Springtime In November: Beaver County Heads to the Polls

Ambridge - Beaver County, PA

Shortly after polls opened in Southern Beaver County, PA at 7:00 am, voters have reported lines at all eleven polling precincts stretching anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes. While a few voters have complained that polling machines in some precincts are confusing to operate adding time to the process, most voters we’ve spoken with have enjoyed the excuse of waiting to vote in order to spend some quality time outside on this sunny, 70 degree November day.

Tucked along the Southwestern part of the Ohio-Penn border, Beaver County and its 122,000 residents typically vote Democrat. Recently, however, polls have indicated that John McCain enjoys an 6-8 point lead. Considered a key county for John McCain to win if he is to carry Pennsylvania, both the Obama and the McCain Campaigns have spent lots of effort over the last few days wooing local residents and turning out the vote.

Local organizers for Obama feel that despite increased negative ads and fear mongering by the Republican campaign, their grassroots ‘Get Out the Vote’ movement combined with the warm weather will make this county win-able for Obama. Local campaign volunteers report reaching roughly 15,000 registered voters over the last four days and that morale amongst supporters is very high. Everyone is anxious to see how the hard work will have paid off.

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November 1, 2008 - 10:20pm

Today was a long day that’s still not over. We’re back at the main office and all the volunteers have gone home. It’s just the staffers left now, some of which have been here for longer than five months. Phone banks close at 9pm, and we had a conference with Barack Obama. I’m totally sneaking this computer time because it’s been about 16 hours since we started today and everyone’s going nuts; ok that’s not fair, but it’s pretty tense. Offices are overwhelmed with work, and everyone is reluctant to take on more, normal stuff, nothing crazy. Every night after the canvassing, the field organizers have to enter all the information they gathered into the computer in order to further refine ‘the universe.’ After that’s all done, preparations for the next day need to be made. That involves creating new packets with information, maps, voter contacts, and other directions. For Beaver County, that means roughly 3000 calls into the computer and 300 new packets. Tomorrow, we’re hanging door hangers with correct polling places for each precinct. This means that we have to separate all the door hangers and make sure they go to the right field stations. If we tell the voters to go to the wrong place, then all is for not. Gotta get back to work. At least we got a thirty of High-Life to keep us company for the night.

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