possibly crayons and paper around to some local polling sites in the evening because they're predicting horrendously long lines, which is hard on adults and kids.

[lissamc.livejournal.com]

I live in Arizona. I realized early into this election that if it comes down to my vote making the difference as to whether or not McCain loses his home state, he has fouled things up so badly that the rest of the country is going Obama by a landslide. This is not going to stop me from voting however. There are some initiatives that need to be smacked down. Hard. Besides, I figure voting gives me my four year bitching license.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

Non-American in Maryland, watching many American friends working to GOTV for Obama, even though Maryland is technically "safe", and feeling antsy that I can't do anything.

(I really, really cannot. It would be dangerous for me and dangerous for the side I support to create any whiff of foreign-involvement-in-elections. And I should not---I think how I would feel to see an American working in my country's elections, even for the party I support, and "bristling" isn't in it. So I watch and cheer quietly and post political discourse, but I cannot do anything physical.)