Voter Turnout in Atlanta Not as Much as Expected

Though the percentage of voter turnout in Georgia was higher since the last election in 2004, according to an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the turnout in Atlanta was a little disappointing:

Mark Henderson, spokesman for Fulton County’s election office, expressed surprise at Fulton’s total turnout early Wednesday, which appeared to be about 60 percent. “We had 77 percent of registered voters vote four years ago,” he said. (from "More Georgians Voted but not as Many as Projected," by Bill Torpy and Mary Lou Pickel, Wednesday, November 5, 2008)

Some have speculated that people didn't turn out to vote on Election Day because they feared the long lines that transpired in early voting. However, the lines on Election Day were very short since about 53% of the voters in Georgia voted early. Hmmmmm..... maybe early voting has some unintended consequences. However, I still think that changes are needed in the way we vote in national elections, particularly. If the long lines of early voting had occurred on Election Day, we would have massive problems.

Missing Boxes of Votes in Georgia

The sun shines on Georgia's Senate race this morning with Saxby Chambliss (R) holding a slim lead over Democratic challenger Jim Martin. Here's what Jim Galloway reported at 6:30 this morning in his Political Insider column at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Wednesday, November 5, 2008, 06:30 AM: Republican Saxby Chambliss continues to cling to a slim lead in the U.S. Senate race, a cushion of 138,511 votes. A handful of missing boxes in both Carroll and DeKalb counties may give us the answer of whether we have a Dec. 2 runoff. Democrat Jim Martin is at 46.2 percent.

Here are the latest numbers from AP, with 98 percent of precincts reporting:

Saxby Chambliss — 1,768,378 — 51%
Jim Martin — 1,629,867 — 46%
Allen Buckley — 120,840 — 3%

I was living in Georgia when Saxby Chambliss first won his Senate seat by challenging the Democratic encumbent Max Cleland in a nasty race in which Republican ads questioned the patriotism of Cleland, a Vietnam veteran who had lost his legs and one arm in the Vietnam War. I'm no conspiracist, but where are those missing ballots this year?

Has My Vote Been Counted?

Georgia went for John McCain. No surprise there except for what I just read online at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

With nearly 90 percent of the state’s precincts reporting, McCain had a huge lead: 56 percent to 44 percent for Obama and less than 1 percent for Libertarian Party nominee Bob Barr, the former Georgia congressman. But those figures included fewer results from metro Atlanta and apparently none of the ballots cast in metro Atlanta during massive early and advance voting. [my emphasis] More than 600,000 ballots cast before Tuesday in Cobb, Fulton, DeKalb and Gwinnett were to be counted after the live Tuesday votes.

The rest of the article can be found at: "Georgia Voters Apparently Came Through for McCain," by Aaron Gould Sheinin, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008, and updated Nov. 5) And, of course, the majority of those early voters were Obama supporters.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution editors asked their readers to reply to the question: What Does This Moment Mean to You? Many of the comments would be unbelievable if we hadn't heard this kind of poison before: the claims that Barack Obama is a Muslim, a socialist, a dictator, a terrorist, an anti-Christ, etc. And other comments which are quite racist. The majority of Georgia's voters went for McCain, all right, but evidently some of those voters weren't moved by McCain's gracious concession speech.

Update: Jim Galloway, in his Political Insider column, describes how the Atlanta metro-area votes affect the final results of the Chambliss/Martin race. As those votes are counted, Saxby Chambliss's lead over Democratic challenger Jim Martin "has been nearly cut in half," at 187,513 ballots, with Chambliss's early lead of 55% down to 51.2%. So Jim Martin came much closer in the race than earlier reports suggested.

New Update, 2:30 a.m. : Chambliss's lead has slipped again as those votes continue to be counted:

2:20 a.m.: Republican Saxby Chambliss now clings to a 50.4 percent lead in the U.S. Senate race, a cushion of only 144,410 votes. A handful of missing boxes in both Carroll and DeKalb counties may give us the answer of whether we have a Dec. 2 runoff. Democrat Jim Martin is at 46.2 percent. (from Jim Galloway's column Political Insider, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Wednesday, Nov.5, 2:27 p.m.)

Watching the Election Returns

I'm watching the election returns on PBS, with Jim Lehrer hosting. Perhaps this choice of news channel reflects some stodginess on my part, but I just don't like the hype of most of the other news channels. I'm not interested in the fancy graphics; I just want the story and some interesting chit-chat in the meantime.

Since we've lived here in the metro-Atlanta area for just a little over a year, we don't have close friends nearby with whom to share this experience. And I wasn't really up to gathering with strangers. I called my son in Austin, Texas, a few minutes ago; he participated in a couple of the Democratic caucuses earlier. He's busy studying on campus now, but when the final announcement is made, I'll be sure to call him up. I hope, of course, that we will be celebrating the historic event of the nation's first black president. If the country goes for McCain, I'll have to save the champagne for some future event--or put it on a shelf as a memento to dashed hopes.

I tutor on a campus where the student population (as well as faculty and staff) is majority African-American. I've talked to enough of my colleagues to know that some of their votes in the past have not always been what many think would be the expected "African-American" vote; people vote for many reasons, and in the South, particularly, votes are often tied to what they think is the "character" vote or "values" vote. Now, I would disagree with those who think voting for a Democratic candidate is not a "values" vote, but that's an argument for another post. What has struck me so much this time is the enthusiasm that people have for this election. One student came into our lab today with two American flags stuck in her hair and a Barack Obama pin and "I'm a Georgia Voter" sticker on her blouse. Another student was almost giddy with excitement. The young woman sitting next to her kept describing to me how enthusiastic her friend was about this election, about how her friend has been telling everyone to vote. A young man who has been in the past so proud of the rap CD he created with his own home recording system was proudly sporting a "I'm a Georgia Voter" on his jacket today. His smile was contagious.

My daughter and I walked downtown to enjoy the unusually balmy sunshine this afternoon, and we passed a man on a sidewalk also sporting the ubiquitous "I'm a Georgia Voter" sticker. He was a handsome man, a little on the heavy side, wearing a brown driving cap and leaning a little on a cane. We stopped to talk to him.

"Was the line long at the polls?" I asked, remembering having seen a long line downtown last week of people voting early.

"Oh, no," he said with a smile. "I was a little worried before I left the house, thinking I would have to stand in line and wondering if I would need my cane." He motioned to his cane. "But I didn't really need it; I voted right away."

There were long lines in some places, but it seems that the early voting did indeed diminish the wait tremendously in some precincts. I suspected that our precinct would not have a long line on Election Day, but I voted early because I was just too anxious to wait and also because I actually wanted to participate in what became a more community experience in the long lines here in Dekalb County. That may sound silly, especially in light of all of those pundits complaining that early voting takes away from the community experience. I didn't feel short-changed, however, as I stood for an hour-and-a-half in line; seeing all those other people just as anxious as I to vote was inspiring.

Stealing Votes

I've stayed away from stories about voter fraud because I'm leery of conspiracy theories. The GOP has been screaming about ACORN, even though the problems there are with voter registration, not voter fraud. And ACORN turned in many of the bad voter registration forms. As others have pointed out, will Mickey Mouse show up at the polls? But putting all caution aside, I just read Greg Palast's article, "How McCain Could Win," on Truthout's website, and my anxiety level just went up about four or five more notches. Here are a few details to make you sweat:

• Swing state Colorado. Before this election, two Republican secretaries of state purged 19.4 percent of the entire voter roll....[snip]
• Swing state New Mexico. One in nine voters in this year's Democratic caucus found their names missing from the state-provided voter registries. And not just any voters. County by county, the number of voters disappeared was in direct proportion to the nonwhite population....[snip]
• Swing state Indiana.[snip]....566,000 registered voters in that state don't have the ID required to vote. Most are racial minorities, the very elderly and first-time voters; that is, Obama voters. Twenty-three other states have new, vote-snatching ID requirements.
• Swing state Florida.[snip]...the state's Republican apparatchiks are attempting to block the votes of 85,000 new registrants, forcing them to pass through a new "verification" process. Funny thing: verification applies only to those who signed up in voter drives (mostly black), but not to voters registering at motor vehicle offices (mostly white).
  (See Palast's entire article at Truthout.org: "How McCain Could Win," Greg Palast, Nov. 3, 2008.)

Read more of the article for many such gems as the following, and you'll want to go to bed with a bottle of whiskey and a request for a wake-up call November 5th:

In the last election, 1,389,231 ballots were zeroed-out, "spoiled," because the machines lost them, couldn't read them, mangled them or simply didn't register them. But it's not random, not by a long shot. In New Mexico in 2004, I found that 89 percent of blank and spoiled ballots were cast in minority precincts - a sum of uncounted ballots way over the Republican "victory" margin in that state.

Add to these stories the individual anecdotes of folks waiting in long, long lines in metro-Atlanta, and you, too, will begin to wonder why voting is so difficult in this country, why voting isn't streamlined, with extended hours in all states and a national roll of eligible voters. One of my co-workers described to me how she stood in line three hours Thursday morning to vote. Near her in line was a woman with her daughter, a new voter. The daughter's enthusiasm began to flag; she had never voted before, and she had not anticipated having to stand in line so long for the privilege. The mother and my friend continued to encourage the young woman--who finally made it to the front of the line only to be told that she was not registered to vote in that county. Oh, yeah, there will be lots of those tomorrow. Get ready.

Rachel Maddow's commentary on the long lines at the polls:

Atlanta: Long Voting Lines and Race

Here we've been watching local news of the long lines at several early- and advanced-voting polling places in the metro-Atlanta area, but I haven't seen a lot of attention to these long lines on national news. Well, I don't watch Fox News and I only very occasionally watch cable news, so I might be missing something. However, I have read and seen people describe three-hour waits in other states as "long" waits. Try standing in a voting line for ten hours. That's what's happening here in some places. The Raw Story has an article on the issue: "For Atlanta Voters, 10 Hour Lines Await."

Watching those news items on local television, I noticed that the longest lines seemed to be majority African-American citizens. Are voting machines equitably distributed in metro-Atlanta? I wondered. I really don't know, but the long lines make me suspicious. Hilzoy, at The Washington Monthly, links to an article by Christopher Edley, Jr., on this issue of equitable distribution of voting machines and polls. Here's a long quote from that article:

What's crucial is that state and local officials nationwide salvage the situation by implementing second-best strategies: For starters, redistribute machines on the basis of voter registration, instead of assuming that minorities won't show up. Stockpile paper ballots, under lock and key, and offer a paper ballot voting option if wait times reach 45 minutes. Train platoons of reserve poll workers and stand by to shuttle them where they are needed. Commit right now to holding the polls open late if necessary. Advertise what you're prepared to do. For heaven's sake, a lot of people bled for this opportunity.

In 2001, former presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford led a commission, of which I was a member, to dissect the previous year's voting fiasco in Florida. Many of our recommendations found their way into the Help America Vote Act of 2002. Disappointingly, Congress failed to create an explicit and easily enforceable prohibition against grossly disproportionate resource allocations between polling places in the same state or even the same county -- the level of government at which, preposterously, we typically finance and administer elections. This localism means that the infrastructure of democracy vies for resources with potholes, parks, sheriffs and firefighting. It also means that locally powerful communities get better service on something that -- above all else -- is supposed to be scrupulously equal in this country.

Even without a new statute, there are enough plausible legal theories on this to boggle the mind. Voting is a fundamental right, but as I saw on the Carter-Ford commission and again as a member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, Election Day resource disparities have enormously different racial and class impacts that are based on the dynamics of power and poverty. In election cycle after cycle, registrars act surprised when problems crop up disproportionately in poor neighborhoods. If there isn't enough money to run decent elections everywhere, Americans should share the pain equally. (Christopher Edley, Jr., "A Voting Rights Disaster," The Washington Post, posted Tuesday, October 28, 2008.)

A search for information on demographics in Georgia provided me with the information that the African-American population has increased quite a bit in Georgia in the last twenty years. And the get-out-the-vote push in this election has also encouraged many African-Americans to vote when they might not have done so consistently in the past. Here is some information I found on www.gadata.org:

Migration patterns have significantly changed the racial composition of Georgia. Throughout most of the state’s history, racial distinctions were limited to black and white. The numbers from Census 2000 changed this. The African American/Black percentage of Georgia’s population rose from 27 percent to 28.7 percent. This is the highest level in fifty years. Hispanics, who can be of any race, grew from only 108,000 in 1990 to 435,000 in 2000. They now number over 5 percent of the state’s population and are found in significant numbers throughout the state. In Hall and Whitfield counties, one person in five is Hispanic. In Gwinnett County the number is close to one in nine. The Asian population also doubled in the decade to 176,000. Although only 2 percent of the state population, it is highly concentrated in the Atlanta region. In Gwinnett over 7 percent of the population is now Asian. In DeKalb and Fulton counties the percentage is more than twice the state average.

The increase in both the African American/Black population and the growth of other minority groups has greatly reduced the non-Hispanic white percentage of the state’s population. In 1990 over 70 percent of Georgia’s population could be classified as non-Hispanic white. Census 2000 found that this percentage had decreased to just over 62 percent. The total minority percentage of the population is now higher than at any time since the 1920s. This was the start of the large migration of blacks from the South to the industrial cities of the North that followed World War I. Over the next fifty years the African American/Black percentage of Georgia’s population would decline from 42 percent to an historical low of 26 percent in 1970.

Although the growth of Georgia’s new minorities, Hispanics and Asians, was the most reported result of Census 2000, the strong growth of the African American/Black population should not be understated. Between 1990 and 2000 Georgia’s African American/Black population grew from 1,746,000 to 2,349,000. This was an increase of almost 35 percent. Much of this increase is the result of migration patterns. Only New York and Texas now have larger African American/Black populations. Georgia’s African American/Black population surpassed both California and Florida in the last decade. The percentage increase was the largest of any state with a significant 1990 population of this minority group. The numerical increase of 603,000 was the largest of any state in the nation. At current growth rates, Georgia will pass both Texas and New York in the next few years to have the largest African American/Black population of any state. [my emphasis]

The change in demographics has been especially profound in the Atlanta region. The 10 county area of the Atlanta Regional Commission had a minority population of less than 23 percent in 1970. By 1990 this number had increased to almost one-third of the region’s population. Census 2000 found that non-Hispanic whites had declined to just over 55 percent of the total. Even in the full twenty county Metropolitan Statistical Area the minority percentage now exceeds 40 percent.

Of the 14 largest counties in the state (populations of 100,000 or more), the non-Hispanic white percentage of the population is under 50 percent in Bibb, Clayton, DeKalb, Fulton, Muscogee and Richmond. Total minority populations exceed 40 percent in Chatham County and 30 percent in Clarke, Cobb, Gwinnett, and Houston counties. Hall County’s minority population is now 29 percent. Only in Cherokee and Henry is the minority percentage of the population less than 20 percent. ("Georgia Population Trends 1990 to 2000")

These demographics should suggest to Georgia Republicans that they need to reach out to minorities rather than rallying their white supporters by "energizing" them with news that a large African-American turn-out threatens their power: "Heavy Black Turnout Threatens Georgia Senator," The New York Times, by Carl Hulse, October 29, 2008.

These are the words of Saxby Chambliss, whose Senate seat is being challenged by Democrat Jim Martin:

“There has always been a rush to the polls by African-Americans early,” he said at the square in Covington, a quick stop on a bus tour as the campaign entered its final week. He predicted the crowds of early voters would motivate Republicans to turn out. “It has also got our side energized, they see what is happening,” he said.

Oldest Voter in Central Texas: Daughter of a Slave

I came across the link to this story in the Austin American-Statesman at Truthdig.com: A 109-year-old woman living in Bastrop, Texas, just off Texas 21, happily cast her vote for Barack Obama by mail-in ballot. When Mrs. Amanda Jones cast her first vote for a president--Franklin Roosevelt--she had to pay a poll tax, a practice that was meant to keep blacks from voting. She told the Austin American-Statesman that being able to vote, for free, for the first black presidential nominee "fills her with joy."

Here's to Mrs. Amanda Jones' cup running over with joy when the votes are counted on Election Day!

Long Waits to Vote

My supervisor voted Monday morning here in the metro-Atlanta area and waited in line for almost three hours. The longest lines were in Alpharetta, where some people waited in line for eight hours. In Clayton County, "some voters waited to vote until after midnight at the Frank Bailey Senior Center in Riverdale" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Oct. 28, 2008). And this is early voting!

More:

One polling place north of Atlanta had problems with the computer system crashing on Monday, causing extremely long waits in line. However, those poll workers who left at 11 p.m. Monday night returned Tuesday to encounter voters who "had begun lining up at 4 a.m.," according to a news story on Atlanta's 11alive.com website. The spirit of those people lining up to wait in today's cold weather is truly inspiring. One woman interviewed on the news this evening described how one waiting voter asked his wife to get refreshments for those in line. My supervisor's husband delivered donuts to voters at another polling place. Health officials at yet another polling place were offering flu shots to those waiting in line to vote. One man interviewed on one of the local news channels described how he had waited all day. "But what's one day in the light of the next four years?" he asked the news reporter. He was glad to give up that one day.

Voting Early

I voted early this week, standing in line at the Memorial Drive Complex across from the county jail in Dekalb County, Georgia. My husband voted one evening three weeks earlier, and he spent about ten minutes in line. When I arrived at the polling place, there was already a long line of people, many obviously just off from work, some with children whom they had probably just picked up from school or daycare. I was reminded of those times when I took my own kids into the voting booth with me. My son voted for the first time this year in Texas; he also participated in the Democratic caucuses there.

Most of the people in line were African-American, not surprising since 1990-2000 population statistics indicate that the county is 55.4% black, 36.6% white, 8.1% Hispanic, and 8.0% other.

Thoughtful poll workers had taped signs to the walls at intervals, indicating how long it would take for one to advance to the voting stalls from where each sign was placed. According to the closest sign to where I joined the line, I was going to have at least an hour's wait. The signs were fairly accurate; it took me a little over an hour to vote, but the wait was pleasant, the poll workers helpful and friendly. I do, however, miss those old-fashioned booths where one could draw the curtain and be totally private, alone with one's conscience and the voting machine. The touch-screen voting machines at the Dekalb County polling place were lined up in three or four rows, with five or six machines in each row. We voters were almost elbow to elbow.

According to the website of the Georgia Secretary of State, as of October 23, 2008:

• 892,230 ballots have already been cast in the state of Georgia.
• 763,759 of those ballots were cast in person.
• 128,471 of mail-in ballots have been received.
• Dekalb County is at the top of the list for the most voter turnout so far, with 83,531 voters.
• The other four counties in the top five for voter turnout as of October 23rd are: Fulton (64,848); Cobb (47,086); Gwinnett (46,364); Henry (30,517).

Of course, there are already reported problems with local voting. Gwinnett County sent out 19,700 flawed absentee ballots which scanning machines won't be able to read accurately. Of those ballots, "10,000 have already been marked and returned by voters." Election workers will transfer the votes by hand to new ballots.

I'm Disappointed, Too

When accusations of using the race card in the campaign began to be lobbied against the Clintons, I was skeptical, but I listened closely to an exchange on PBS's Lehrer News Hour between Rep. John Lewis of Georgia (who led the 1965 voting rights march in Selma, Alabama) and Rev. Joseph Lowery (co-founder, with Dr. Martin Luther King, of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference) on this topic. Congressman Lewis has openly supported the Clinton campaign, and Rev. Lowery is a supporter of Barack Obama. As each man argued, I thought how this was a defining moment in some ways: two well-known and respected African-American men were openly discussing their differences of opinion, not bound by the politics of race which requires those of the same race to "present a united front." Each put the best spin on his candidate's actions. I came away thinking that the press was perhaps being too hard on the Clintons.

Recent statements of Bill Clinton's, however, have changed my mind. President Clinton has every right to strongly support his wife's campaign, but some of his recent comments have the whiff of the nasty personal attacks associated with the right-wing "noise machine." I was horrified and disgusted with the Republican tactics in many recent political campaigns: the Saxby Chambliss attacks on the patriotism of Max Cleland and the Swift-boating of John Kerry. The Clintons do not do Democrats any favors with Bill Clinton's recent comments comparing Barack Obama's win in South Carolina with Jesse Jackson's presidential campaign in the same state, dismissing Obama's victory as merely the result of the "black candidate" getting the "black vote."

Glenn Glenwald excellently describes the situation and the Clintons' missteps in his blog. I, like many Democratic women my age, want to see a strong woman president, and I think Hillary Clinton is our best hope and could make a good president. However, I believe Barack Obama is a good candidate, too, and my vote could easily go to Barack Obama if the Clintons don't change their campaign tactics. The Republican smearing is going to be bad enough after Democrats nominate a candidate; Democrats should not take a page out of the Republican smear-tactics game book to smear one another.

Other Comments:
From Barbara Ehrenreich's blog
James Fallows' blog