A couple of old friends of mine from high school spent last weekend with me, one of them on a visit to the U.S. from India. We spent Friday afternoon at the Obama campaign's headquarters here in Chicago, and then the whole day on Saturday canvassing in Gary, Indiana. The phone calls we made on Friday were to Obama supporters to ask if they would be interested in traveling to a nearby swing state (Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, or Iowa) the weekend before Election Day to help drive voters to the polls. Volunteering for a political campaign was a new experience for both of my friends, something that they had really been looking forward to. One of them, N. lives in a suburb called Naperville, about forty miles from Chicago. She tells me that it, and most of the other suburbs, are Republican strongholds, and that many of her neighbors feature McCain/Palin lawn signs on their front yards. My other friend, A. lives in Mumbai, India, and told me that her mother who had fled the Nazis in Germany at the age of ten and emigrated to the U.S., had, when she was later a college student in Madison, Wisconsin, volunteered for
Adlai Stevenson's presidential campaign in the 1950's. Half a century later, the daughter now found herself wanting to be involved in this historic political race. Interestingly enough, at the Obama campaign office, we found that A. was not the only volunteer who had traveled here from another country. We met J. from
Belgium, who told us that he had decided that since U.S. politics affects the entire world, he had looked very carefully at the presidential candidates, picked one whom he thought was the best, and decided to spend his entire annual vacation of five weeks as a campaign volunteer here in the U.S. He simply bought a ticket to Chicago and landed up here at the end of September, taking the campaign office quite by surprise. He's been staying at the homes of various local volunteers, and has been spending every weekday making phone calls for the office (thick Belgian accent and all) and every weekend traveling to swing states to canvass door-to-door, all at his own expense. I impulsively invited him to have dinner with us at home that evening - Indian food and, very coincidentally, Belgian Stella Artois beer that we happened to have in the fridge, and for dessert, Belgian lemon and apple tarts that we happened to have bought earlier that day from a Belgian nun in Hyde Park! Vive la Belgium! J. told us that he worked for a university in Brussels in support services, specifically, in maintenance. (Perhaps he's Belgium's
Joe the Plumber? At least there's one Joe the Plumber for Obama).
Saturday's day of canvassing in Gary, Indiana started off with a mini-orientation at the field office that included words of welcome from a few friends and relatives of the Obama family: a cousin, a godfather to one of the Obama children, a family friend, an aunt, etc. The volunteers were mainly all from Chicago (a good number of them from Hyde Park), a much more diverse lot than a month ago. I guess with less than three weeks to go, people are getting themselves mobilized. N., A., and I were assigned to a different part of Gary than the one I had been to in September and this area was slightly better off economically, but not much more.
The houses were larger, the cars were in better condition (some homes had two or three cars -- we even spotted a Mercedes), and instead of every third house being boarded up and abandoned, there were perhaps two or three such houses on every block. Our task was to encourage
early voting among Obama supporters (not surprisingly, we didn't come across a single McCain supporter). We found that many people weren't aware that voting had already begun in Indiana (and around the country actually) or that one even had the option of voting early. Previously, people from Gary would have to find their way to Crown Point, Indiana (the next town over) in order to vote early, but this year there was a central location in Gary itself. I was surprised that there was just one location in Gary while we in Chicago have fifty early voting locations. By the way, I've decided to practice what I've been preaching and will be casting my vote this coming Friday. (Tuesday is a work day for me and while employers are required by law to give everyone time to vote, it's a busy time of year at work now and I don't want to end up waiting in some endlessly long line). I figured that if it took me some time to make the decision to vote early, it's going to take other people some time too and that repeated messages/reminders can't hurt. Our "sell" in Gary was that there is going to be
a record number of new voters this year and that it was best to vote early to avoid any contingencies on November 4th. I remember hearing from people I knew in past years that they "didn't get around to voting" because they had too much to do and couldn't find the time for it on Election Day... it was raining... too tired... too hungry... one more Democratic vote doesn't make a difference in Chicago anyway, etc. etc. (Why the forefathers and suffragettes bothered, I don't know).
Some of the people we talked to in Gary were firm that they would vote only on November 4 (one man said that his grandson was voting for the first time this year and that he wanted to make it a point of taking him to the polls with him so they could vote together), and others seemed to think that early voting might be a better option for them. One man, for example, was registered to vote at a different address than where he had recently moved to, and since the early voting site is common to everyone in Gary regardless of which district within the town they live in, he decided he would vote early rather than drive on November 4 to the area he used to live.
We registered a couple of people to cast absentee ballots (we were just waiting for the opportunity to do that because people usually invite canvassers in to fill out forms and we wanted to see the inside of their homes out of sheer curiosity)! In order to vote in absentia in Indiana, you have to meet
certain specific criteria, the most common criterion being age (over 65). If I remember correctly both the people we registered were over 65, one recovering from recent knee surgery. In both homes, they invited us to sit at their dining tables -- I filled out the form while N. admired the furnishings and A. charmed the heck out of all present in the room. All three of us, of course, were full of questions, some that had to do with the elections and most that did not (and the people we met were curious about us too). One woman whose home we went into told us that she was a pastor at a non-denominational church, that she was a spiritual consultant to people as far away as California, and that she had lived in this house for forty-three years. Her mother, who lived with her, was a gleeful 90+ year-old who reminded me of my late grandmother: ready for a good laugh and ready to make you laugh. It was hard leaving!
I'm happy to report that A., N., and I covered all of the houses we were supposed to go to. The work got done. But it did take a good two hours longer than it would have taken 3 regular, focused, not-prone-to-goofing-off people for whom this wasn't also a substitute for a 25th high school reunion!
D. and I went and voted this morning! Whoo-hoo! That was my first time voting in a presidential election and I have to say that there's something oddly exhilarating about it. You can help with campaign efforts, you can go on protest marches, you can donate to causes, but there's a sense of empowerment at the opportunity to cast a ballot alongside... er... Joe the Plumber (ok, I'm going to change that to Carlos the CTA Bus Driver... and D. the Professor). I hope I'm not kidding myself. After what happened in 2000, there's very real concern about ballots not being counted, and that concern turned into worry that MY ballot wouldn't be counted. So I figured that as long as the machines are still reported to be working, I'd get my vote in early. Apparently up to 30% of voters will be voting early this year, including this voter whose vote, I'm happy to report, I have canceled out today.
We chose one in our neighborhood, the Chicago Park District's Jackson Park building. It's a community center that has table-tennis tables, pianos, etc. (I heard the most beautiful jazz piano being hammered out on my way in). There was not a single person in line when we got there. All of the voting machines were occupied though, so there was a brief wait. We had brought along our U.S. passports as ID, and I was highly amused that the lady who took it from me opened it up to a random page in the center, looked at what turned out to be my visa to India issued two years ago, and handed it back to me. I told her that she had just looked at a visa in my passport and not the front ID page. She said, "That's okay, it's a government-issued ID with a photograph on it." So apparently, that government could be Republic of India? (I shouldn't be too harsh... these are all volunteers from the neighborhood and I may one day volunteer to do the same thing, but that just shows one more hole in a process riddled with holes).
The last time I voted, it was on a huge paper ballot that you had to mark and then have an official scan into a machine. This time it was a touch-screen machine that resembled an ATM machine. ("What would you like to do? Withdraw Cash? Check Balance? Vote for Obama?"). I'm not sure if photography was allowed but if anyone followed my travel blog from last year, you know my policy on taking photographs: desist only if asked to. So here's a (blurry) picture of one of my screens.
