Imagine for a moment:
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It's election day. Those of us who can are on the streets volunteering.
But we run into a problem.
The lines at the polling stations are around the block. People are getting agitated and leaving. People have to get back to work.
GOTV volunteers are not even sure if it makes sense to go bring more people to the polling station.
And we find out on dKos: the same thing is happening in virtually every swing-state big city across the country.
We had prepared for everything. But not this.
Continued...
So, what happened?
Overwhelming numbers of voters showed up at the polls early on, many of them new and inexperienced, and therefore slower. Even those with experience faced new machines and multiple ballot measures in many states. Provisional ballot requests came in record numbers, and these take yet more time for poll workers. Finally, on top of all this, new security measures delayed voter processing. The republican-leaning rural areas could handle these delays, but in the cities - there are too many voters per site, especially too many new voters, and it overwhelmed the system. In the end, voters went home without voting, and those who heard about the lines decided not to bother. Volunteer GOTV efforts became halfhearted due to futility. The numbers were there, the capacity to handle them wasn't.
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Folks, we've prepared for Republican tricks with thousands of lawyers. With built up millions of dollars in GOTV and ads. We've made countless phone calls, and written hundreds of thousands of letters.
What can we do to prevent the above scenario? Basically, St. Louis 2000, nationwide? So far, there's one good answer I could find, and its a VERY important one: where possible, take advantage of early voting and absentee voting.
But I don't think that's good enough.
What else can we do?