Well, I got up this morning, went to the Post Office and voted. Most Election Days are pretty standard, but this one seems a bit more interesting. Here is my report from the field......
For starters, the weather. No snow here in Flotown, but it is raining and it's pretty cold. It reminds me of November 2006, but at least I'm not standing outside the polls freezing my ass off this time!! The vote count at 1130 AM was 134 - pretty low compared to last time, but it is a Saturday, so once the rain stops and the voters finish shopping, the count should be better.
Now the odd thing I've noticed. The polling locations in town have been switched all over the place. Highland Park Methodist has been switched to Florence Bible Chapel around the corner - Highland is having a Chicken Bog fundraiser for the Boy Scouts - the fundraiser looks well attended, but the polling place is pretty empty. The Church at Sandhurst is also a polling location, but who they are subbing for is unknown to me.
Due to the GOP and Dems having their Primary on alternating weeks, polling locations have been consolidated, and they are using less machines, since they can't be reprogrammed in time for the 26th. The machines don't look to be a problem, but major polling spots, like Carver Elementary - which has 2500 registered voters and votes 75% Republican, were consolidated with West Florence High School. I die laughing if all the downtown Florence polls were open today - they literally vote 99% Democratic. I figured those polls would be closed, but we don't want to disenfranchise those minority voters - even if they aren't going to show. :)
I hate to say it, but it looks pretty slow so far, and most of the voters there aren't real excited - not a lot of signs, and they're voting for voting's sake. South Carolina seems to have lost it's place as the decider of who will be the Nominee, and we're just going to have to see it play out elsewhere, and go with whoever wins..
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7 comments:
Mike I am a official SC GOP Observer and at 1145 AM this morning Davis Station had over 100 and a small line. Two machines. Jordan/Wyboo had over 200 voted and two machines with a line at 12 noon. Bloomville had 20 voters no line and one machine. Wilson/Foreston had over 40 no line and one machine. Greeleyville was slow and like the rest raining and cold. Manning number four was not open at 830 AM and we are working on that. Calling for Snow beginning around 6 PM in Clarendon and Williamsburg. Fixing to go to Manning one, two, three and four to check them out.
930 PM and no totals coming out of Florence what gives man. Clarendon had 2296 votes and we are reported 100 %. Florence 0 %. When are you going to take that party over.
The county elections board has had problems downloading results previously. In 2006, I had to wait til about 10PM when I lost.
In 2000, one reason turnout was much higher was because you had just two campaigns in the game - Bush and McCain - and they were going at it, and each other, differently.
The level of interest was far higher in that race, because of the polarization and the combat. This race was too quite, too genteel. Nobody wanted to rock the boat, much less rock the vote.
Maybe that was supposed to be my job?
Earl, don't beat yourself up over it. I'm sure it was only partly your fault !
I believe we had a good turn out considering the weather it was horrible across the state and yet we still had close to and maybe will pass the 450000 mark.
Earl, in 2000 we had how much crossover in a GOP primary while the Dems were caucassing out of the public view in their covens to annoint Al Gore. This, at least in part, would seem to be one reason that McCain is reported to have come in with about 100000 fewer votes this round than in 2000. I must admit that I've not gone digging that far into the numbers, yet.
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