I couldn't wait to get in the booth and cast my vote for Obama/Biden, Kay Hagan and others down ticket. Today I finally had that chance as I drove an hour from Raleigh to Southern Pines (where my permanent address is) to do this. With my vote comes some very interesting statistics. From the local Obama office (a great grassroots story in its own right) it is known that Moore County has approximately 60,000 registered voters. In early voting thus far over 10,000 have cast a ballot countywide and that number may be closer to 12,000! This means already more then 1/6 of all county voters have shown up! At my particular polling location I was number 4123. This is normally a conservative stronghold, but it is clear this kind of turnout is favoring Obama. If it were an average presidential election dems. or "blue" voters would probably be outnumbered 2 to 1. It was reported to me that it is probably nearly even based on observation at the very least. The ground game here is very strong from the Obama side even in the reddest of red territories.
With all this mind there is still another week of early voting! Finally I will close with a few tidbits on supression and other shady tactics. First some "old south" style supression was noted as local cops for no reason "patrolled" the polling station I went to in order to keep african americans away. They did this by having the lights on in their cars while walking around the polling station making sure their weapons were clearly visible. I do caution this is a second hand report and I didn't witness this personally. Additionally the republicans outside are handing out sample ballots but not telling voters their affiliation. In doing this of course the samples are checked for Republican candidates. The Obama volunteers are also there doing the same thing but being clear who they are with and that it is a democratic sample ballot and voter guide. Other then this I am unaware of any other issues. Tomorrow I will be volunteering for a few hours in Fayetteville! So please NC get out there! Yes We Can!
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