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.

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!

Fracking Earthquakes and the Deep Ecology of the Planet - NPM #3

Fracking Sludge Tanks, Youngstown OH. Photo by Dan Pompeii

Photograph by Dan Pompili/Warren Tribune-Chronicle/AP PhotoPerhaps you have heard about the recent spate of earthquakes here in northeast Ohio.  Scientists from the US Geological Survey have determined they are caused by high pressure disposal of waste liquid from hydraulic fracturing into wastewater injection wells. Hydraulic fracturing is the process by which a toxic stew of chemicals (the list has not been fully revealed) is injected in the ground to break up shale rock formations that contain natural gas.  The natural gas and fluids come back up to the surface after picking up contaminants from deep in the earth. The wastewater, composed of contain sodium and calcium salts, barium, oil, strontium, iron, numerous heavy metals, soap, radiation and other components. Most of the wastewater that arrives in Ohio originates in Pennsylvania since there are prohibitions against injection wells in the state.  

Tectonic Plate Map

Earthquakes happen.  They are the manifestations of the deep  structures of our planet.  What we call natural gas and crude oil are part of that ecology.  We humans ride the tectonic plates of our planet's continuing evolution, and it seems, increasingly find ways of disrupting it in thoughtless and generally unnecessary ways.  Here's an oil-drilling poem:


Drilling For Oil

flesh colored ghosts
walking through the
oil fields... carrying

mannequin babies
on their shoulders.

draped in American flags,
carrying Bibles, and
pearl handled revolvers.

past rusted out chevrolets,
stepping on books that
were banned....

singing the songs of Jesus
to corpses that cant hear....

past tomblike houses
where strangers lived and
died... pictures of dead presidents...

empty Jim Beam bottles in
the windows, covered with soot!

drilling for oil... 

Eric Cockrell