I'll be intermittently updating this throughout the day, and may be adding occasional requests for help. Maryland has been very active in the campaign; we were informed last night that, as a state, we've made more GOTV phone calls than any other state except California.
And we're going to take aim at that today. It's 8:15 AM; we start calling at 9. If you're around Baltimore County: 40 W Chesapeake in Towson is the place, bring a cell phone and/or laptop with wireless if you have them. I don't know which state(s) we'll be calling, but we intend to fire it up and keep it fired up as long as we have to.
The nearest polling place is the Baltimore County Public Library just across the street: the was already long at 6:45 AM when I got here. Other people coming in have reported growing lines at their polling places.
We sent several dozen volunteers north to Harrisburg at 6:15 AM. We're sending more at 10:00 AM -- meet at the Lutherville Light Rail parking lot, bring good walking shoes, water, and maybe a rain jacket. We have multiple vans ready and will organize carpools for anybody who can't fit.
8:50 AM: volunteers streaming in, 11 on the phones already. TV's on with news running. 8 more people just came in. Coffee's out, bagels are up. We have students standing on the corner of York and Chesapeake with our signs. Everyone is excited and ready for the final push.
9:10 AM: We need 75 more people here. We can accomodate 20 in this office, plus 35 in the first satellite, plus 20 more in others. Also: we need people who can drive campaign literature + signs to polling places. If you're coming to call, bring cell phone + charger, laptop + charger if you have them. If you're reading this and have your own network that you can forward to, please put out the word.
10:20 AM: We still need more people. We can use them to call, to drive lit and signs to the polls, to do data entry, and possibly to drive voters to the polls. Spread the word. All hands on deck!
11:20 AM: Still need people. We've got two groups of canvassers in the field (Harrisburg PA) and our main office is full of phonebankers. Satellite office #1 is now being staffed. We will open more if we can get the people. Bring cell+charger, laptop+charger if you have them. We're currently calling VA voters.
11:40 AM: Still need people. Satellite office #1 is nearly full and we are preparing to open two more. If you're at work and reading this, then think about going out to lunch and coming back tomorrow.
1:30 PM: We need cases of water, and ice. The A/C can't keep up with all the heat generated by people and computers. We now have 5 offices going and we still need more volunteers. Every phone bank call being in made in Maryland right now is going to PA.
2:30 PM: Governor O'Malley is here and made a few brief remarks, encouraging us to keep working on GOTV in PA. He said he spoke with Governor Rendell an hour earlier and that he (Rendell) indicated that we would need every vote we could get in PA.
3:45 PM: We are going to need a lot more volunteers to keep phonebanking into the evening and night. This thing is NOT going to be over early (IMHO) and we may well need to keep calling, keep calling, keep calling -- in order to make sure we win the Presidency and to help all the downticket races out west.
7:20 PM: Sorry, no update for a while: have been out taking food and drink to voters standing in long lines. This may be the best thing we've done: showing respect for the citizens, the electorate, the people who are patiently waiting their turn to exercise their right.