One of my staff members has been in line already for 1.5 hours this morning to vote on the last day of early voting here in Bloomington, Indiana. The line was over a block long at 9:00 am this morning.
CNN is reporting lines are long and have been long nationwide during early voting.
And the same is anticipated tomorrow.
Here is a suggestion for GOTV Obama staff who are monitoring polling stations.
Encourage young voters to let the elderly and infirm into the line ahead of them as soon as possible, so they do not have to wait for hours in line.
Help insure their desire to vote is not lost because they give up and leave in exhaustion and frustration.
We must, unlike the Republicans, whose entire strategy is based on suppressing the vote, insure the right to vote for any and every citizen who wishes to do so.
I am hoping that one of the first pieces of legislation next year will be an omnibus bill aimed at ending voter suppression, robo-calling, and outright false and slanderous political ads, ONCE AND FOR ALL. The Voter Rights Act of 2009. Bring it on.
And to help insure that happens, let that older or infirm or disabled person break line so we can get Obama into the White House, with a majority in each house that will make it possible.
On a tragic non-voting related note, Bloomington had a major fire that was destroying a large pet store north of downtown from 7:30 on. Traffic into town from the north and northwest was totally snarled. Tragically early reports from http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/ are that more than 2/3 of the animals probably died in the fire. There is a photo up on the front page one of my staff members took while being routed around the fire on his way in to work, but it may have scrolled past the open front page to a subscription only page by now, but at the moment there is a photo of one of the animals being rescured.