A few minutes before the polls close, the chief election judge comes outside

[struggle4progress]

It's the second Tuesday in May, the date of the primary election here

In the last few weeks, I've really done all I could do to convince people to vote for progressives, so today I'm playing nonpartisan. Our gerrymandered legislature passed quite a few voting laws last years, and changes will continue until 2016. Everybody needs to know the score, and that's why I'm here. I have some nice wallet cards detailing the changes, plus a university-sponsored survey on people's voting experiences, and a way to report problems

Early in the day, I did this in my own town. Now I'm twenty miles away, working the last shift before the polls close

This is the rural south. Partisans hit citizens coming to vote: Can I tell you about my wonderful nephew?

Then we hit the voters as they leave: Can I offer you some information on changes in the voting laws? Did you have any trouble voting today? Would you be willing to take a short survey about your experience?

Not everybody wants the info

No, I think I know about it. I'm the mayor here. A tall man with relaxed manner, comfortably dressed, he offers his hand, which I shake. I apologize for not knowing who he was. There's no reason you should have recognized me. Do you live here in C? I tell him that, no, I actually live in D. Well, then, there's absolutely no reason you should have known who I am

The other fellow working with me is somehow collecting four surveys for every one I collect. I study this a bit, but he's just being himself

Through the last half hour, the partisans begin packing and leaving. On his way home, one comes by to see what I'm doing. He gets my short explanation with a copy of the wallet card. He listens and nods: Keep up the good work

The clouds become orange. The crowd of partisans has dispersed. I move closer to the NO CAMPAIGNING line

A few minutes before the polls close, the chief election judge comes outside and introduces herself to me. I ask how many are still voting. There are none inside. Polls close in two minutes. She's curious what people put on the survey. We've collected about sixty forms, but I really haven't looked at any of them. There are about 300 people collecting this data around the state, and we'll just ship the data off to the university for analysis. So I tell her what I remember people actually saying to me

[Jenoch]

1. "Can I tell you about my wonderful nephew?"

In Minnesota there is a law against politicking within 100' of polling places.

[struggle4progress]

2. I think the law here is 50 feet. There's always a marked boundary and a sign

No campaigning beyond this point

People usually respect it: if they don't, a complaint to the election judges producers results

[DURHAM D]

6. Yes, it is 50 feet from the door.

Where I vote you can look out the window in two directions and see signs within inches of where I am marking my ballot but it is 50 feet from the entry door. If you remove the glass I can touch (pull up) the sign while still standing in the building.

The law should be 50 feet from the polling place, not 50 feet from the entry door.

[former9thward]

12. Absolutely not.

There is a first amendment right to express your opinion to those voting. Do you also support the unconstitutional "free speech" zones?

[DURHAM D]

13. Wow

You missed the point by at least 50 miles.

[former9thward]

14. Maybe you can explain it then.

Instead of throwing out an insult. Everyone screams GOTV, GOTV and then fights anything that does that. It makes me feel those shouting that have never done it.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. My dear struggle4progress...

Another excellent post...Thank you!

For doing the work, and for telling us about it.

This stuff is fascinating!

[Squinch]

4. More, please.

[sheshe2]

5. Thank you s4p. eom

[jtuck004]

7. K&R n/t

[kracer20]

8. Was there supposed to be more?

Just seems that your story ended a bit premature.

[struggle4progress]

9. Well, let's see. The sun's going down; the campaigners have gone home; it's two minutes

until the polls close; and nobody's in line to vote anymore, when the chief election judge comes outside for a short conversation

I guess I could had added something about being abducted by space aliens while driving home, but I thought that might obscure the main points of the story, so I stopped at what seemed to me a natural place to stop.

[kracer20]

10. Didn't mean to offend, just checking if you accidentally left part out.

I just thought there would be some description of what the people were saying, like you said they were in your last sentence.

[Bluenorthwest]

11. So what did people actually say to you?

I appreciate the 'Last Episode of the Sopranos' sudden cut off, but the information sounds interesting.

[struggle4progress]

15. What I thought was interesting was that the election judge wanted to know what folk thought

but I don't mind telling you what I heard

Remember it was a primary and school board election, so mostly only the dedicated turned-out: in my town, that's about 15% of registered voters

Also we only approached folk leaving the polls. With some regularity, people responded to my Would you like some info about changes in the voting rules? with I've already voted! This seemed a strange reaction to me (since I was obviously approaching only people walking away from the polls), and in a few cases I got the lit into their hands anyway by explaining some of these changes don't occur until 2016

If I had a chance after offering the lit, then (whether they took the lit or not), I'd ask whether they had any problem voting today. In two shifts in two different towns, almost everyone reported no problems. I only heard about five problems reported

Two involved folk who didn't understand the ID rules. Photo ID won't be required from ALL voters until 2016, but NC has for some years required HAVA-type documents from first-time voters (such as a current utility bill with name and address), and one first-time voter talked to us about that on his way out

During my second shift, several people told me they thought the line inside moved too slowly. So when the election judge asked about the survey, I told her I hadn't been looking at the survey and then reported the comments I'd heard. She said the computer system had changed and the poll workers weren't comfortable with it yet; she thought they'd do better in the fall

If I could get lit into folks' hands, I tried to get them to do the university survey. That was a harder sell.

Some people assumed the lit attempted some persuasion -- but actually it only summarized in simple language the changes in the law. Similarly, a certain number of folk expected the survey to be something of a push-poll -- but it wasn't. So maybe five or six folk worked themselves up for an argument about voter photo ID, and I responded by saying that I was only trying to inform people about the actual changes in the law, which I suspect spared me some predictable rants