samtheeagle

7:55am
Indianapolis Public School 69

Already problems, outside and in. This year, Indiana greatly reduced the number of polling places in high-population counties, ostensibly for efficiency reasons. The off-the-cuff thinking is that these counties are overwhelmingly Democratic and the fewer number of polling places makes Democrats travel further and thus discourages their vote. At the same time, however, Indiana has bifurcated some precincts into two: my precinct, a school, was bifurcated so that half the voters must travel 500 feet down the road to a church to vote. (Thus, a state consolidating vote locations to save money has opened a second polling place just down the road.) Of course, voters don't know they've been moved until they arrive to vote... when they're rushing to vote on their way to work or tend to children... only to find that half of them now must travel around the blook on one-way streets to vote at the church 500 feet down the street... so a bunch of them stomp off in a huff without voting.

Inside the polling place, two white elections "inspectors" resembling Stepford Wives are scrutinizing poll workers and second-guessing voter IDs. While Indiana law technically appears to permit this behavior, precinct leaders charge voter intimidation. When I went inside to smooth matters over, the Stepford Wives gave me the third degree, the poll workers panicked because they believed they were in trouble, and I was on the phone with Obama's Chicago headquarters. On this point it's hard to identify any official misconduct, but the episode underscores how difficult it is to conduct elections that both are fair and appear fair in communities that have the pervasive sense of being treated unfairly.

ETA: Apparently the inspectors are ardent Clintonites wearing campaign buttons and the lot, in violation of Indiana law that bans electioneering within the polling place. I put the fear of God in them, they've removed their buttons and they now are under the very watchful eye of the poll workers. I enjoy that the watchers are being watched by the folks the watchers themselves aim to watch....