Let me start by saying that, before I started doing vague research for this, I knew next to nothing about Ron Paul. I knew that he has two first names. I was aware that he was a Republican, but had no idea what kind. I was not aware of his race, although I could guess (the background color of this page), nor his religious leanings, although I could guess.
But yesterday, while working the polls, I got to have face to face confrontations with some of his rabid (but not real smart) supporters. Electioneering is illegal within 100 feet of the polling place. This includes your buttons, shirts, and flesh-stamps (can I just say “WTF”?). That means, as inspector, if you walk in with any of same, I will ask you politely to remove it, reminding you why. There’s always one in each election who walks in (this year, it was an Obama ‘08 shirt) and is completely embarrassed, apologetic, and acquiescent. This year, however, there were an additional 5 who refused, became belligerent, and ended up not being able to vote. All of them were Ron Paul supporters.
As Wired said, “One Candidate Has Mastered Online Campaigning. Too Bad It’s Ron Paul.” He has a couple creepily extensive Wikipedia entries about his positions, and I have seen more home-made signs (on freeways, on tshirts) for him than for any other candidate. But every single person (young, affluent, still-living-with-parents) who attempted to vote for him while wearing shirts yesterday was not registered as a Republican…and therefore, could not vote for him. Which did not improve the situation.
(Incidentally, as I’m writing this, a supporter of his who I work with agreed with my summation of his supporters as some of the most ill-informed about the election process voters I’d met.)
In a time when the only candidate we hear about are the ones the (MSM) media want us to, we need campaigns like Ron Paul’s (yes, even including the Williams of the world). They just also need some down-to-earthiness since this is still the real world.
6 responses so far ↓
1 JC // Feb 6, 2008 at 6:27 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cJWbPd1Pyw
We’ve only just begun! Let’s do this!!
2 xJane // Feb 6, 2008 at 9:32 pm
:-p guess I was asking for spam, neh?
3 Elaine // Feb 6, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Ah, the joys of being a precinct inspector.
Been there, done that…got the psychological scars.
Well, not really. Mostly it was great fun to work at the polls, but there were times…
I just don’t understand why people can’t get it through their head that they can’t just stroll into the polling place and start talking about who they’re going to vote for. I understand the ones who are doing it for a partisan reason…they’re just jerks. They know the law and try to flaunt it on purpose.
The ones that bother me are the ones who aren’t really ideological but try to throw the First Amendment at you when you ask them to refrain from talking about the candidates or issues by saying that it is a violation of their free speech rights to stop them from talking. A couple of times it got so bad that I had to remind them, none too gently, that as inspector, I had the authority to call the police and have them removed from the polling place, that that if they didn’t shut up, I would do so.
I also had to fight with poll watchers a couple of times when they would come around to see who had voted and who hadn’t. One in particular insisted that they could keep the street index for as long as they wanted, even though that meant that people coming to vote couldn’t check it to make sure that they were at the right precinct.
4 wren aka nee // Feb 7, 2008 at 6:52 am
I’m a registered independent. I participated in a primary once in the mid 90s to vote for a Republican I wanted to get on the ballot for congress. This was in Nebraska and the usual general election rules applied - no signs within x number of feet, etc. Additionally, there were not separate locations for each party. You walked in, your name was marked off on a list of registered voters, you stated which party ballot you wanted and voted.
Last Tuesday I participated in the Democrat caucus in MN so I could throw my support behind Obama. As we walked in the school where the caucus was being held, I was surprised to see signs everywhere and I mean everywhere for Obama and workers wearing buttons promoting Obama. I heard this was common at other locations as well, either for Obama or Hillary.
The process was writing down my name and address and then I was given a blank golden square of paper to write my presidential candidate on. I then took the “ballot” to a different table and put it in a box. That table also had a hat on it that people were putting money in. From across the room, I commented to my boyfriend, “Wtf? Is that for bribes?” As we got to that table, I saw that it was for donations for the DFL (the Democrat party in MN).
The whole process was unsecure and had a high potential for fraud, imo. It reinforced to me that I should remain registered Indepenedent.
From what I hear, some other states have similar caucuses. That’s demoralizing.
5 xJane // Feb 9, 2008 at 1:02 pm
R. Paul is proof that our electoral system has come a long way
6 wren // Feb 10, 2008 at 9:30 am
ha! That would spice up the state of the nation addresses.
Just think, if Gladys entered the race she’d have the woman/African American/Mormon factors all rolled into one! Plus The Pips could be cabinet members. Sweet.
Leave a Comment