My six hours poll watching in Northern Virginia today,

[Perky]

I pulled a 6 hour stint at a local precinct. The precinct has about 2,800 voters, We had over 1,200 voters get through the line in that time. the longest waits were about 90 minutes but the ballot only has three races and a ballot referendum.

The precincts is a very ethnically diverse hodgepodge of middle to upper middle class voters.

My roles was to check off democratic voters who announced themselves to the poll workers. Trending suggested it was about 65% blue.

Every hour or so I would give my list to a runner who would give me a clean list and then take the list I was working on to a boiler room to be entered into a national database called Houdini. People working phone banks were calling and knocking on doors and offering rides to anyone who had not voted yet.

By contrast, the GOP poll watchers had their list of recently deceased and absentee voters trying to vote a second time. They had three people in the room doing that and that alone…..Very unproductive use of resources.


Download cool yet simple Excel spreadsheet for tracking all federal results tonight
Edited on Tue Nov-04-08 02:23 PM by Perky
It is a pretty simple drag and drop solution.

You can drag a state, a senate result or House side to blue or red as the race is called,


It automatically calculates the running total of EVs, Senators or Congresscrritters by party.


Very simple but very useful.

If anyone wants it... You can download it here.


Avail in .xls and .xlsx formats

http://ccgm.nexo.com/campaign

If you like it keep this K&R

[underpants]

1. Thanks

I am hosting a GOTV staging area

[onenote]

2. I'm confused about this: there is no party registration in VA

So why would voters be announcing themselves as "Democratic" voters? I've voted in Northern Virginia for 37 years and never once been asked about party affiliation.

[Perky]

4. oh they are not ....

I was supplied with a book of Democrateic or leaning Democratic voters by the campaign,

[onenote]

6. ahh.. that makes sense

[onenote]

9. to further clarify

the reason I asked how the poll watching worked was that my wife is heading over to work one of the local polling places starting at 5 (until they close, which may be after 7 depending on what happens). She hasn't gotten any instruction on what whe's supposed to do and I thought I'd learn something that could be helpful for her through this thread.

[rvablue]

20. That still doesn't answer the question....I've been voting for many years in VA

and have never announced or been asked to announce my party affiliation in a general election...nor have I heard anyone else ever do so....

[Perky]

24. No you misunderstand

They only announce their name and present their credentials.

I am looking over the shoulder of the workers.
The campaign provided me a list of canvassed voters in that precinct who indicated they wouol be likelly to support Obama.

YThe campaign is only calliung out those on their list who have not voted.

[liberal N proud]

Voted Democratic previously

[onenote]

7. how would they know that? polling?

[liberal N proud]

10. Primaries

[Perky]

12. We have been canvassing here for months.

[Jersey Devil]

5. Wouldn't voter records show who voted in a Democratic Primary?

Perhaps that's how they know.

[onenote]

8. it would, but VA has open primaries so it would be only roughly accurate

[Perky]

11. It is mostly from canvasssing data folks,

[onenote]

15. thanks for the info

[Virginia Dare]

18. We've been canvassing in our district since July...

I know they hit my house three times. I'm sure their data is pretty accurate, they're going to know by 5:00 tonight which voters they're missing.

[The Wielding Truth]

3. Database called Houdini? Yea, that instills confidence.

:crazy:

[Tesha]

14. The database is designed to make already-voted persons "disappear" from the calling lists.

It's a nationwide program; Mr. Tesha did a four-hour stint of poll-watching
this morning in our ward.

Tesha

[thoughtcrime1984]

13. Typical, Dems work to get everyone to vote, Pubs work to suppress vote or challenge voters.

[Perky]

16. well to be honest. dead people and absenteed voters should not be voting today

They did not challengae any voters. I just think it is a really stupid thing to foucs on.....

Absentee voters are not on the list of elegible voters and you need ID to vote How many dead people wannabees so they actually think they are purging?

[Ozma]

21. SO the Rethuglicans will have an easy time of it, no one will show up!

[Virginia Dare]

17. You rock Perky, thanks for all your hard work!

I hope we turn VA blue...:kick:

[Renew Deal]

19. The republicans are waiting for dead people to show up?

:rofl:

[Ozma]

22. They are probably praying that one or two do, and probably no dead

people will show. They will feel so used by the Rethugs, all that time and not one single dead voter.

[Perky]

23. It is pretty nutty isn't it?