samtheeagle

11:00am
Indianapolis Public School 69

Apparently my presence here has caused a small fuss. Two pro-Clinton observers inside the polling place have made legal challenges against my presence on grounds that I'm illegally electioneering within the sterile zone. (Electioneering is defined as promoting or opposing the election or defeat of a candidate or ballot proposition.) Their "evidence" that I'm promoting Obama's candidacy is that I'm looking up voter registrations for voters who emerge confused from precincts that misplaced their registrations (approximately 50% of voters here are afrfected) and helping poll workers route voters to their correct polling place, and that these behaviors promote Obama's candidacy in overwhelmingly pro-Obama precincts. I'm not wearing Obama buttons or in any way representing myself as an Obama supporter, so the legal challenge is absurd on its face. Still, poll workers were so scared that they called the police, who scrutinized me to the hilt and ultimately decreed that I passed muster. The cops left with a justified eyeroll.

On a retaliatory hunch, I suspected from the accent of one of the pro-Clinton observers that she was not an Indiana resident and thus did not lawfully qualify for her poll-watching certificate. (As such, she committed a felony by procuring her certificate by fraud.) Turns out that I was right: the woman is a New Yorker who used her daughter's Indiana address to obtain her certificate. The County Board of Elections, lawyers for both Clinton and Obama, and the police all are en route, and I intend for this woman to be arrested and arraigned on felony election fraud charges. Or the Clinton people can simply leave: their choice.

ETA: The Clinton poll observers left the precinct after they could not produce Indiana identification on police demand. One was from New York, the other from Illinois. They left in a vehicle with Illinois license plates.

NOTE: THIS POST IS CROSS-LINKED WITH PUBLIC COMMENTS AT DAILY KOS.