It was a late night last night. I had to get my box of supplies ready to go to one of our early voting locations here in Dallas County. The Obama campaign here is running what is probably the largest poll greeting operation our county (and maybe Texas!) has ever seen.
And what were we rewarded with?
A record-setting day at the polls in Dallas! Shortly after noon, according to the Dallas Morning News, the old record of 21,960 was broken. By 4:00pm, 28,217 votes were cast. The total was expected to pass 30,000 by the time polls closed at 5:00pm.
I showed up at my East Dallas early voting location at 8:00am with my box of supplies and two chairs. I had to go to work, but I had two volunteers ready to greet voters. There was a short line of people - maybe 30 or 40 - waiting to vote. The racial mix wasn't much to speak of; older whites were the majority in this fairly diverse area of Dallas.
I was standing with a volunteer from our Democratic Texas House Representative's campaign when he was approached by a woman who was probably in her 80's. I slowly side-stepped away when I heard "I don't know how any Christian can vote for HIM [as she pointed to my Obama sign.] Wow. The Muslim crap right out of the gate. Whatever.
When I came back around 2:00pm, things were hopping. The voter demographics had become more diverse, and the voter responses to our signs and table were terrific. This afternoon was one hell of an Obama crowd. It was easy to spot the Republicans. They were the ones detouring completely around the walkways so they could avoid us. Obama supporters and Democrats were proud of their candidate, and wanted to chat and celebrate their votes with us.
I came back again around 3:30pm, after picking up my son up from school. Traffic had increased. This location typically has very light voting numbers. By late this afternoon, traffic at times spilled out of the parking lot into the street with voters waiting to park. Our poll greeters had signed up six people between 2:00 and 3:30 who wanted to volunteer. Voters were returning with their friends and family members who hadn't voted yet.
I signed up a volunteer to poll-greet on Saturday. And when I got home, I got a phone call from a woman I had phone-banked last week. I had left her a message to see if she'd volunteer. After voting today, she was calling me to sign herself and her husband up for a pollgreeting shift.
It was a beautiful day in Dallas.
Three days ago, I was seriously doubting that I'd be able to fill the hundreds of poll-greeting shift that run around the clock while polls are open.
Today, I've got shifts that have almost too many volunteers. But since there's no such thing as too many volunteers, what a fabulous problem to have!
And oh yeah, one thing to add. People did get mad at us - in a happy way, though - because we had no yard signs. Or rally signs. Or buttons. Or t-shirts. Or anything for them. We could have sold 50 yard signs today, I'd bet.