Obama effort helps avert poll snags
Despite long lines, few early problems arise
CLEVELAND - If Election Day 2008 in the end produced fewer of the registration-related voting snafus that have plagued past presidential contests, the campaign of Democrat winner Barack Obama can take some of the credit.
Obama's prodigious field organization not only pulled tens of millions of voters toward the polls, but his operatives were part of a sophisticated voter education effort that operated with military precision in equipping voters with information that would help them to avoid problems when casting ballots.
Watchdog groups and partisans staffed hot-lines yesterday to take calls from around the country about any polling problems. But despite long lines and the inevitability of scattered errors and equipment breakdowns when more than 100 million Americans vote in a single day, the problems seemed of the garden variety and not systemic in nature. In most cases, election officials reacted to developing problems quickly.
"Things have generally been uneventful during the voting part of the process," said Doug Chapin, an election analyst at the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States, which monitors reports of voting problems. "There have been scattered problems, but there haven't been the catastrophic types of problems that people worried might occur. . . . We'll have to wait to see how the tabulating goes, however."
Chapin attributed the apparent improvements over other recent presidential races to heightened preparation by election officials, poll workers, and voters, all mindful of past troubles and the intense voter interest in this election.
"I think everyone had their game faces on and were prepared, including voters, who not only knew where they voted, but were prepared to wait in line five hours if necessary to cast a ballot," Chapin said.
Because of the surge in voter registrations, election watchers worried about problems at the polls for new voters whose information had to be cross-checked against other databases, such as drivers' licenses and Social Security records.
The Obama campaign made a concerted effort to inform voters of their responsibilities and rights before they went to the polls.
In the past, registration-related issues caused knotty problems, particularly in urban areas such as Cleveland and other parts of Cuyahoga County. That resulted in mountains of what are known as provisional ballots, which are cast by voters whose standing is in doubt and which are reviewed after the initial tally.
About 5,000 lawyers monitored polling stations in Ohio yesterday. One of them said there were few significant problems reported in the state. A hallmark of the well-organized Obama campaign had been to anticipate possible problems and take steps to avoid them, said the lawyer, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
As Obama's vast national ground game drew voters to the polls, his campaign workers went beyond traditional outreach methods. In door-to-door contacts around the country, his campaign canvassers left millions of hefty pieces of campaign literature hanging on doorknobs. They included detailed voter information tailored to a particular states and precincts.
Here's an example of how it worked: At an Obama staging area in a small office building on Euclid Avenue in East Cleveland, Obama's ground troops were divided into red, white, and blue teams with assigned geographic areas to cover in a ward of Cleveland and all of East Cleveland, a largely black suburb.
Each team had a room containing coded stacks of door packets laid out on the floor. Each was tagged to a street map of the area to be covered and lists of likely Obama voters.
The back of each long piece of campaign literature included key information in large type: the name and number of the precinct, the address and name of the polling station, the hours that the polls would be open, and information on Ohio voting laws.
There were detailed lists of what would be considered valid identification required of all voters, along with notations that if a voter is in line at the time polls close, the voter has the right to cast a ballot. There also was a toll-free telephone number to call with any questions. Such intense attention to detail helped to drive Obama's campaign to victory.
Brian C. Mooney can be reached at bmooney@globe.com. 