Early voting going well

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Early voting going well

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uploaded by Rhonda J Mangus

Something afoul is afoot in Mooresville North Carolina, and we're not talking stinky feet. It is Obama campaign signs at the Mooresville Public Library which is also an early voting site for the election.

Early voting opened at 10:00 A.M. yesterday and when they started the Obama signs had been taken down by someone. Later that day they were replaced and by morning today they were missing again.

I went in to complain that they weren't doing enough to protect the signs from theft and they told me, "go tell the Obama people in the parking lot." So I went out there and found campaign staffers talking to voters on the way in, handing out flyers and Obama stickers.

They asked if I was there to volunteer and I said, "Sure I'd love to." So I spent till the polls closed at 6:00 P.M. talking to voters as they went to the polls. Why was it so important to talk to people? Well it seems that back when Reagan was running a candidate for governor decided to seperate the ballot into 2 sections. He was afraid that if someone voted "straight party" that he'd lose. So ever since then the ballot has been divided in such a way that the presidental candidates are one vote to mark, and "straight party" covers all other partisian candidates. Many people go in, and think "straight party" is all they have to mark and that covers their presidental vote as well........WRONG!!

So without expressing an opinion one way or the other, in other words, no trying to convince someone to vote Obama, (even though I had two stickers on my shirt) we were pointing out to everyone, not just Democrats but any republicans who would listen, that they had to make sure they "ticked" both the candidate and straight party if they wanted to or mix and match the rest, but to just make sure they didn't goof their ballot.

99% of the people who refused to listen to what we had to say were obviously Republicans who thought we were there to try to convert them to our cause. We only had one person who was asked to vote for Obama turn around and tell us why he refuses to. He said Obama is against the 1st and 2nd ammendment. With people like that, there's no trying to convince them otherwise, so you just let them go on their delusional way and vote how they want to.

The highlight of the day was when I and one of the other campaign workers were approached by a woman who was probably in her 50's who had her 87 yr old mother with her. They had both just voted and the daughter had tears in her eyes. She told us, (as best as I can remember the exact wording) "I have to tell you something. I actually did something today I never in my lifetime figured I'd ever do, and that's to vote for a black man. I have wrestled with the decision for weeks, agonized over it, and in the end, had to vote my what my heart told me, which is that black or not, Obama will be the best president for the country." Naturally we all told her we felt she made the right move and regardless of how she felt about blacks, Obama is a man of the people, and that means ALL people, of all colors. She thanked us for all our kindness and then her and mom left.

I tried to keep a running total of the number of people who would have gotten their ballot marked wrong had I not talked to them, and at last count I was at 58 who did not know about the straight ticket and presidential votes being seperate. Those who didn't want to listen, we figure maybe half of them will mess up, which means that even if they're not voting Democrat, at least their votes won't count in the Republican column.

Of the early voting, the library recorded 1174 ballots cast yesterday and 995 today, and I am now on the schedule to help out for the rest of the week. I wanted so much to be able too contribute SOMETHING to this campaign, whether it be donations or assisting somewhere, and now I have connections to the main staff for Mooresville and they are asking me to be a full time volunteer.