My Journey to Save North Carolina from the Democrats: Part III: Election Day

Click on the North Carolina Democrats tag for the other two parts of my story. I am going to Georgia next week and feel free to contact me here or on patreon to help fund that. The money will be going to pay lodging accomodations for people directly impacted by loss of income this year. 

Waking up on election day, the gravity wasn’t lost on me. It’s like the feeling you get watching the Olympics, knowing this special moment will only come every four years and that’s not nearly enough. As much as I desperately want the election to change America for the better, I recognize the unique excitement of seeing the map of our nation light up red and blue and learning our true colors.

There’s a bittersweetness to the election season ending, but it could get all bitter if it doesn’t go our way and Trump wins. It seems a remote possibility, but I’m optimistic. My understanding is that four times as many polls have been conducted and Nate Silver and his colleagues have accommodated for missing factors from 2016. Besides, I’m religious or spiritual or whatever enough to figure the Universe has to even out. Sometimes bad things happen for a reason, but what would be the benefit of four more years of Trump?

My mom called and predicted danger because of shy Trump supporters who don’t want to admit their loyalty in the polls. I can’t fathom such voluntary pessimism.

I still felt like I’ve gotten the hang of canvassing and wanted to do more with it, so I woke up early (for me, that’s around 9) and jumped ship. It was also one of the last opportunities I’d be able to use a car as well. On this particular canvassing trip, I was set to go to Hope Mills which was one hell of a rich suburb.

It was jarring to see such a change in wealth after spending time in the sticks the day before. This felt like films like Pleasantville, American Beauty or the TV show Weds.  What also came to mind was the fake town in the beginning of the 2008 Indiana Jones sequel that was nuked. The sameness of the houses almost felt plastic in its imagery.

Naturally, all but two people in this neighborhood weren't home because I assumed many of these people worked throughout the day. One of the households I went to was a man who said that he voted for Trump (I assumed many people in this neighborhood would vote that way). I inquired why this household was listed as that of a registered democrat and he said that was his wife who was off voting for Biden as we speak. I imagine these guys aren’t as split as Kelly Anne and George Conway but I found it to be a start.

I also went to an apartment complex that was a little poorer and saw a notice of a guy who’s ballot had to be cured. I knocked on his door immediately and he wasn't in. His sister answered the door and said Matthew was an hour away in Chapel Hill. I tried to stress the importance of getting his brother back to Fayetteville in the next seven and a half hours so he could revote or at least call the appropriate number.

As my time was running out, I tried to drop as much literature as I could (even to people) who didn’t have the address.

After a lunch at the waffle house (a special treat I reserve if I’m on a road trip), I turned the car in.

Throughout the entirety of this week, I was hoping I might network and make friends. I had chance encounters with strangers and talked to a few locals, and my Air B & B hosts were nice. Still, I thought maybe we’d at least be able to celebrate with a party while we watch the election results. I told Genna  this and she said we could at least chat online while watching the party.

Every other day, no one was available to help with a ride and I had to shoulder the cost of an Uber myself.  But on election day, there were at least half a dozen organizations to help people get to the polls. As a poll observer they were also willing to help me out, fortunately. Even if I wasn’t a poll worker, Uber did its patriotic part by offering free and discounted rides. The idea that election day happens on a weekday rather than a weekend has often been a critical point of US elections, but little companies can do their part.

I arrived at a fire station which was supposed to be my polling site. I’d done this twice already and prepared for something boring. I also assumed I would be outside so I came armed with snacks, warm clothes, and books.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the poll chief, Angela, let me stay indoors even though I wasn’t on a list (I was ineligible for inside observation as a non-county resident). There was another poll worker, Collette, who branded herself a “judge” and policed me about no-nos like eating at the polls. There was also a talkative African-American man who was trying to make pleasantries with people at the polls. The polling place has often been described as a watering hole and he was probably the person most responsible for that atmosphere. I tried to be friendly but I wanted to read a book.

What made things more interesting was that for the first time, I wasn’t the only poll observer on site. 

A Republican poll observer named Rick showed up on site and he seemed to know exactly what he was doing which was pretty helpful since I had no idea what a poll observer does. 

When there was a dispute, however, I once again had an idea what a poll watcher did. Rick observed that the democratic flyer distributor was forty feet from the polling site if you walked outside the perimeter of the building from the entrance way but not from the parking lot. This was an issue because handicapped (or sick) voters are allowed to cast their ballots in the parking lot making the parking lot a voting site of sorts. Additionally, there wasn’t much pathway for the flier distributors to not be a distraction to people walking to the polling place with a parking lot so small.

Playing devil’s advocate, I mentioned that it wasn’t our fault that no Republican flier distributors were on-site. Again I’ll be brutally honest about my shortcomings and tell you that I was mostly just trying to say something remotely intelligent so that he wouldn’t be unchecked. I assumed I was there for that. At the end they compromised and had the guy stand on a different part of the parking lot.

At the end of this dispute, I pointed out to Rick that this particular flier distributor appeared to not be particularly aggressive anyway. Like George and AJ on the first and second day, he was paid $100 a day by congressional candidate Patricia Timmons-Goodson to stand and pass out literature. Whereas George and AJ made an effort to engage the public, this guy mostly just hung out and planned out fantasy football with a nearby friend (a whole other debate could be had over what to do with legality of the friend). This mutual point of agreement about his lethargy set off a friendlier conversation

In Rick’s efforts to make polite conversation, he asked me where I was from. Rather than say I was all about wanting to defeat the evil Republicans (which is true), I said that I wanted to explore a new place and have an adventure. He even agreed to give me a ride downtown if I wanted to watch the results near headquarters (I imagined some people would be congregating there).

Another friendly dispute between me and Rick was when a certain voter backed out of voting because he wasn’t well-educated. I tried to at least guide him to research the options because I assumed a well-researched voter would probably veer towards Biden and other Democrats. He didn’t hear the conversation but told me I wasn’t allowed to talk to the voters at all, in a sort of “by the way” fashion.

Before the election was over, Indiana and Kentucky started reporting results on the TV in the fire house lodge. I popped over and asked who the two Fayetteville firefighters on site were rooting for and they said they had an ironclad rule not to discuss politics. The thrill and fear of the map meant that I knew I’d be addicted for the rest of the night.

Then things got worse in every conceivable way. The Fayetteville fire station chief came in and said that the lounge was closed off to civilians and that I can only watch the results through the door and things started looking bad for us. Meanwhile, Rick ditched me for reasons I didn’t know.

A second member among the crew of poll workers, Miles, stepped up to volunteer to give me a ride but Collette, the overbearing judge who wasn’t in charge, forbade it. Collette likes to ruin the party.

As I checked on the phone, Florida and Georgia oscillated. It was the first blow of the night. After 90 minutes I was increasingly hungry, irritated at Rick for ditching me, and annoyed at the gap of information. Finally, the election precinct completed their results and the talkative poll worker gave me a lift to a local Buffalo Wild Wings.

Buffalo Wild Wings was full of TVs and customers but they were missing one thing: A television showing the election results. I understood the need for escape all too well. When I visit my parents, they watch too much news and I often want to turn it off because why expose yourself to painful news you usually can’t do much about? But not this night. My twitter feed was looking a little downcast but I had hope.

I asked the manager to switch TV stations and when that didn’t work, I made a dash across the street. I had hope and went to a bar across the street. The staff at this other restaurant was extremely pleasant and asked how I was doing it and, seeing that we were about to lose Florida, I replied “well, it’s the end of the world.” As I was looking at the results while eating a meal, I lost the sense of adventure of this trip. I woke up this morning thinking the worst possibility was that I might watch the results alone. Now, the stakes have suddenly become much more real.

I texted Genna and said I couldn’t fathom such an outcome. She said the country would be ok one way or another but I wasn’t really sure and I couldn’t fathom a bright side. It was fight-or-flight. 

I looked at the experts but for a while things looked bleak. Two of the handful of diners present were  Trump supporters. One was a bit of a crazy lady who seemed to process everything Fox News gave her without a filter. 

The second was a demure man with a mustache who looked like a shorter version of Will Ferrell’s character in Talladega Nights, and seemed pretty reasonable despite being a Trump voter. He said that he liked to vote for the economy. I really couldn’t muster much emotion except fight-or-flight but this guy gave me enough pause. I could sort of get him for a couple moments. I decided that in a sort of karmic way I would wish him a good night as well as Crazy Trump Lady. 

I resolved to make like the Buffalo Wild Wings crowd and go home and watch something non-political. But to make matters worse, Uber was surging like there was no tomorrow. I got a cab ride home and the driver gave me crap over not having a credit card. Back in my hometown, cab drivers used to pull this trick because they didn’t want to take the 6% cut. To combat this, I told cabbies that if they wanted a tip they’d have to take credit card. This jerk felt he was entitled to choose mode of payment and gripe about a tip. I started to feel like, screw Trump, this guy was enemy #1. Yes, I was in massive fight-or-flight on this dystopic night but I’ve endured dishonest cabbies for years and this guy sucked. When I went to get my cash from upstairs, I told the driver he should take credit card but when I realized the fare would come out to $13 change off $20, I gave him an extra dollar. I’m superstitious and thirteen is an unlucky number. I gave him $12 and explained to him my superstition because Biden would need all the help he could get.

I decided that my best chance was to simply take my mind off the results and pray. I watched some “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” to steer my mind as far in the opposite direction of politics as I could. I didn’t check the results before going to bed.  

The country was falling apart but there was only so much I could do.

Journey to Save North Carolina: Part II

As of now, I'm posting this without a lot of proofing. Please do not take this as a professional sample of my writing ability.

Day 4:

Why don’t I start out with the most eventful thing to happen to me:
“Get the f---- away from my door lawn or I’ll get my gun.” I heard this at the very end of the night on my last house on my route and, frankly, I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner considering what I’ve heard about how Fayetteville has more guns per capita than anyone in the nation (unverified). Also, lest you think that everything can be easily explained by race, it was a young black guy.

I’ve had four stints with the United States Census since 2010 so I know that people get irritable with home visits and while you get more people home late at night, some people go to bed before 8 or 9 pm. Are they 9 years old? Anyway, last night I probably pushed it a bit far but Roni said I could go out until 8. I felt like for the amount that’s being invested in me, and that I didn’t hit my first house until four pm, I might as well push it. I ended up splitting the difference and going out until 7 pm (it felt like 8 because of DST) and hit up my final four houses. Two of the final four houses were people I had a positive impact on so it was better on the average.

Since Saturday, I’ve found more of a groove doing GOTV (Get Out the Vote) canvassing and that has been more comfortable for me. I like knocking on doors and talking to random people and I like collecting data.

We’re not knocking on everyone’s door but rather people who are already registered with the democratic party and haven’t yet voted. The first two questions I ask on the script gauge if they’re still supporting the party. If they are, we try to help them identify how to vote. If not, they’re on their own. There was one young woman who came down with mono and couldn’t get to the polls in time. She was somewhat heartbroken that she couldn’t get to the polls and I found out that she could do curbside voting and the election workers would have to accommodate her. Because Mono isn’t Covid, I’d imagine people will be thrilled to serve her. Another problem case was a guy moving to Germany who tried to vote online. This is a thing that North Carolina allows provided you ordered your ballot by a certain date.

I’ve seen both some of the really nice parts of this city and some of the poorest locales I’ve ever seen. There’s a city called Spring Lake a few miles up the road and it seems to be trailer parks and dilapidated houses (pictured below). Most of these houses look like what the big bad wolf came across before he reached the one with bricks.

This is where I encountered the angry voter but that’s par for the course. People don’t want to be bothered at nearly any hour of the night.

 

Day 5:

A glitch with my booking (mainly that I forgot to book more days, so I guess I was the glitch) led to me having to get a new air b n b. My host, Jocelyn, an easygoing single mother to a four-year-old had been a perfect host so this was a loss. She volunteered me to drive me to the airport where I picked up my rental car and this might have been our first real conversation. She said she was apolitical so there’s not a lot of insight to gleam there, and we talked about our career paths and how she wound up in the army.

She pretty much loves the army. She dropped out of college after three semesters and spent the first two years of her career in Germany where she didn’t visit home once. She’s also heavily tattooed which she says isn’t that uncommon for army folk.

After renting a car, I had a robust day knocking on doors for the GOTV campaign. 

Leaving Jocelyn’s home, I still hadn’t nailed down a permanent location for the night. Considering the password problems and phone verification system, I figured, I’d just use the computer app rather than downloading it on my phone. It was a little worrisome because I kept having to check throughout

In the last two days, I feel like I found my groove in the field although I always felt like I could have done more. Sometimes, the act of going downtown and finding my bearing pushed me far enough that it was fairly late in the day when I got my first house. On this day, it wasn’t until about 1 pm that I got out and my coordinator wanted me to go Fort Bragg where I waited in line at the welcome center to find out there was no chance in hell I had of getting on the base. While getting my bearings, I stopped at a lavish golf resort (owned by the Fort but open to the public) and bought a slice of cake while figuring out my bearings.

It was around 3 that I left Fort Bragg and realized I needed a better GPS, I think because I took two massive wrong turns and I imagined things were getting later and later. My voter disenfranchisement sign was planted on some random Biden supporter’s yard (I figured if he was for Biden, he wouldn’t mind and it was better than throwing it away) and Roni now had an answer over whether Fort Bragg accepted canvassers (answer: no).

Around 5 or 6, I finally sat down for dinner and worked the wifi there on my computer so I could get in touch with Air BnB hosts. I found out I wasn’t allowed to book two hosts at once which I thought was bad. Technology sucks most of the time, doesn’t it? Somehow, I asked one guy to call me via telephone and was able to connect with him. I got there around 9 pretty exhausting after canvassing about as late as I could.

Day 6:

I’ve gotten to know Roni who works in the central office distributing campaign materials.  Campaign workers are supposed to go downtown to check in with her every day so I get a small taste of talking to her. There are a number of people like Ruthie or Ian or Macie who are sending out a number of e-mails on a daily basis but I don’t really have much to do with them and I keep getting calls for CUREing when I’m not part of that operation. Other than that, very little social interaction. Seeing Roni's office (pictured above) is generally a good starting place.

I had time to make a visit to a park and do a little bit of tourism and even got to try some North Carolina bar-b-q while getting almost all my houses done before dark. I say almost because I didn’t quite make it, so the last 12-15 were in the 6-7:30 range as my phone was going dead. Because it was daylight savings time, that was pretty dark and I had to record some of my responses by hand. Realizing that I was going to be left with a ridiculous surplus of fliers, I dropped off as many fliers as I could to doors that weren’t even assigned to me. 

Today, I was not in the trailer park doldrums but an apartment complex on the west end of town. Judging by the people and surroundings, it seemed like it was unquestionably a lower class neighborhood. I saw a man from across the parking lot who was black and wore a military uniform. He was black, a military man, and living in the relative doldrums of North Carolina. I was extremely eager to hear his political views and I was in a unique position to intrude upon his home to find out. By the time, I made it across the street, however, he was gone.

I tried to remain festive and offered stickers to people or pins from the campaign. I was even told I could give one t-shirt away but how would I pick that one person? Because the app on my phone showed me to the doors of registered democrats, I didn’t really deal with the opposition much but I was prepared for it.

There was a gang of kids, all black, who was walking all over the complex and playing. At one point they were walking where I was walking and one of them playfully said something like “if you’re following me, I’m going to beat you up” to make his friends laugh. I reacted quizzically and he said in a way that felt like code-switching to talk to a white person “where are you going.”

These kids were a hyper-active group who felt like they were experiencing the joy of being unconstrained by adults during summer break. One kid asked me “are you racist?” which strikes me as the question of the year if you read most liberal media outlets today or hang around 22-year-olds. Was he trying to entrap me like a school yard game? For all the abstract woke literature that’s been out there floating about race and the white patriarchy that’s dominated magazine, it’s much different than being in the awkwardness of conversing in a predominantly black crowd. I know that historically they have been oppressed and micro-aggressions have more of an effect towards the black community. I’m just talking about awkwardness.

I have my own views on the futility of the word “racist” and subscribe to the song from the musical Avenue Q “Everybody’s a Little Racist” in that we all have our own unconscious biases when we see people. These kids thought I was gullible, full of white guilt, out of place, and lacking in street smarts because I was in a black neighborhood.  Likewise my parents likely educated me to be afraid of black people in subtle ways.

We’re a society dominated by a cancel culture that’s aggressive towards those with those initial intentions. What really matters,in my opinion, is what you do with those thoughts and how you course-correct to recognize that way of thinking.

So of course, I told him “I think everybody’s a little racist in that we all have our own…..” It might have been too much for a (what I imagine to be approximately) ten-year-old to rattle with, as he was like “awww…” before I could finish. I’m assuming the next part of his phrase was “I’m telling.”

The next time I saw my young friend, he seemed to have forgotten my racism and asked me for a sticker and kicked me a soccer ball. His friend asked me if I wanted to fight him. I don’t know why these specific words came out of my mouth but I said “sure, I can beat you in a fight. I’ll be done flyering at 8 if you want to wait until then or you can help me flyer.” I hopelessly thought I could channel their enthusiasm in a positive way.

This group of instigators appeared to have ADD as they never really finished that thought either but they gave me a lot of food for thought.

What was more disturbing about this day was the apathy that a lot of the people to whose doors I was knocking on.

There was virtually no way that these people were not lower middle class unless they voluntarily were choosing to live in squalor. A number of people would say something like, “the government doesn’t do much for me” or “I don’t follow that stuff”

To me, that might be the problem that got us into this mess in the first place.  These people see it as some distant corrupt mess and am wondering what the government does for them, so when any outsider comes along and echoes that sentiment they’re attracted to them.

If people were properly educated on what government can and can’t do for them and what the government is doing for them in ways they might not realize, they wouldn’t be willing to throw it all away for anyone who yells loudest.

Tomorrow is election day….It’s going to be such an emotional ride, I’m not ready for it.

My Journey to Save the Democrats in North Carolina: Part I

I am normally not a travel writer, but I thought I would share some of my work. I was able to raise $590 by crowd-funding to North Carolina this past week to work for the state's democratic party and wrote about my travels.

Post One:

The “organizer”* of our mission, Josh, has mentioned that this is a really unique grassroots movement because a lot of its members weren’t active in politics before Hurricane Trump. In fact, I’m not sure if I can remember much about my political leanings before November of 2016 and, to be entirely honest, I found people who posted about politics on their facebook walls to be irritating. But if the government is extreme enough and tangibly damaging lives, you have to react if you have empathy.

*Full disclosure, I don’t know who is organizing this mission. Josh just sent me the initial email and when I spoke with him, he denied being the organizer of anything almost as if it were a criminal liability. He attempted to explain me the hierarchy of how all this works but it was a snoozefest, so I tuned out, sorry.

At the same time, it’s another thing to get into. For about a dozen years I followed the NBA closely but as the players with whom I was most familiar retired and they kept having so many drafts where people who were younger than me kept entering the league whereas my ability to jump, dunk, and run got worse. Kind of depressing. Apparently, the people you’re voting for being younger than you will pretty much never be a problem in this sport.

In that same sense, I’ve devoted much of my energy in the past four years to learning the names of the 100 senators and familiarizing myself with where they stand, because: 1) Let’s be honest, 435 Represenatives is way too many so screw them and 2) We unfortunately couldn’t do anything about the executive branch for four years, but congress had the power to keep him in check. I also called, visited the offices of, and wrote emails to the offices of senators who sucked at their jobs (and wouldn’t you know it, they were all Republicans).

Fun fact: I was sort of kind of named for one of those 100 senators, Orrin G Hatch, and I had the pleasure of delivering a hand written letter to his staffers somewhere in 2017 about how I was ashamed to be named after him when he absolved filibuster rules to confirm a corrupt Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, who (wouldn’t you know it) resigned in disgrace.

In all honesty, following the NBA and following the Senate isn’t actually that different. Instead of box scores, you can check voting records or polls or scores. It’s also interesting to note that there are several Senators like Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker, and Ted Cruz who the average person knows of because they make the news often, while there are several of them who get by under the spotlight. Have you heard of a guy named Ron Wyden or Deb Harris? Or maybe her surname is Fisher? She’s a Republican from Nebraska and I actually met her through Capitol Hill but I can’t remember.

In 2018, I was a member of the press club and surrounded by a more politically active group of people and one introduced me to a site called Real Clear Politics where you can follow the polls day-by-day and I started realizing that about eight states were in play in the Senate race (we ended up winning Nevada and Arizona while losing Florida, Texas, Indiana, North Dakota, Missouri, and Tennessee) and wanted to make a difference there. I originally decided to phone bank, but looking for creative ways to take vacations, I considered possibly getting employment in Tennessee or Florida and moving there temporarily. The getting-paid-to-go plans fell apart and I contemplated travelling to Florida anyway and staying in a hostel.

Not doing that was a big regret I’ve had over the past two years. And to think Floridian Senator Bill Nelson lost by 10,000 votes to a guy who distanced himself from Trump at the time and claimed bipartisan credentials but voted to deny even hearing evidence at the impeachment trial and has blamed the failure of things to get done in Washington on a leftist obstructionist agenda. Think of how the  Supreme Court battle or the impeachment trial or several other issues  would have changed in the last two years if we’d had one more Democratic seat in the house.

So I’m going to North Carolina this week. Everything is in play here. A close senate race, the governorship and more. I don’t have clear instructions of what I’m doing (I blame the orientation for being so boring) or how much of a difference I’m making, but it’s an adventure.

Darren Keeps His Distance From Us

Post Two:
If I’m going to attract people to my writings here, it behooves me to paint myself as a heroic crusader to protect the integrity of the vote, but so far I've felt pretty unheroic in the first two days.

A party organizer named Gary explained that a lot of the rural districts where things lean very red is where voter suppression is most likely to happen which is where I am not.

The main things to look for in voter suppression are lines being too long, rejecting ballots that shouldn’t be rejected, an unnecessary police presence, misinformation being given to voters, and intimidation. The “intimidation” call is a fine line that I’m not sure if I’m trained to make.

 

I’m not sure if it’s Southern hospitality or a small sample size but I didn’t seen too much of anything but civility.

On the first day, I encountered an African-American democrat named George and his white Republican counterpart Darren.

AJ told me that the Republicans lie and something like we’d be screwed if the Republicans win but he also said that Darren is fine people. I was too tired of wishing the Republicans dead at this point so I tried to make a peace offering to Darren by saying that I hope we’d have a more bipartisan country when the election is over, but he responded that he didn’t trust the other side. At the same time, he softened over time.

Because I was sitting farther away from the stream of people on the first day, I was left to hear the conversations of AJ and a security guard who had an hour break and went to go hang out with us. They talked about how the KKK was nearby and when I asked if there was a lot of fear of growing up black in this area, they said well, there is racism, but there’s just a lot of crime around here. Also, this is 2020 and the blacks have guns now. Touche!

 

More than anything else, this is an economically depressed town. Racism is alleviated a fair bit through the military presence I’m told, but the military can’t fill all the empty storefronts.

Fayetteville doesn’t have a lot of local investment in industry like the nearby research triangle (Durham-Chapel Hill-Raleigh) so it’s struggling. It does have the largest military base in the country up the road and everyone loves the second amendment no matter who you are. This metropolitan area ranks among the highest in gun ownership. The security guard is on duty (which I’m presuming grants him a gun already?) and still his own gun in his car while Mike had eight guns.

A number of people at the polls who were first-time voters were very celebratory and were taking selfies. A group of four (three adults and one kid, I’m guessing two of the adults were a couple) came out of the polls asking a poll worker to take their picture because it was their first time voting. Wanting to commemorate the occasion is more than I’ve ever done but I can get that. What I don’t understand is if you have that much excitement about voting, why didn’t you do it before? Strangely enough, many of these people were older than 22. I’m not surprised that people aren’t passionate about politics; I’m more surprised they didn’t step up to the plate when  voting itself doesn’t require a lot of effort.

I asked these people a couple questions and the general consensus is that they didn’t vote before because they didn’t feel as strongly. The missing piece of information I had is which candidate roused you to action? I didn’t feel comfortable asking that piece of information (and it might have not been legal, anyway).

 

One young woman I spoke with was pretty defiant of her mother who said “I’ll take the Democratic literature, thank you” while her mom said “don’t worry her mama’s a Trump supporter.” For some reason, being at the polls made me number than I would have been in cyberspace to see an enthusiastic Trump supporter. Maybe knowing the polls favor Biden helps? The daughter said health care was the biggest factor in her vote.

George’s niece and her family came by and they were talkative (Southern charm?) with me which was pretty surprising not just because it seemed like an inappropriate place but because, well, I read as white. To the degree that I’m scared of white Republicans, I’m also a little weary of engaging in serious talks with black people with such a climate of micro-aggression policing.

 

What everyone could agree on was that I was “way out in the country” but I was within five miles of city limits. Apparently, if it’s a small North Carolina town, there really isn’t much in the way of suburbs. I could have run a 10K race to get back to Fayetteville and they treated me like I was on the movie Cast Away when I told them I had Ubered. At the end of the night, Darren, my enemy, kept worrying about me and telling me to get an Uber back.

First-time voters taking a selfie

Post Three:
Today I stopped by the makeshift headquarters and met Ronnie. She is a young, overworked desk jockey who will give you a free t-shirt and stickers if you’re nice.  

As Trump is saying more and more ridiculous things, I keep getting the motivation to want to work and beat him, but I had a thought: What happens when that motivation is gone? If he loses, where do we put our political energy? One certainty is that as I talk to people here who have a “what has government done for me lately” attitude, I realize that the solution is to have a public who knows exactly what government does and doesn’t do, and what it is currently doing. Then they won’t be willing to toss aside a very real functioning institution for an abstract vision sold to them by a madman who yells louder than anyone else.

Today, in my quest to know “what is voter intimidation”, I had to contend with a Vietnam veteran for Trump named Mike who I didn’t know how to classify. One of the first things he said was how he wanted to rip up those  Biden-Trump signs and had torn down 250 of them this past week. Exactly what you’re supposed to not be doing! It turns out that he and his democratic counterpart at this station, AJ, had been here for almost two weeks together and developed enough of a camaraderie that they could make jokes like that. I still cautiously sent a note through the reporting system.

If you’re not sure what constitutes voter intimidation, Mike is your worst nightmare. He also is a bit rough around the edges. He engaged in some “locker room” talk about the female voters passing by and made an off-color joke about San Francisco and gay people that was probably 15 years away from being considered acceptable.

But had an interesting history. Mike was a Vietnam War veteran who illegally voted four times against Ronald Reagan and is still a registered Democrat. He enthusiastically voted for Obama because he grew up with mostly black friends, but he was disappointed with Benghazi. When I pointed out that most prominent military leaders have broken with Trump, he said that he knew Mattis and John Kelly (the DHS Chief and Chief of Staff) and they were both not well-respected (which brings the follow-up: Why did Trump hire them?). At the very least, Mike could list me some prominent generals he liked.

When I said that maybe it was best to not discuss politics, he asked if it bothered him that he was smarter than me. I wasn’t really in the mood for argument and felt the need to try to talk about how I’m for bipartisanism and talk about stuff I might politically have in common with him.  

Eventually, I saw the good in Mike. As a sign of the camaraderie between AJ and Mike, the latter offered to give the former a lift when the banks closed and asked me to distribute pamphlets of both parties. In fact, Mike and AJ agreed to distribute each other’s pamphlets when the other took a break.

I had the feeling that Mike was just an elderly extrovert who really needed to talk to people for his own health. When I started ignoring him and putting on headphones, Mike talked harder to me in desperation to have someone to talk to and asked about bars in DC or if it’s easy to see the monuments in DC. Besides he knew the rules: He never explicitly campaigned for Trump and engaged both democrats and Republicans.

On the second night, Gary gave me a ride home and said Mike was harmless. There had really been one report of a legitimate threat in the 12 polling stations that day so I missed out.

Post Two:

If I’m going to attract people to my writings here, it behooves me to paint myself as a heroic crusader to protect the integrity of the vote, but so far I've felt pretty unheroic through two days of poll observing.

A party organizer named Gary explained, while shuttling me between polling stations, that a lot of the rural districts where things lean very red is where voter suppression is most likely to happen. The other poll observers didn’t really have much to report either except for a Trump.

The main culprits are lines being too long, rejecting ballots that shouldn’t be rejected, an unnecessary police presence, misinformation being given to voters, and intimidation. The “intimidation” call is a fine line that I’m not sure if I’m trained to make.

There was a military veteran for Trump who seemed kind of mouthy and obnoxious at first and I didn’t know how to classify him. One of the first things he said was how he wanted to rip up those  Biden-Trump signs and had torn down 250 of them this past week. Exactly what you’re supposed to not be doing! It turns out that him and his democratic counterpart at this station, AJ had been here for almost two weeks together and developed enough of a camaraderie that they could make jokes like that. I still cautiously sent a note through the system alerting them to him.

His name was Mike and he was a Vietnam War veteran who illegally voted four times against Ronald Reagan and described himself as a registered Democrat who voted for Obama but was disappointed with Benghazi. When I pointed out that most prominent military leaders have broken with Trump, he said that he knew Mattis and John Kelly (the DHS Chief and Chief of Staff) and they were both not well-respected (which brings the follow-up: Why did Trump hire them?). At the very least, Mike could list me some prominent generals he liked. When A.J. spoke about how he and Mike have a good system of respecting each others views, I’m not sure what he was talking about at first.

When I said that maybe the best way to do that was not discuss politics, he asked if it bothered him that he was smarter than me. I wasn’t really in the mood for much argument and felt the need to try to talk about how I’m for bipartisanism and talk about stuff I might politically have in common with him.  He voted for some Democrats but he had a lot of loud opinions including the congresswoman incumbent that was paying AJ. He also engaged in some “locker room” talk about the female voters passing by, but he knew the laws and was pretty careful to not break them. It turned out he was joking about tearing down the Biden signs because he knew that was against the law and how long he’d go to prison here.

For the most part, he and AJ had truly gotten along. When AJ lamented that he had to go to the bank before it closed, Mike offered to give him a lift and asked me to distribute pamphlets of both parties, and the two agreed to distribute each other’s pamphlets. I had the feeling that Mike was just an elderly extrovert who really needed to talk to people for his own health. He never explicitly campaigned for Trump and engaged both democrats and Republicans about anything and everything worth talking about, including military health plans, medics, what to do about when you get old and your bones fail you, tattoos, etc.

When I started ignoring him and putting on headphones, Mike talked harder to me in desperation to have someone to talk to and asked about bars in DC or if it’s easy to see the monuments in DC.


At least things were better here than on day one where I had almost no idea what I was doing. I am not a resident of Cumberland County, NC, so I can’t be put on the official poll watchers list received by the county board of elections. I can coordinate with inside poll watchers but I’m sort of a rogue free agent.


I was told before going down that this was a seamless operation but a lot of people (most of whom are volunteering) are simply playing catch-up to a logistical reality they were never that educated on. I’m not suggesting this means that Biden and the Democrats won’t perform awesomely on election day. Nothing that’s been messed up with my logistics has really impacted any voters because I’m not seeing much disenfranchisement at all. It’s just little details. Today I’ve been outside of the democratic headquarters for an hour typing this up because my two-step verification and password won’t go into the app that is supposed to contain the script and everything for me to go GOTV canvassing (knocking on the doors of the half million registered democrats who haven’t voted yet and trying to pump them into action).