Apologies for the short diary in advance, but I just got in from canvassing and wanted to share this.
There is literature being circulated in Northeast Ohio (and elsewhere, I'm sure) that appears at a first glance to legitimately to encourage people to vote on November 4th - but the flier has a dirty little secret.
The fliers being distributed have a small sticker, much like a printable mailing label - that lists the incorrect polling location. I got a copy of one at my staging location and sure enough, the sticker tells voters to go halfway across town to vote.
Add this to wait times potentially several hours on Election Day, and it just might make enough confused voters say "screw this" and go home.
Bush won Ohio by a scant 10 votes per precinct in 2004.
The unabashed "effort" of GOP volunteers is a sign that there's a lack of faith in their candidate and we need to stop it. The canvassing lists I get here have the polling location printed at the top of each sheet. When talking to people, be sure you ask them if they know where to vote.
While canvassing in Cleveland yesterday, we noticed that there were quite a few records that were absolutely not true. They're combining three attempts on one sheet now and whoever had the first pass wasn't very honest. Why? Here's some of the things I saw:
- Houses listed as "MV" (moved) with a note saying the house was boarded up (and it wasn't)
- Multiple person households (none of them home) but one or two of them marked as no longer living there
- Houses marked as "IA" (inaccessible) when they were clearly accessible
I know that 60+ doors are a lot to knock on, and that sometimes we're not in the greatest of areas... But I sincerely want to know why someone would do this! When I brought it to the attention of one of the leaders at my staging location, he mentioned that it wasn't the first walk packet that had been "fictionalized" that day. So now I wonder, if these canvassers marked someone as intending to vote, or that they had already voted...Is it true?
Thank you to everyone out there working hard. We can't let up now!
UPDATE: Contacted WEWS (Channel 5) in Cleveland.