Looking Back to Nov. 6: Walking The Akron, OH Rust Belt Walk In Ward 4

GOTV IN AKRON:

Walking the Rust-Belt Walk in Ward 4

 Jean Riesman

A fuzzy shot of our staging location

GOTV is not the Akron Fox network affiliate that was flickering above the bar at the New Era Restaurant, where the Serbian dumplings have the specific gravity of uranium and the apple strudel the lightness of the Red Bull Stratos: it's the acronym for "get out the vote," the relentless strategies (including door-knocking, voter registration, early voting turn out and buses full of church goers voting on Souls-to-the-Polls Sunday) that helped secure Ohio for Obama last Tuesday. The dumplings and strudel fortified us for the campaign's last pavement-pounding weekend – as did the Fox channel's back-to-back political ads, a low-budget stream of local, state, and national Republican consciousness.

Crystal, Jean and Pat Laying Out Turf for the Big Push

Our job was to knock on carefully-selected doors in West Akron up to six times before the polls closed on Tuesday night and thereby, if necessary, to badger our targeted Obama voters into exercising their franchise. While Ohio early voting had begun October 2, Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted continued to do everything in his litigious power to limit hours and access, especially in Democratic-leaning districts: that is, in dense urban lower-income communities of color such as West Akron. His tactics backfired. Lines at the Akron Board of Elections were up to four hours long during the last stretch of early voting, and prospective voters were equally undeterred at precinct polling locations on Election Day.

At our Ward 4 outpost, ordinarily the combined space of the Just 'N Café and the Bizness Lab, we were superintended by a formidable local African-American woman who could re-focus chattering volunteers with a hard look from her chair behind the central-command computer. Hustled out to cover the next piece of turf, we worked our soggy printouts in the windy drizzle, drilling down to the last sporadic voters who might need a final nudge. Behind many doors were the voices – "already voted!" – of the already-voted or stern parents promising to turn their young'uns out to do their civic duty; behind others, TVs on and nobody answering; and others, either nobody home yet or nobody home, in vacant single-family houses or empty apartments with Obama materials dangling from a previous pass.

Akron used to be the Rubber City, running on the tire factories of Goodyear, Firestone and other manufacturing giants. The New Era had refreshed decades of General Tire workers getting off their shifts across the street. Plant closures hit the city hard. Downtown seems to be patching up its post-industrial distress, but in many parts of Ward 4, tired houses and weary residents reflect long-term unemployment, foreclosure, and the hard work of just getting by. The ravages of 1960s-era urban renewal also are etched in the abrupt dead ends of West Akron's streets, where we kept discovering that our next house number was on the other walled-off side of the interstate highway system.

Other than a scattering of lawn-signs and bumperstickers, there was not much evidence of the Romney/Ryan campaign. A handful of operatives made mischief: Obama/Biden lawn-signs had been regularly disappearing, as did – on election eve – the oblong placards we had just hung on doorknobs and storm-door latches, imprinted with the proper address of the right polling location for those particular voters.

To no avail: with over 74% turnout Ward 4 went 88% for the president on November 6, Ohio closed the deal, and Romney conceded before midnight in a form of early voting – with his feet, out of the battleground states and out of his misbegotten place in American political history.

Voter Suppression First Thing in the Morning -- Nov. 6, 2012

Mr. Woodall was our first visitor.  He couldn't find his polling location. Since he has lived in West Akron, OH he has voted at Centenary United Methodist Church. Earlier this year the County election commissioners, half Republican and half Democratic came to a deadlock over the number of polling locations to close so the decision was up to our industrious Secretary of State who voted with the Republicans, closing almost half of the voting locations in the county.  Mr. Woodall, a spry man looked to be someplace between 85 and 90 years old. He was going to be the first in line I imagine since our polls opened at 6:30 and he was at our door by 6:45.  Luckily our fearless leader, Mary Sobah, is an expert at looking up polling locations so we were able to help.  We thought maybe he had misplaced the bright orange card announcing the change in location.  Then a younger woman came in and we knew we had a problem.  We put together signs advising folks to come see us to figure out their new polling location.  We posted them at Centenary UMC.  By mid-morning eight people came in trying to figure out where they were to vote.  We expect more.  We were happy to be open at 5:30 this morning.  We worry we missed some of those early voters who didn't know we are here.

We have 6 volunteers out working eight areas of our ward, reminding people to vote, asking questions about polling locations, listening for other instances of voter suppression.  We understand we are ahead on percentages at the polling locations.  More updates as we have them.

It's been a busy morning.

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!

Souls to Polls Update! Enormous Turnout

Souls to Polls officially ended at 5 p.m. EST.  That means you had to be in line by that time.  At 4:30 there was a four hour wait to cast an early vote.  Our continuing victory over voter suppression.

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!

Fighting Voter Suppression One Door At A Time

This is how voter suppression works in Ohio. Take the most populated ward, with the weakest turn out and then reduce the number of precincts and place each precinct's voting location in one school. Instead of 1400 people at a polling location there will be over 4500.

There is early voting at the Board
Of Election today through Monday. We here there's a giant traffic jam and folks are standing in line, patiently, for an hour or more.

This is a good thing. This weekend, Monday & Tuesday we are visiting everyone who has yet to vote 6 times to make sure they understand they can vote and where to do it. That's how we fight voter suppression one door, one voter, at a time.

The photo is of two canvassers just back from a cold, rainy day of door knocking.