CID1990 wrote:Ok sounds credible.TwinTownBisonFan wrote:
1. you can't film or take photos in polling station. that's massively illegal, and rightly so. not everything needs to be caught on video. this was handled, calmly (eventually) and everyone moved on... the way i handled it, without escalating it needlessly, is what makes me a good operative, and it's part of why i've lasted.
2. this happened - i was there. i got the call, went to the polling station, walked in talked with the women who getting static, walked up to the election judge told her exactly who i was and why i was there, very calmly asked her why she was demanding photo id - and reminded her that the law does not compel such a thing without a formal challenge from a poll watcher - pulled out my cell phone and asked her if she would like to call the secretary of states office for clarification, or if she would allow this voter to vote. (the dem poll watcher was a very meek old lady who just stared at her shoes the whole time) she relented - didn't seem real happy about it... but let it go, and things went smoothly from then on...
3. on an average election day a campaign office will field about 200 calls for election protection 150 are bs, rumor and innuendo and 49 are minor scuffles like that one that can be resolved by simply having someone who knows the law and won't be intimidated show up at the polling place. it's 1 in 200 that rise to the level of even alerting the media - who get hundreds of bogus leads on e-day... and maybe one story in a thousand is worth covering. This wasn't worth covering, nor was it worth creating a media issue over... it was an incident in one polling station, and it was resolved reasonably amicably. not really a story there.
Do you think that you would have had to intervene if the voters in question had been in possession of voter IDs? It seems to me that someone with one of those IDs would feel emboldened, not intimidated.
And I take back what I said about you being a lousy political operative. (But you're still a pinko liberal).
the ID is a photo ID (drivers license and the like) - which, again, you need to present when you register (the VAST majority of Minnesotans register through motor voter anyway) and if you register at the polling place you need to present ID anyway (which I wholeheartedly support)
my reason for opposing the ID law is that it puts the onus for enforcement on poll watchers, who are largely installed by the parties. seriously, not a meeting goes by on either side where local activists aren't pushed to be poll watchers - which tends to bring out the most... shall we call them... enthusiastic partisans (and civic minded people in some cases too, to be sure) point being - when the pool of poll workers comes from the party and other groups with an agenda (right, left or otherwise) it's more harm than help.
(okay, so like 5 bucks in pennies on this one)
