Ohio, Day 14: Election Day

Only Got Today to Change the World
Depending on one's role on E-Day, your morning could have started as early as 5am (or earlier!) as everyone needed to check into various staging locations (SLs) around the county. Some team captains were based out of a SL, some were assigned to a polling location, and some had to remain more mobile throughout the day. There were several primary roles: Line managers (made sure people on line were staying on line, comfortable, hydrated, happy, well-informed, etc), Houdinis (more on this in a moment), & Legal Protection (lawyers & law students stationed at every poll to inform people of their voting rights, and to prevent voter suppression, intimidation, electioneering, and other funny business).

While all of this was going on, we also had Election Day canvass teams once again traversing the county reminding identified supporters to vote. And this is where the Houdini comes in. At 11am, Houdinis are responsible for entering the polling locations where poll workers have posted lists of the registered voters who have already voted (not who they voted for, just that they've come in to vote). Houdini's reconcile these lists with our likely Obama voters, and using a phone hotline and/or website enter those people in. Magically, those people are wiped from the walking lists given to afternoon canvassers to prevent them from knocking on the doors of those who've already voted. Houdinis: Because we make people disappear from the lists.

I started the day as a Houdini, but during the day transitioned to line manager and helped out at three different polling sites before returning to my original poll in the evening for the final tally. As evening approached, many of us began to worry. Despite all of the warnings, there had been no real problems at our polls, but also there weren't the lines we expected. Rather than a deluge of voters, it was a slow trickle throughout the day. I even called my Uncle Perry -- who had courageously volunteered to come to Ohio as a lawyer to monitor polls in Youngstown, OH -- to see if it was the same across the state. He had a couple of voters turned away in the morning, but it sounded fairly calm in his region as well. Was this because of the early voting? Was there just low turnout? Was something else going on?? We were in the dark.

Then the final tally was announced. 430 voters cast their ballot. My official polling site was actually quite close to the neighborhood in which we lost the Brits. It was then no shock when the vote distribution was posted:

Total votes: 430
Obama: 416
McCain: 12
Write-ins: 2

2% is Enough
By 8:45p I left the polls, picked up some horrible Chinese takeout & a Red Bull. While I waited for my food, the owners turned on CNN to watch results. The predictable east coast states had been called, and they were already leaning towards calling Pennsylvania for Obama. By the time I drove back to my host house, it was 9:20 and I had to pick up a few friends for the party by 10:00p. I quickly changed and ate, and as I walked out the door at 9:40, my Blackberry practically exploded with emails, phone calls, text messages, and instant messages. The news had ALREADY called Ohio for OBAMA!!!! With only 2% of precincts reporting?! I didn't even believe it, but by the time I picked up my friends at 9:55p, they were already freaking out. We all knew - McCain couldn't win without Ohio. Ohio was "the tip of the spear". And Ohio went to Obama.

We walked into the party at 10p, and the excitement was palpable. Even though the campaign rented out the appropriately named Renaissance Hotel in downtown Columbus for a city-wide party open to everyone, the longer-term workers (including me) chose to take over the bars and restaurants on the hotel's block. So with 150 of the people I worked alongside, we cheered as states continued to fall in the Obama column. Pennsylvania to Obama. Florida to Obama. Champagne was selling out fast. And as everyone knows, around 11pm EST, the election was called. Our 44th president will be Barack Obama. People cheered, many cried, everyone hugged. Chants of "Yes We Can", "Yes We Did", and "O-BA-MA" echoed throughout the block. We all hung around to watch Obama's acceptance speech, hugged a lot more, wiped eyes, and made our way to the Renaissance and celebrated into the early morning hours.

And then, like that, everyone was gone. People went home, slept for a couple of hours, packed, and headed to the airports. I stopped by my field office one more time around 11am for goodbyes (and to drop off some extra snacks I kept in the trunk of my car) and the walls had been picked bare. Everyone wanted to grab a poster, a sign, some memento of this effort. I raided the supply room to grab stickers, posters, signs, and buttons, threw them all in my bag, waved goodbye, and headed to the airport. By 5pm, I was back in NYC. And most people were home already too. Just a few lead officers hung around the next few weeks to wind our office down, but really, once we said goodbye in the early morning hours of November 5th, it was over.

Note: I still have a lot of items from the campaign. Please let me know if you'd like stickers, posters, etc. I brought them home for all of you. First come, first served.