These pictures come from early voting in Marion County, Indiana, on Sunday -- a "Souls to the Polls" day. They were sent by the office of Marion County Clerk Beth White, whose office in Indianapolis, our nation's 12th largest city.
This month Republican appointee to the local elections board again blocked Marion County from adding satellite locations for early voting. From the Indianapolis Star:
First, Republican Patrick J. Dietrick applauded the efforts of White and her staff to handle the crowds. Then he voted no.
"Satellite voting, conceptually, in our situation, is a solution in search of a problem," Dietrick said after Friday's meeting.
He noted other options available for voters who can't get to the polls on Election Day, including requesting a mail-in absentee ballot and requesting a home visit by election workers. Those alternatives, he said, are more than voters have in many states.
Clerk White reports that early voting is up 49 percent over the same timeframe in 2008. This time around, her office is the only place where early voting is allowed. To help with the crowds, she has expanded the hours so people can vote from 8 A.M. to 8 P.M., seven days a week. Early voting ends Monday, Nov. 5, at noon.
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Well, now they have time to digest Mourdock's words. Good going, GOP!
Do not Put Off VOTING......Do it!
Yeah!
These voters - and Clerk White - are true heros!
Great job here...keep giving me more and more reasons to never vote republican again!!!
Now who is watching her to make sure that all votes are counted. Who is guarding the ballots? With all the fraud this is a clear warning that someone should be watching.
Exactly Cynthia Goode! Who is to say that after the early voting the ballots will be fairly counted. It clearly has been shown over and over in this election and the last, that a Republican can not be left in charge of the hen house! A group or party of people who choose to defraud any other member of another group can in no way be considered honorable. These phonies would beg, borrow, scheme and liar to steal the election as already has been proven. How can you tell they lie? Their lips are moving!
She wont be counting the votes personally. They go in a box or a computer and are reviewed later by a multi-partisan election committee. Settle down with the unwarranted accusations. The real potential problems lie in things like voting machine companies being owned by sons of candidates.
you all are obviously not from around here. The Clerk, Beth White, is a Democrat, as most of the Marion County agencies are run by Democrats. Yes, Indianapolis has a Republican Mayor, and you better believe they're watching what happens in the Clerks office. For all of you conspiracy theorists, I trust that Dem. Beth White will be counting ALL the votes.
-from a Marion County democratic resident
I was in Haiti with the UN when they had elections. This is a dirt poor nation that has known only dictatorship and tyranny for the better part of a century and we had FEWER problems getting people to the polls and getting results certified by the international election monitors and we do in this country!!!
Wasn't referring to Ms. White, but to Republicans in any way connected to the voting. Beth White can't be every place at once.
I voted in a county neighboring Marion county yesterday and I had to wait in line. And it was a pain in the ass.
And I'm now convinced they add a bunch of meaningless bull@!$%# to insure it takes as long as possible to complete your ballot.
In Florida the ballot is 3 1/2 legal pages long. Two of the pages are for proposed amendments to the Florida constitution that are either pointless or have no chance of passage, but were included by the Republican legislature, pretty much just to make it take a long time to complete, with the goal of increasing wait times and possibly making people get fed up and leave with out voting. Hopefully it backfires and the ones who leave are repuke voters.
I guess I'm a stubborn democrat, because nothing would have kept me from voting. I would say, I went prepared, I had my picture ID, and my voter regestration card. It was efficently ran and I did not stand in line. I voted for OBAMA/Biden and it was an excellent experience. There was one state office where a republican was running un- opposed and I did not vote for him even though he was my only choice.
Exactly Cynthia Goode, I want to know where those votes go afterwards. There is no way I trust anyone of the Republican Party, never, ever.
she's not a republican, for goodness sakes! She's a democrat! Get your facts straight before you go mouthing off conspiracy nonsense. There's enough "real" conspiracies going around - why don't you find one of those instead of making one up.
Next time Voluteer, if you can, to be a worker at the Polls. Does not pay very well, but it is worth the experiece to see how things are done. You will have to take one or two classes, and then you will show up at your assigned post, and it should be half democrats and half republicans and you work side by side to set up the voting equipment. (it is not complicated) and then you sign in voters, and give them their ballot and a form that allows them to vote. Your ballot goes into a secure lock box and is tabulated on entry by the machine. If you aren't in the computer, you are given other altertative, which is too long to go into here. But if you qualify your vote will be counted.
The only voter fraud perpetrated this election cycle has been committed by paid employees of the GOP so don't let them near the ballots unsupervised and we should be fine
gop
And what happens for those voters who get to the polls only to find their registration forms were "lost" or destroyed? Given the lengths to which the GOP is willing to go to steal this election, we should have had UN monitor the polling places.
Anyone who goes to the polls to vote and is told his/her registration is lost or destroyed should have taken the time to check before going. You can check by going on line. Just type in: check my voter registration and the computer will put up sites to choose from. Click on your state, add your city/county, add your last name, add your first name, add your social security number and date of birth. If you don't get a response showing a polling place, call your registrar. If you are registered it will give you a registration number, a polling place address and information how to contact your registrar. I had to do this for my daughter and she wasn't on the list. She was inactive at our old address and nothing at our new one. She has now gotten the whole mess straightened out and I will be going with her and her daughter on 11/6 to our polling place and happily vote for the better man.
gop will just make there own machine and we will never know ask bain>>
I am sure if Mrs White fought so hard for the voters to get to vote she made sure there vote is protected. Its the republican party you have to worry about. They do anything they can to suppress votes. Because they know Obama will get more votes than Romney.
When one of a democracy's major political parties is constantly acting on the basis of a deep-seated conviction that voting isn't hard enough, it's kind of a red flashing warning light that the democracy is in peril. And when most of that democracy's press apparently has red-green color blindness, it's an even bigger problem.
Amen, Steve 458256. I really feel the press is afraid of losing access to the candidate even after he wins. Therefore, the press who is supposed to tell us the news, not entertainment, and do so without partisonship has failed. We should be able to vote on the press in order to get bipartison news. Oh, that's right. We can. Just change the channel and not have to listen to Grimm fairy tales. BTW, Fox is outlawed in my house. Ask my Grandson. He was caught peeking last week while looking for the debate. I told him I would disown him.
Deleted dupe.
And another deleted dupe.
Can't the UN observe this election like in other countries where so much graft and corruption cause voting "irregularities"? I truly fear that the meaning behind the R smirks (that make me see red) is that they KNOW they have the election set between purchasing, cheating, lying, manipulating and suppressing the opposition. I just cannot believe the polls showing a close race given a R candidate made from Tofu, multiple "gaffs" that should sink the whole party and the FACT that things ARE improving albeit slowly (and slow due to R obstruction in Congress!).
I love seeing these photos of early voting around the country. It gives me hope to see my fellow Americans participating in our democracy.
Let's make this the largest voter turnout ever. Let's show the GOP that despite their voter-suppression efforts, they will never be able to prevent democracy from happening.
Even if you don't live in a swing state, your vote still matters. All of us matter. GOTV, folks!
Well said Lisa. We live in Texas and know that our national and stste-wide candidates won't win (for now anyway). Still, the right to vote in free and unfettered elections is too precious a right to ignore. That's why we vote, as do our children.
To further the defense of Clerk Beth White: She has almost singlehandedly taken on the cause of easy, convenient voting for ALL registretd voters in Marion county. She has championed the use of satellite site voting only to be shutdown by the republicans here repeatedly. Their excuses are thin and easily countered. Apparently it is worth it to them to deny greater access to members of their own party who wish to vote early(as they did in great numbers in '08) in order to deny the opportunity to all. Beth White has taken all they can throw at her , even finding a way to thwart their efforts by opening one of her satellite Clerk's offices as a early voting site until the R's had to change the State law to stop her and make only the primary Clerks office available for early voting. All this in the name of democracy? Fraud? In this state the only person convicted of fraud in the last 50 years was Charley White(no relation to the Clerk)the REPUBLICAN SECRETERY OF STATE and the highest election official in the state, for using his ex-wifes address as his in order to retain his city council seat and collect his pay. He was removed from office and is on house arrest. And R's knew he was dirty when they elected him.
You needn't fear about the security of the ballots(another R red-herring)in the early voting process. They are placed in sealed envelopes by the voter and then after each days voting are escorted by Sherrifs deputies to a secure vault until election day when they are sent to the Precints for counting.
Elections in Marion county used to be a joke. No one was really sure if their vote was being counted or not. Beth White stopped that. She brought trust back to the process. She is proactive and comprehensive in her efforts and her staff must be among the best and hardest working in the nation. She was against Indianas voter ID Law(among the strictest in the country) and went to the Indiana legislature and US Supreme Court to testify against it. But even though she opposed it, she enforces it fairly and without prejudice. It's the law of our state. As a graduate of Georgetown Law , she believes in and is bound by oath to current law. Beth White volunteers her time to teach high school students about civics and the voting process. She has done so at almost every HS in the county ,public and private.No political agenda, no grandstanding. Just quietly teaching tomorrows voters about the importance of being involved. Making a difference. As she often says " Democracy is NOT a spectator sport" and she proves it every day. For ALL the voters of Marion county.Your vote counts because it is as precious to her as it is to you.
Any chance of getting her to run for Sec. of State there? We could use more dedicated folks like her at state levels/
I live in Indianapolis and thank you Rachel for covering this story. It prompted me to vote early today and sign up as a clerk in Marion County, Indiana on election day. Indeed, it was busting at the early polling site. The Indiana race for the US Senate is so important this year.
Cheers from one of your biggest fans,
Josh in Indy
If someone in Indiana wanted to vote early to avoid long lines on election day, this doesn't seem to be doing that. :)
I'm in Indianapolis; I went in this afternoon and voted. There was definitely a fair crowd, maybe several dozen people, which was more than I expected for mid-afternoon on a Wednesday. The process was pretty streamlined though and the clerks and volunteers were all very helpful.
While I do miss the satellite voting locations from 2008, I'm not surprised the Republicans were so keen to shut them down. Indiana went blue by only 20,000 votes last time; they have to do whatever they can to keep that from happening again, even if it was a slim chance to begin with. Since Tea Party Mourdock opened his mouth about rape, though, I'm hoping we have a better shot than everyone assumed! Remember, most of the population in Indiana is in Indianapolis and the northern suburbs, both of which lean Democratic as they're full of minority and student voters.
Rachel, I'm up in Alaska. Love hearing about the lower 48..remember the MAMA TEA BAGGER Sarah (Pain in the) started out here. Did she really think that the Republicans chose her?? no it was Alaskan's Oil they wanted..Mad because we put tuff regulations out, also if you sit on a drill permit and don't use it you loose it.. What is wrong with that?? Some one else would gladly drill not worried about getting a few more cents a barrel. and not even once think about what they do to destroy our enviorment..believe you me us Alaskans(native) have seen how our brothers were treated down south.. Oh no we aren't falling for the lies and broken promises..Obama is the only President in a long time that agrees with us..knows how we feel.. Romney is a crook. Just says anything to get in the White house and them you watch if he does he will inforce all of the "wild" off the wall policies.. he just wants to get in the DOOR. fool everyone..
Women get out the vote. Obama for Women unite!
Have you seen how Texas is doing an end-run around the
Federal Court decision that blocked the requirement for a photo ID? In Texas, voter registration is done by each
county’s Tax Collector Assessor.
Elections are run by each County Clerk’s Office. The Clerks’ Offices claim to have no control
over the other offices while Tax Collectors are refusing to send the required
voter registration cards to anyone who registered in the last 30 days before
early voting began. New voters who are
more transient, younger and poorer voters can still vote if they show a driver’s
license or other government ID. Older, more
stable, richer voters have a voter’s registration card (with no photo) that
allows them to vote. This is even more
dangerous that telling Spanish speakers the wrong election dated.
El Paso County has its own Elections Department. I think the other urban counties have the same. I did not know that this was going on but obviously, it's unacceptable. Can you share a link?
I voted yesterday morning in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. It wasn't terribly busy. Actually, it was just the clerk at the town hall, and me.
I "belong" to the demographic that is typically identified with Governor Romney: 58 year old white southern male who has done ok financially. I voted for President Obama today and did so for a number of reasons, not the least of which is Lilly Ledbetter. As a father of two daughters and two grand-daughters (so far), I can not and will not support any political party that will not support equal rights for ALL of us. On the topic of this post, there were a lot of people where I early voted but there were no perceived problems. (BTW, El Paso County is predominantly Democrat, a unique distinction among the most populous Texas counties.)
Article from Forbes Magazine
Romney Family Investment Ties To Voting Machine Company That Could Decide The Election Causing Concern
Machines used in Hamilton County, Ohio—the county home of Cincinnati— are supplied by Hart Intercivic, a national provider of voting systems in use in a wide variety of counties scattered throughout the states of Texas, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Colorado and Ohio.
Solamere Capital—the investment firm run by Mitt Romney’s son, Tagg, and the home of money put into the closely held firm by Tagg’s uncle Scott, mother Anne and, of course, the dad who might just be the next President of the United States—depending upon how the vote count turns out, in our little tale, in the State of Ohio—have shared business interests with H.I.G. either directly or via Solamere Advisors which is owned, in part, by Solamere Capital, including a reported investment in H.I.G. by either Solamere Capital or Solamere Advisors.
Lee Fang, in his piece for The Nation exploring the government related activities of various companies in which Solamere has an interest writes-
“Meanwhile, HIG Capital—one of the largest Solamere partners, with nearly $10 billion of equity capital—owns a number of other firms that are closely monitoring the federal government. ”
Soros funded company will count our presidential ballots in November. If that's not bad enough,they will be counted in Spain...
From The Western Center for Journalism in a piece entitled, "Spanish Company Will 'Count' American Votes Overseas In November,' they state the following in this excerpt:
"When the
Spanish online voting company SCYTL bought the largest vote processing corporation in the United States, it also acquired the means of manufacturing the outcome of the 2012 election. For SOE, the Tampa based corporation purchased by SCYTL in January, supplies the election software which records, counts, and reports the votes of Americans in 26 states–900 total jurisdictions–across the nation. ..." Find the rest of the article @ http://www.westernjournalism.com/spanish...-count-...
And if that doesn't make you squirm, George Soros is closely associated w/one of Obama's biggest contributors who, himself, is involved with SCYTL, the company that is going to count the votes!! Keep reading.
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -- Joseph Stalin