Voter Suppression in Southern Ohio -- Abe Rybeck Reports

Today's guest GOTV canvasser is Abe Rybeck, good friend and Executive Director of the Theater Offensive in Boston.  He is volunteering in southern Ohio in the towns across the Ohio River from his hometown of Wheeling, WV. Thank you Abe for this first hand account.  It is a perfect example of why we must stay vigilant, committed and active until this effort is done.

Belmont County Ohio

Bobbi in Bridgeport hasn’t paid an overdue ticket she got last year from the Ohio State Troopers when the back right lights of her old dodge got knocked off. She thinks that means she’s NOT ALLOWED TO VOTE!

This is just one of the forms Voter Suppression takes and it makes my blood boil! The right-wingers who are pushing the restrictive voting laws are scaring poor people away from voting with the threat that when they show their id, they’ll get busted for any little thing on their record!

Bobbi is a Licensed Practical Nurse. On Sunday, she was in between shifts, taking care of her VERY sick mom, Hannah, who is suffering from two kinds of cancer. They live in the part of Bridgeport that flooded every year or two when I was growing up. Looks like they’re still dealing with that. 

Bobbi feels that Obama is an honorable man, who is doing the best that can be done in a tough situation. She knows how that feels and she wants to vote for him.

So it’s tremendously satisfying to be here working on the Get Out The Vote effort in Southeastern Ohio! I’m staying with my sister on our family farm in West Virginia, then crossing the river each day to work in different towns in Ohio. Yesterday I was in Bridgeport. The Obama for Ohio campaign is so well organized! Courtney gave me excellent materials that helped convince Bobbi that voting wouldn’t put her in jail. Then Therese helped us figure out a place where Bobbi could vote legally without intimidation.

That was one of the many, many people I've been honored to meet Getting Out The Vote.

Shout out to Rebecca O Johnson up in Akron, who inspired and challenged me to do this in the first place! Off to my next shift!

The Last Few Hours of Early Voting - Nov. 5, 2012

I took a cousin's absentee ballot down to the Board of Elections and finally got some photos of citizens waiting in line to early vote.  These photos represent a 2 hour wait.  On Sunday it was a 4 hour wait if you were in line by the end of the day.

Waiting in line at Akron Board of Elections

Another view

Twenty deep inside

Souls to the Polls: Sunday, November 5, 2012

The big Get Out The Vote effort today is Souls to the Polls.  Churches, particularly African-American churches, throughout the region have organized to get their congregations to the Summit County Board of Elections for early voting (1-5 p.m., 470 Grant St. in case you read this and want to join the fun).  Even though the temperature outside today (and yesterday) has averaged around 39F, their are long lines waiting patiently.  Various organizations are grilling out while celebrities such as Aisha Tyler keeping the crowd piously entertained.

TwitPict by Jonathan Weisman, NYTimes

Barack Obama's candidacy has become contentious for some Black church folk, for his pro-choice stand and recent support of gay marriage.  The reluctance of some ministers to encourage their congregations to early vote (not to mention voting at all) has upset many of my parents' old friends.  Last election some of them canvassed door-to-door, all of them cooked crockpots full of delicious stews, soups and chilis, and helped at endless phone banks.  Four years later they are older, sicker but no less determined to see Barack Obama re-elected.

So I am encouraged by the reported turn out (we can't get there since we are staffing a canvass staging location in West Akron).  It has been fascinating watching the women we work with at the local office realize Pat and I are partners.  First there is cautious observation of our behavior.  They love the president but maybe don't know many out queer people (they all know someone queer, generally in the choir of their church, usually quite closeted).   Once they realize that we can cover lots of territory on a canvass, willingly make endless phone calls and generally do anything we are told to do they seem to decide that maybe President Obama was right.

So here's to showing up, the first and most important rule for becoming a good organizer.

Day 2 GOTV-- Sunday Morning

I'm off running errands for our staging location so Pat Maher is going to handle the first post of the day.  Take it away, Pat!

The Staging Location Banner at Just In Cafe

Yesterday during brief breaks in the action at our  staging location, the longtime organizer who runs our campaign substation here in West Akron was making sure everyone she knows was getting to the Board of Elections to vote.  Her name is Mary Sobah and she is a one woman polling place as well as a stalwart organizer who has been slogging for months through the painstaking work that makes this campaign so effective. When her grandson came in to fill out an absentee ballot -- it was his first time voting -- he turned to us all and said "I just did my part to save this country." 

Mary Sobah, Our Fearless Leader

We spent yesterday as we'll spend the next three days:  organizing "turf" -- the precinct maps and home address lists-- and  training and dispatching canvassers into the streets.  One woman who came in to canvass with her teenage daughter said she would be back today and tomorrow to canvass.  Her eyes filled with tears as she told me she just couldn't let Romney win this election and so she would come out with us over the next few days.  Another canvasser brought his 17-year old son.  When they returned from their shift the son proudly told me he thought he had convinced an undecided voter to vote for Obama.

So yes I'm tired and surviving on too much caffeine and bizarre nutrition right now (it has been a downhill slide since yesterday morning's excellent oatmeal)  but I love this work.  This weekend is the culmination of all those walks down the streets of West Akron from the last few months, knocking on doors, talking to people, seeing who is voting how and voting when.

I think what is hard to see from outside the swing states like Ohio is that this campaign is based on a very finely honed organizing strategy. What is also hard to see is that the attempts at voter suppression here in Ohio have mobilized us. People here -- especially African Americans-- will not allow interference with their right to vote. Mainstream media has a tendency to construct people of color voters as hapless victims of right wing malfeasance -- a la the 47%! --- without acknowledging the solid community organizing in places like Akron and Cleveland and other cities. For example, those "Voter Fraud is a Felony" billboards that were placed in Cleveland and other communities a few weeks ago were sited in neighborhoods where Obama has been organizing for months. The right wing assumes an extraordinary level of stupidity and helplessness. Rest assured there is a huge voter protection mobilization in place on our side.

We heard yesterday that the lines at the Board of Elections in Akron yesterday were around the block.  Today is "Souls to Polls" when churchgoers go straight from the pews to vote at the Board of Elections.  Turnout is higher here already than it was in 08.  We're gonna win this thing!

Walking Meditation

One of the primary practices of Theravadin Buddhism is walking meditation.  It is a way of developing mindfulness in one of our most common daily activities, moving through the world.  In a presidential campaign every activity, even a simple one like walking, is filled with distractions -- what's the address, who will I be speaking to, is this person committed to Obama, leaning our way or another way, what campaign material should I leave -- so that most other sensations go unnoticed.  How does my foot feel against this exquisitely rickety porch stair? Is the wind blowing around my knees warm or cool?  What sensations are pleasant? Unpleasant? Neutral?

And what about the other impressions, of people's suffering?  And the judgments that arise in me -- about the way people live, the conditions of neighborhoods, houses, yards -- as I go about my job for this week, knocking on doors, handing out campaign material, hoping this is the most compassionate thing I can do right now.  

There is another practice, called Metta, which the Buddha taught his monks as a way of overcoming fear of all manner of creatures as they did sitting and walking meditation in a forest dominated by tree spirits.  So for all those I have met these last six days --  

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe and protected from harm, may all being be healthy and strong, may all being live with ease of well-being.

Our People Don't Always Get A Chance

There is a lot to love about Akron, OH, especially her people.  I had the privilege today to walk the red brick streets of North Akron, just up the hill from where my grandma had lived most of her life.  

It was snowing most of the day.  Nothing heavy but fairly constant.  Many trees still had leaves.  They were a picture of languorous well-being, wide crowns suggesting the breadth of their roots, hickories, sycamores, maples, oaks, all losing their leaves, all preparing for winter.  I love the trees of Akron, Ohio, but back to the people.

Our goal was simple -- get as many people as possible to commit to early voting, new this year in Ohio. On one street a young woman, upon seeing us going door to door, ran out of her house, shouting, "I just got done voting, I just got done voting.  I voted for Barack."  And then threw her arms around me in a jubilant hug.  

On another street,  I was standing puzzled about the location of my next street (I am more than occasionally directionally impaired) when a middle aged white man, a bit worn, and maybe undernourished, asked, " You lost?  You need help?"  I asked the location of the next street I was to cover and he told me which way to go.  Then he asked, "Don't you want to know who I'm going to vote for?"  I didn't really, but I did, I asked, "Who are you going to vote for?"  His reply, "Obama! of course Obama!"

Not everyone was friendly.  There have been the McCain supporters who slammed doors in our faces.  There was the one young man who tried to sic his Great Dane on me (have you ever tried to get a Great Dane to do anything mean? It doesn't work). 

But most of the  undecided were genuinely interested in talking and thinking about their choice. There was the three young college students invited me in for hot chocolate.  And then their was the 92 year old lady who shouted for me to come in through her unlocked door. From her wheel chair she told me she had sent in her absentee ballot, because, "Our people don't always get a chance and now we got one and I'm sure God wants him (Obama) to win cause he gave us this chance."