which_chick (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
which_chick) wrote2004-11-03 10:21 am
which_chick) wrote2004-11-03 10:21 am
(no subject)
Well, the pie tin was well-handled. Yay on that front.
The counting of the votes was straightforward, but we had a Kerry guy there watching the counting of the votes and stuff to make sure the election was fair and all. Now, Fulton County (where I live and vote) is not all that friendly to outsiders and certainly not to Democrat outsiders in suits and good dress shoes. He could not have looked more like he didn't belong unless he'd been nonwhite. (That makes me sound racist as hell. It's also perfectly true.)
Fulton County is located in south-central PA, near the MD-WV border. It's sparsely populated, poor, and overwhelmingly Republican. The county has 8,950 voters, 69.5% of whom made it to the polls yesterday. At the polls, 4,731 of those voters cast votes for Bush. Even if every other registered voter in the county had showed up and voted for Kerry, he still would not have won here. There is absolutely no reason for the Democrats to have hoped for any sort of victory in Fulton County nor are there enough votes here to make much difference in how Pennsylvania goes... and yet we had a guy in a suit, wearing a Kerry/Edwards sticker, waiting out the night in a municipal building surrounded by what he must have thought were a bunch of hostile, conservative rednecks... doing his part to make sure that democracy happened, even in our shitty little corner of the world.
It must have been a long night for him, asking the questions he was bound to ask (like how long the lines at the polls were and if people had been turned away from voting), particularly when these questions generated laughter among the poll workers and election officials. See, the longest line anyone reported while I was there was three people. We were not laughing because he was a member of the loyal opposition. (Since even the Democrats have guns in Fulton County, mocking laughter isn't all that wise.) We were laughing because he was asking silly questions.
He will probably never read this, but I'll say it anyway. Mr. Kerry-Edwards guy who waited out the 2004 election in the municipal building in Fulton County, PA, thank you for coming. Thank you for having faith in the system and for contributing your time to see that it was a fair and honorable election, even in a location where your people had no hope of winning, a location where you probably felt out of place all evening long. More than anything, you are part of what is right about democracy in this country.
The counting of the votes was straightforward, but we had a Kerry guy there watching the counting of the votes and stuff to make sure the election was fair and all. Now, Fulton County (where I live and vote) is not all that friendly to outsiders and certainly not to Democrat outsiders in suits and good dress shoes. He could not have looked more like he didn't belong unless he'd been nonwhite. (That makes me sound racist as hell. It's also perfectly true.)
Fulton County is located in south-central PA, near the MD-WV border. It's sparsely populated, poor, and overwhelmingly Republican. The county has 8,950 voters, 69.5% of whom made it to the polls yesterday. At the polls, 4,731 of those voters cast votes for Bush. Even if every other registered voter in the county had showed up and voted for Kerry, he still would not have won here. There is absolutely no reason for the Democrats to have hoped for any sort of victory in Fulton County nor are there enough votes here to make much difference in how Pennsylvania goes... and yet we had a guy in a suit, wearing a Kerry/Edwards sticker, waiting out the night in a municipal building surrounded by what he must have thought were a bunch of hostile, conservative rednecks... doing his part to make sure that democracy happened, even in our shitty little corner of the world.
It must have been a long night for him, asking the questions he was bound to ask (like how long the lines at the polls were and if people had been turned away from voting), particularly when these questions generated laughter among the poll workers and election officials. See, the longest line anyone reported while I was there was three people. We were not laughing because he was a member of the loyal opposition. (Since even the Democrats have guns in Fulton County, mocking laughter isn't all that wise.) We were laughing because he was asking silly questions.
He will probably never read this, but I'll say it anyway. Mr. Kerry-Edwards guy who waited out the 2004 election in the municipal building in Fulton County, PA, thank you for coming. Thank you for having faith in the system and for contributing your time to see that it was a fair and honorable election, even in a location where your people had no hope of winning, a location where you probably felt out of place all evening long. More than anything, you are part of what is right about democracy in this country.