Workin' the polls, and Bill Clinton's in town(?)
I've been out at my polling place this morning, not pushing any candidates, but just trying to get updated contact information on registered Dems in my precinct. Turnout is around 450 voters so far, plus about 325 from the precinct who voted early, or nearly 30%. We can expect about 60% or so in the precinct by the end of the day, based on that. Not too shabby for a primary.
Interesting note from a reader who tells me that Bill Clinton will be working the polls later this afternoon at 3:30 pm at the School of Science and Math on Club Blvd. If you're in Precinct 4, aren't you the lucky voter.
Taking a lunch break now, and i'll be back out there for the afternoon/evening crush. We'll do our best to get the local result posted for your enjoyment and discussion as soon as they start rolling in around 8 pm.
UPDATE: I filled up my contact sheets before 5 pm, so i headed over to NCSSM, but it turned out i was too late to catch Bill Clinton. Oh well.
Turnout in my precinct was a bit over 700 before the after work crowd started showing up. Combine that with early voting, and turnout was well over 1000 voters. There are about 2500 voters in my precint, and Democrats outnumber Republicans about 9-1 (1800+ to 220). I didn't do any exit polling, but in my precinct, well over 95% of the folks i asked said they were Democrats, with just a handful of unaffiliateds and only one Republican. That'll put Democratic turnout, when all is said and done, somewhere around 60-65%, and Republican turnout probably at 10-15%, if that.
Of all the local candidates, there were supporters of Freda Black and Keith Bishop in the DAs race, and Fred Foster in the County Commissioners race, as well as folks from the Durham Committee. Hampton Dellinger supporters were handing out literature for their candidate as well. I have no idea how successful this approach is. Of the folks i spoke with (probably a little over 200, maybe as many as 250) i was able to get contact info for 120, which i thought was a successful day. I would characterize about 1/3 of the larger number as high information voters, that is folks who knew who was running for which office, more or less what their positions were, and why they were voting for any specific candidate. Of the balance, half or more were low information voters who were relying on PAC endorsements for their votes. The most interesting conversation was trying to explain to a voter why today was the day to make a choice between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. "But what if the situation changes between now and November?" he wanted to know. "Nothing you can do about it. If you want to be part of the choice of a Democratic candidate for president, today's the last day you can make up your mind."
Looking forward to the results.
Kevin will be liveblogging results as well, although our schedules are not going to let us actually liveblog together this election, unlike last year. Ginny will be liveblogging Durham County results as well, over at MyNC. She'll be using some cool new software called Cover It Live, which looks like it's worth a try, but which i don't really have time to learn to use between now and 8 pm. So i'll be liveblogging the old school way. Hit refresh for updates beginning around 8 when returns start coming in.
UPDATE II: Turnout at precinct 19 exceeded 900 as of 7:05 pm. Again, assuming the overwhelming majority of those voters are Democrats, Democratic turnout is going to approach 70% in this precinct.
UPDATE III: Well, that didn't take long. MSNBC called North Carolina for Obama within 30 seconds of the polls closing, and before any results were posted. Conversely, with about 20% of the Indiana vote reported, the race is still to early to call, although Clinton is leading about 57% - 43%.
I'm off to the courthouse to liveblog some local returns for a bit.
Hit the refresh button if you want to see updates.
UPDATE IV: Stupidest question ever. Chris Matthews to Rep. Clyburn (D-SC): do you think the media overplayed the Obama/Rev. Wright controversy.
Interesting note from a reader who tells me that Bill Clinton will be working the polls later this afternoon at 3:30 pm at the School of Science and Math on Club Blvd. If you're in Precinct 4, aren't you the lucky voter.
Taking a lunch break now, and i'll be back out there for the afternoon/evening crush. We'll do our best to get the local result posted for your enjoyment and discussion as soon as they start rolling in around 8 pm.
UPDATE: I filled up my contact sheets before 5 pm, so i headed over to NCSSM, but it turned out i was too late to catch Bill Clinton. Oh well.
Turnout in my precinct was a bit over 700 before the after work crowd started showing up. Combine that with early voting, and turnout was well over 1000 voters. There are about 2500 voters in my precint, and Democrats outnumber Republicans about 9-1 (1800+ to 220). I didn't do any exit polling, but in my precinct, well over 95% of the folks i asked said they were Democrats, with just a handful of unaffiliateds and only one Republican. That'll put Democratic turnout, when all is said and done, somewhere around 60-65%, and Republican turnout probably at 10-15%, if that.
Of all the local candidates, there were supporters of Freda Black and Keith Bishop in the DAs race, and Fred Foster in the County Commissioners race, as well as folks from the Durham Committee. Hampton Dellinger supporters were handing out literature for their candidate as well. I have no idea how successful this approach is. Of the folks i spoke with (probably a little over 200, maybe as many as 250) i was able to get contact info for 120, which i thought was a successful day. I would characterize about 1/3 of the larger number as high information voters, that is folks who knew who was running for which office, more or less what their positions were, and why they were voting for any specific candidate. Of the balance, half or more were low information voters who were relying on PAC endorsements for their votes. The most interesting conversation was trying to explain to a voter why today was the day to make a choice between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. "But what if the situation changes between now and November?" he wanted to know. "Nothing you can do about it. If you want to be part of the choice of a Democratic candidate for president, today's the last day you can make up your mind."
Looking forward to the results.
Kevin will be liveblogging results as well, although our schedules are not going to let us actually liveblog together this election, unlike last year. Ginny will be liveblogging Durham County results as well, over at MyNC. She'll be using some cool new software called Cover It Live, which looks like it's worth a try, but which i don't really have time to learn to use between now and 8 pm. So i'll be liveblogging the old school way. Hit refresh for updates beginning around 8 when returns start coming in.
UPDATE II: Turnout at precinct 19 exceeded 900 as of 7:05 pm. Again, assuming the overwhelming majority of those voters are Democrats, Democratic turnout is going to approach 70% in this precinct.
UPDATE III: Well, that didn't take long. MSNBC called North Carolina for Obama within 30 seconds of the polls closing, and before any results were posted. Conversely, with about 20% of the Indiana vote reported, the race is still to early to call, although Clinton is leading about 57% - 43%.
I'm off to the courthouse to liveblog some local returns for a bit.
Hit the refresh button if you want to see updates.
UPDATE IV: Stupidest question ever. Chris Matthews to Rep. Clyburn (D-SC): do you think the media overplayed the Obama/Rev. Wright controversy.
Labels: 2008 elections
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6 Comments:
apparently we got someone from the Obama party going door to door in OND to make sure we were voting today...
By
Vera, at 12:38 PM
Yes, the Obama lady came to our door yesterday, too. The Republican in my house referred her to the Democrat in my house. :D
By
Unknown, at 2:14 PM
Someone needs to be watching the polls. At the main library this morning there was a person supporting Keith Bishop who was handing out campaign materials INSIDE the library. Also, strangly, there were all kinds of campaign materials from the DCABP inside my voting booth.
I called the Board of Elections about this but they were unsure as to what, if anything, would be done about it.
By
Natalie, at 3:39 PM
Interesting.
I was not giving out literature, nor campaigning for any candidates, just asking people who had already voted if they were Democrats, and if they wanted to get on an email list that i run for my precinct.
At one point, even though my table was outside the line, the people who were signing my clipboard were inside the line, and a poll worker came out and asked me to move a little further back, so that folks signing up would be outside the line as well.
Surprising that BoE folks would be "unsure" how to deal with your situation.
By
Barry, at 5:23 PM
I thought it was interesting too. Why would people who are paid to make sure elections are free and fair not do it.
The Serbs, Albanian, Roma, Ashkali, & Egyptians didn't seem to have this problem last November.
Granted. I did have to go to work afterwards, so I do not know if someone from the BoE was sent over to remind people of the rules they all know.
By
Natalie, at 10:33 PM
I worked as an election judge in precinct 4 yesterday and when we were setting up on Monday night our chief judge talked to someone from Bill Clinton's staff about him coming yesterday. The initial word we got was that it would be sometime between 5 and 7pm. It wasn't until 2:30pm that we had someone wander in and say that the Clinton campaign HQ had told him it would be 3:30. He actually got there about 3:45 (not bad for a politician) and stayed about 45 minutes. There was quite a crowd of both Hillary and Obama supporters there including one Obama supporter with a megaphone that was chanting "Hillary in 2016!". I did manage to get at least one decent picture of Bill and shake his hand.
The bad part about it all was that the state patrol and secret service blocked off our handicap and curbside voter parking and as a result I ended up walking halfway down the street to help 2 voters out with curbside voting. Thankfully, however, they weren't there long enough to really mess things up for the polls.
By
Tanner Lovelace, at 10:20 AM
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