Citizen

Last week I wrote in the Indy about early voting as an antidote to Republican efforts to obstruct the voting process.

I mentioned the Republican Party's post-1965 history of "ballot security" campaigns to discourage minority voters, as in Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004. if space permitted, I'd have gone back to my first experience with voter suppression, which was Tony Imperiale and his armed Italian-American Republicans "guarding' the polls in Newark, New Jersey in the 1970s.

I did mention the billboards in minority communities warning residents about the penalties for voter fraud.

So over the weekend we've had these stories.

* In The New Republic, the Republicans are at it again in Ohio trying to keep blacks from voting.

* Meanwhile, Clear Channel used billboards in minority neighborhoods of Cleveland, Columbus and other Ohio cities to warn about the penalties for voter fraud.

Clear Channel is the communications behemoth known for, among other things, backing the War on Iraq to the hilt and blacklisting the Dixie Chicks when their lead singer spoke out in opposition to it.

Then there are the scattered, but numerous cases of phone calls to voters, especially senior citizens, with misleading information about voting hours and/or requirements, plus the efforts in states (e.g., Pennsylvania) where photo ID requirements were blocked to "inform" voters that a photo ID may be needed anyway.

Voting is our right, one that should be simple to exercise. Instead, more than one in three adults eligible to vote in the United States will not do so.

Voter suppression is just one reason for that sad statistic. But in a two-party system in which razor-tight elections are the norm, a voter suppression campaign that trims one side's vote by even 1 percent in one state is dangerous and can turn an election around. And these campaigns are not just in one state, they're in every battleground state, including Ohio, Florida, Virginia — and yes, North Carolina.

• photo by Bob Geary
• From left: Pota Vallas, her great-granddaughter Maya Eriksen, and her granddaughter Stephanie Eriksen Goslen

A post-script to my Early Voting post yesterday. When I arrived at the Talley Center (N.C. State), I was greeted by a pair of Democratic poll workers: Stephanie Eriksen Goslen, who's been in the Indy before, including as part of the Code Pink contingent honored in our 2005 Citizen Awards, and Stephanie's grandmother, Pota Vallas.

Vallas, who used to own the National Art Interiors furniture and design shop on the corner of Hillsborough Street and Glenwood Avenue, is 104.

That's right, she's been voting for presidents since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected in 1932. She never misses an election, whether national, state or local, she said. That's a lesson she learned from her father, a naturalized citizen who was born in Greece. He opened a store on Fayetteville Street in Raleigh when he was 17, selling ice cream and candy that he made in the basement.

Her father was rabid about the importance of voting and a lifelong Democrat, she said.

She is, too. But what counts the most for her, she said, is the person, not the party. And in that vein, the news media has gotten slack in her later years about telling voters who the candidates are — their life stories, their character, and their accomplishments, if any.

• Pota Vallas and great-granddaughter Maya Eriksen

The newspapers used to write about the candidates in detail, she said. They don't any more.

This year, though, she's in no doubt: She's for Obama. "He's shown himself to be a real leader," Vallas said. "I admire him to the extreme."

One reason she does is his life story. Abandoned by his father, raised by his mother and her parents, he sure didn't start life with a silver spoon in his mouth. "He came from nowhere," she said. "How he became president, I do not know!"

Grandmother and granddaughter had voted earlier. Now, as others came, the two were showing them how to fill out the ballot, which is not a simple proposition.

One of the voters they prepped: Maya Eriksen, who arrived just after I did. Maya, a College of Design student at State, is Stephanie's daughter and Pota Vallas's great-granddaughter. A fourth-generation Vallas.

Maya listened carefully to the briefing, as did I:

1) Be sure to vote for President and Vice President.

2) You can cast a straight-party vote if you want for all of the partisan state and congressional offices; but doing so does NOT mean you've voted for that party's presidential candidate.

3) Of course, you may want to split your ticket and vote for some Democrats, some Republicans, maybe a Libertarian or two.

4) The judicial races begin on the front (or they did on my ballot) and continue on the back, so be sure to turn the ballot over. Some of the judicial races are contested. Some aren't. I must say, it took me a minute to sort out which candidates were unopposed and which were running against each other.

5) The judicial races are officially non-partisan, which means (for most folks) you'll be looking at a list of names you don't recognize. That's one reason why you should clip or print out an Indy voting guide and stick it in your pocket.

6) In Wake County, there's a ballot question at the very end: $200 million for Wake Tech expansions? That'd be a yes vote IMHO.

Early-voting sites are listed on the State Board of Elections website, along with dates and hours they're open.

• photo by Bob Geary
• Outside the early voting site at N.C. State.

I followed my own advice and voted today. In the Indy, I focused on the wisdom of early voting 1) to be sure you do vote; 2) to help get that bandwagon moving to the polls; and 3) to deal early with any challenges, obstacles or fear tactics that may be coming your way — especially in minority communities — in an effort to keep you from voting.

Here, I want to emphasize how easy it is to vote early — how easy I found it to be, anyway, as I voted over at N.C. State's Talley Student Center — and the fact that students can vote early on campus or at any of the early-voting sites regardless of their family address and regardless whether they've registered to vote.

The picture above is of a wall outside the student center. The chalker was a little over-anxious to vote (!) ... or perhaps he/she meant to say that early voting stars.

I went into Talley, took the elevator to the fourth floor, and within three minutes I had the proper ballot in my hand for the precinct in Raleigh where I live. Then I went to the room with the voting booths, filled out the ballot and put it in the machine. As always, it felt great to cast my vote.

The set-up would've been the same for me had I been a State student registered previously in Wake County.

• Early voting inside the Talley Center.

But let's say I was a State student who'd registered at my family address in Buncombe County, or Lenoir County, or wherever.

With one-stop voting, I could've re-registered on the spot* and voted using my Raleigh (student) address. "Many students have," one of my Cameron Park neighbors, Drusilla Williams, told me when I asked. She's the early voting site manager for the Wake Board of Elections.

When I re-registered, my prior registration would be struck from the rolls to prevent the possibility of my trying to vote twice. (This message is for you, True the Vote.)

Or, say I was a State student not previously registered. In that case, the one-stop system would be tailor-made for me. I could register* at one table and get my ballot at another.

(* To register at an early-voting site, you need to show some form of identification indicating that you currently live in the county where you're intending to vote. A student ID suffices. Or a utility bill. Below, I've copied the ID requirement from the State of Elections website.)

But remember, students (and others). This one-stop system only applies at early-voting sites.

It does not apply on Election Day. If you show up on Election Day, and you aren't registered, you're out of luck. (And if you haven't registered already, it's too late to do so and vote on Election Day — but again, you can register and vote at the same time at an early-voting site.)

To register at an early-voting site, any one of the following is sufficient identification (copied from the State Board of Elections website — look for the Quick Reference Guide for Voters to the right):

• NC driver license or identification card • Other government‐issued photo ID

or

• Documents showing name and current address of the applicant:

• Utility bill: telephone; mobile phone; electric or gas ; cable television; water or sewage
• Bank statement or bank‐issued credit card statement
• Government paycheck; invoice; letter; or any other document from a local, state, or U.S. government agency
• Property tax bill
• License to hunt, fish, own a gun, etc.
• Automotive registration
• Public housing or Social Service Agency document
• Paycheck or paycheck stub from an employer or a W‐2 statement
• Birth certificate
• Student photo ID along with a document from the school showing the student’s name and current address

Found near the scene of last night's mugging in Denver:

Somebody_sdebatenotes.pdf

I have to say I got very little out of that mess. The moderator let Romney run all over the so-called time limits early, while Obama listened and tried to stay cool. But after awhile, Obama started taking extra time too, so Romney took more.

But hey, Lincoln and Douglas didn't have any stinkin' moderator and went at it for hours, and their debates are the stuff of legend. But I think they probably stuck to the issues (slavery, no slavery) and the facts a bit more.

At the end of 90 minutes, Romney has no platform left whatsoever. He's not cutting taxes, apparently, despite his tax-cut plan. He's putting more money into Medicare, not cutting it. He's regulating Wall Street. He's ... making very little sense, except that he sounded so sure of himself. It must be what the Enron guys sounded like back in the day when they were booking to market reporting fake revenues.

I think when your positions don't add up to anything, you get a DQ — disqualified.

That's what I give Romney.

Obama seemed confused by the fact that Romney's long-stated positions on the issues were all of a sudden inoperative. Obama let so many chances go by to skewer Romney (e.g., how outsourcing jobs earns a corporate tax break) that the best he can get is INC — incomplete.

On the other hand, with Jim Lehrer willing to give Romney multiple last licks on every subject, and with Romney willing to take any position regardless of veracity in order to dispute whatever Obama said, skewering him wasn't going to be easy.

If Al Gore was watching, I'll bet he sighed heavily many times. If only he'd been allowed to debate Romney-style back in 2000, the course of history would've been different.

This will take less than 3 minutes of your time, and it will lift your spirits about politics. (h/t BlueNC)