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Absentee vote counting delayed final results in Pitt
The outcome of many contested general election races remained uncertain until late Tuesday because of vote counting in Pitt County.
Officials were busy opening and counting more than 2,300 mail-in absentee ballots from 2-10:30 p.m., Elections Director Dave Davis said.
The process delayed the input of those votes and about 50,000 One Stop early voting ballot records into a computer system that tabulated them with voting that took place on Tuesday.
“We had all three (elections) board members, two full-time staff and two part-time staff opening up envelopes and straightening (the ballots) out,” Davis said.
Because the ballots are folded to fit into the return envelopes, some papers had to be inserted numerous times into scanners that recorded the ballots.
A total of 51,032 people, nearly 67 percent of Pitt County’s registered voters, voted absentee or cast ballots during the three-week One Stop early voting period, according to preliminary election data. Just under 30 percent of the votes were cast on Tuesday.
As a result, races for Pitt County Board of Commissioners and state House and Senate remained uncertain until those totals were entered about 11 p.m.
In the Board of Commissioners District B race, Democratic challenger Ephraigm Smith led Republican Tom Coulson in ballots cast Tuesday. He won by 312 votes once all ballots were counted.
In the state Senate District 5 race, Republican Louis M. Pate Jr. led in Pitt County votes cast on Election Day, but Democrat Don Davis won in Greene and Wayne counties, which also make up the district.
When Pitt County’s early voting results were released, Davis won Pitt County by a narrow margin.
Statewide contests, including races for governor, lieutenant governor and president, each had margins of fewer than 30,000 votes at 11 p.m., with most North Carolina counties reporting all their votes.
Pitt County voting totals, dominated by Democratic balloting, helped Democrats Beverly Perdue, Walter Dalton and Barack Obama widen margins in those races.
The Pitt County Board of Elections has a practice of counting the mail-in absentee ballots prior to entering those totals and the One Stop records into the state system, Davis said.
Davis said Tuesday officials were caught off guard by the large number of paper ballots. They have been able to count them quickly in the past. No discussion had taken place about altering the practice of counting them before loading the computerized One Stop records, he said.
Compared to the 2004 presential election — when long lines delayed the release of some results until nearly 3 a.m. — Tuesday’s count went smoothly, Davis said.
“For a presidential election, for us to be done before 11 p.m., I think we have performed admirably, the board and the staff,” he said.
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Pitt voting boosts Democrats, mirrors statewide results
General election races in Pitt County on Tuesday mirrored statewide results with Democrats winning most of the county’s votes.
Among the top tier of federal and state races, incumbent U.S. Rep. Walter Jones was the only Republican returned to office by Pitt County voters.
Locally, Democrat Ephraigm Smith defeated Republican incumbent Tom Coulson for the Pitt County Board of Commissioners’ District B seat.
The voting followed regional and statewide trends, where returns garnered Democratic victories for Beverly Perdue for governor, Kay Hagan for U.S. Senate and Don Davis for state Senate. President-elect Barack Obama also holds a lead in North Carolina but the race remains too close for state election officials to call.
Pitt election officials will spent the next week preparing for the final voter canvass on Nov. 14, said Dave Davis, county elections director. From that, staff will collect demographic data on Tuesday’s vote.
A preliminary look at the numbers shows 74,130 Pitt County residents voted. Out of those ballots, 49,486 were cast during the three-week One-Stop, Early Voting period and 2,335 were absentee mail-in votes, according to the state Board of Elections’ data on Pitt County’s presidential vote. About 22,000 people voted on Tuesday.
The numbers constituted a record-breaking turnout for the county, besting chart-topping numbers from the 2004 general election. Then, 55,070 or 58.80 percent of the 93,656 registered voters cast ballots.
Here is a breakdown of Pitt County’s unofficial elections results:
U.S. President
Obama/Biden (Dem): 39,763
McCain/Palin (Rep): 33,429
other votes: 443
U.S. Senate
Kay Hagan (Dem): 40,562
Elizabeth Dole (Rep): 30,891
Christopher Cole (Lib):1,527
WRITE-IN: 25
Governor
Beverly Perdue (Dem): 43,308
Pat McCrory (Rep): 28,173
Michael C. Munger (Lib): 1,486
1st Congressional District
G.K. Butterfield (Dem): 17,825
Dean Stephens (Rep): 6,574
3rd Congressional District
Craig Weber: 18,487
Walter Jones: 29,081
State Senate District 5
Don Davis (Dem): 18,543
Louis M. Pate Jr. (Rep) 18,211
State House District 9
Marian McLawhorn (Dem): 24,632
Ginny Cooper: (Rep): 14,887
County Commissioner District B
Ephraigm Smith (Dem): 12,027
Tom Coulson (Rep): 11,712
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Political expert: Republicans will bounce back
The Republican Party will bounce back from its significant losses in last night’s election, an East Carolina University political expert says.
Jody Baumgartner, assistant professor of political science at ECU, said gloom surrounding the GOP is understandable, but common among parties losing a presidential election.
“You are going to get that after every presidential loss,” Baumgartner said. “Some of it makes sense, but some of it is just overreaction. We heard the same thing from the Democratic Party in 2004, and look at how things have changed.”
Baumgartner said he believes the unprecedented success of Barack Obama’s campaign, and the inability of Republican presidential nominee John McCain to excite people, played a large role in Obama’s ascent to the White House.
The presidential election, Baumgartner says, highlighted an uneasy alliance that exists between fiscal conservatives, social conservatives and foreign policy hawks.
“Those groups are sort of the three components of the Republican Party, and this election highlighted the fact that there was no consensus candidate among them,” Baumgartner said.
Baumgartner said he believes Democrats were able to broaden their control of Congress during this year’s election due to the effects of an unpopular Republican president and an unpopular war.
Democrats are guaranteed at least a 56-44 majority in the Senate and a 252-172 majority in the House. Some races remained undecided.
But Baumgartner says people shouldn’t read too much into the current state of Congress.
“I have trouble with pinning too much significance on one thing,” Baumgartner said. “What we know about American politics is the more things seem to change, the more they actually look the same that they always have. Every time a party loses an election, they cannibalize each other for a little while, but then they bounce right back. It is a two-party system, and one of them has not died.”
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Democrats win in Pitt
The outcome of many contested general election races remained uncertain until late Tuesday because of vote counting in Pitt County.
Officials were busy counting more than 2,300 mail-in absentee ballots until nearly 11 p.m., Elections Director Dave Davis said.
The process delayed the input of more than 50,000 early voting ballot records into a computer system that tabulated them with voting that took place on Tuesday.
“We had all three (elections) board members, two full-time staff and two part-time staff opening up envelopes and straightening (the ballots) out,” Davis said.
Because the ballots are folded to fit into the return envelopes, some papers had to be inserted numerous times into scanners that recorded the ballots.
A total of 51,032 people, nearly 67 percent of Pitt County’s registered voters, cast ballots during the three-week early voting period, according to preliminary election data. Just under 30 percent of the votes were cast on Tuesday.
As a result, races for Pitt County Board of Commissioners and state House and Senate remained uncertain until those early totals were entered.
In the Board of Commissioners District B race, Democratic challenger Ephraigm Smith led Republican Tom Coulson in ballots cast Tuesday. He won by 312 votes once all ballots were counted.
In the state Senate District 5 race, Republican Louis M. Pate Jr. led in Pitt County votes cast on Election Day, but Democrat Don Davis won in Greene and Wayne counties, which also make up the district.
When Pitt County’s early voting results were released, Davis won Pitt County by a narrow margin.
Statewide contests, including race for governor, lieutenant governor and president, each had margins of fewer than 30,000 votes at 11 p.m., with most North Carolina counties reporting all their votes.
Pitt County voting totals, dominated by Democratic balloting, helped Democrats Beverly Perdue, Walter Dalton and Barack Obama widen margins in those races.
The absentee count began about 2 p.m. Tuesday and finished around 10:30 p.m. The results of the mail-in ballots and early voting were enter into the state system and published online shortly after 11 p.m.
Davis said Tuesday officials were caught off guard by the large number of paper ballots. They have been able to count them quickly in the past. No discussion had taken place about altering the practice of counting them before loading early votes, he said.
Compared to the 2004 presential election— when long lines delayed the release of some results until nearly 3 a.m. —В Tuesday’s count went smoothly, Davis said.
“For a presidential election, for us to be done before 11 p.m., I think we have performed admirably, the board and the staff,” he said.
Contact Ginger Livingston at glivingston@coxnc.com and 252-329-9573.
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Local Dems thrilled at Obama victory
As the national news media declared Sen. Barack Obama the 44th president of the United States, a downtown Greenville watch party at Starlight Cafe went wild.
Over a hundred Obama supporters lept onto chairs, hoisted their drinks and passed a cardboard cutout of the newly elected president over their heads and onto the bar.
“O-BAM-A…and Biden!” they chanted, over and over again.
“There is no name, no word for the mood I’m in right now,” said East Carolina University student Rodney Cogdell Jr., a toothy smile stretching across his face.
A handful ran outside to the corner of Fifth and Evans streets, waving campaign signs in the air. Cars riding by honked their horns in support.
Others kept watching the TV, quieting for opponent Sen. John McCain’s concession speech. They remained hyped, however, bursting into cheers and applause when the screen showed someone holding a “Bush You’re Fired” sign.
“He talks what I want to hear,” Greenville nurse Kerry Madden said of Obama. “To my tax bracket. I hope he brings a change, a movement, an understanding.”
Like several supporters this evening, Madden said she wasn’t nervous watching the polls close and numbers tallied.
“I just knew he was going to win,” she declared. “It feels like winning the lottery.”
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Obama wins; McCain concedes
WASHINGTON —В Barack Obama was elected the nation’s first black president Tuesday night in a historic triumph that overcame racial barriers as old as America itself.
The son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, the Democratic senator from Illinois sealed his victory by defeating Republican Sen. John McCain in a string of wins in hard-fought battleground states — Ohio, Florida, Virginia and Iowa.
A huge crowd in Grant Park in Chicago erupted in jubilation at the news of Obama’s victory. Some wept.
McCain called his former rival to concede defeat — and the end of his own 10-year quest for the White House. “The American people have spoken, and spoken clearly,” McCain told disappointed supporters in Arizona.
Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, will take their oaths of office as president and vice president on Jan. 20, 2009.
As the 44th president, Obama will move into the Oval Office as leader of a country that is almost certainly in recession, and fighting two long wars, one in Iraq, the other in Afghanistan.
The popular vote was close, but not the count in the Electoral College, where it mattered most.
There, Obama’s audacious decision to contest McCain in states that hadn’t gone Democratic in years paid rich dividends.
Obama has said his first order of presidential business will be to tackle the economy. He has also pledged to withdraw most U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months.
Fellow Democrats rode his coattails to larger majorities in both houses of Congress. They defeated incumbent Republicans and won open seats by turn.
The 47-year-old Illinois senator was little known just four years ago. A widely praised speech at the Democratic National Convention, delivered when he was merely a candidate for the Senate, changed that.
Overnight he became a sought-after surrogate campaigner, and he had scarcely settled into his Senate seat when he began preparing for his run for the White House.
A survey of voters leaving polling places on Tuesday showed the economy was by far the top Election Day issue. Six in 10 voters said so, and none of the other top issues — energy, Iraq, terrorism and health care — was picked by more than one in 10.
“May God bless whoever wins tonight,” President Bush told dinner guests at the White House, where his tenure runs out on Jan. 20.
The Democratic leaders of Congress celebrated in Washington.
“It is not a mandate for a party or ideology but a mandate for change,” said Senate Majority leader Harry reid of Nevada.
Said Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, “Tonight the American people have called for a new direction. They have called for change in America.”
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Pitt votes in; races still close
Pitt County’s early votes are in, and top races are still very close
Obama/Biden was at 49.51 percent, or 1,994,642 votes, at 11:14 according to the state Board of Elections. McCain/Palin was at 49.58 percent, or 1,997,420 votes.
Bev Perdue was at 50.01 percent, or 1,996,591 votes, and Pat McCrory was at 47.15 percent, or 1,882,359 votes.
John McCain had conceded the election at 11:19. Ninety-four of 100 counties had reported.
Obama carried Pitt County with 54 percent of the ballots, or 39,763 votes. McCain received 45.40 percent of the ballots, or 33,429 votes.
Democrats carried most major races in the county, from U.S. Senate to governor.
Democratic state Senate candidate Don Davis beat Republican Louis Pat by a few hundred votes.
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One stop votes hang up election
The fate of the election for governor and president could hinge on votes being reported in Pitt County.
As of nearly 11 p.m. Tuesday, the county’s 50,000 or so early votes had not been reported to state elections officials.
Fewer than 30,000 votes separated Barack Obama and John McCain in North Carolina, and fewer than 30,000 votes separated Beverly Perdue and Pat McCrory.
Elections director Dave Davis said those votes currently are being added to totals from today’s balloting.
No word on when the totals will be in.
The State Board of Elections at 10:57 had 1,904,591 votes for Republican candidate for governor Pat McCrory and 1,904,591 votes for Beverly Perdue.
It had reported 1,909,735 votes for Obama and 1,919,388 votes for McCain.
Eight-five of 100 counties had reported in the races.
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Jones winning re-election
Incumbent Republican congressman Walter Jones Jr. was well on his way to winning his eighth term with nearly 58 percent of the district’s vote reported.
Farmville’s Jones collected 138,208 votes to the 66,421 votes of his Democratic challenger Craig Weber of Morehead City.
“I am always most grateful to the people of the 3rd District that trust me to do what is right for the people in this district and this nation,” Jones said. “We have some very difficult problems facing America and this district.”
Jones stirred controversy among some Republicans in the district after he became critical of President Bush’s Iraq War policy. He was unsuccessfully challenged during the Republican primary.
“It is time that both Republicans and Democrats forget the parties and do what is right for America. This county has deep, deep problems and there are no easy solutions. I’m just grateful I have the opportunity to try to serve the people.”
Jones said he’ll do so by following the advice of his late father, who also served in Congress.
“My father told me this years ago; vote your conscience first, your constituency second and your party third,” he said, “I’ve tried to follow that advice because I think that’s how you make the right decisions for the people.”
Weber was unavailable for comment.
Pitt County is split between the 1st and 3rd congressional districts. 1st Congressional District representative G.K. Butterfield was well on his way to re-election tonight.
With 58 percent of the district’s ballots counted, Butterfield, a Democrat, had taken 70 percent of the vote over Republican challenger Dean Stephens, nearly 30 percent of the vote.
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Democrats in high spirits
You can hear the crowd of Democrats chanting “O-bam-a” a block away from Starlight Cafe in downtown Greenville where they began gathering at 8 p.m. The group was in full swing an hour later, hundreds packing the bar area.
A short trip down Evans, an equally enthusiastic crew piled into Mrs. C’s restaurant on Deck Street. Around 20 people circulated at 9 p.m. and the crowd cheered at every new person who entered the door, and for every state presidential candidate Barack Obama was projected to win.
“I’ve been calm all day,” Mrs. C herself said. “Just been feeling good about [an Obama victory] all day. It’s in the Lord’s hands.”
They had no alcoholic drinks at that location, she noted, shaking a pair of maracas, but they were celebrating just the same.
“I’m nervous, I’m excited,” Greenville resident Charles Watts said. “I just feel great.”
There was plenty of cheering at Chef’s 505, too — the third of five locations around the city holding either Democratic or strictly Obama watch parties tonight.
“This is a historic moment,” said S. Evette Perkins, who grew up in Greenville but now lives in Fayetteville. “When I have kids and they ask me what I did when the first African-American president was elected, I want to say I was around other supporters celebrating this moment.”
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North Carolina looking blue
With nearly 35 percent of North Carolina counties reporting, it is looking like the state will be electing Democratic candidates in several hotly contested races.
Victory already has been predicted for Democrat Kay Hagan against GOP incumbent Elizabeth Dole in the state’s lone Senate race, while Barack Obama leads presidential voting, Bev Perdue is pacing the gubernatorial race and Walter Dalton holds a strong lead for the Lieutenant Governor’s spot.
Results for Pitt County are coming in slowly with only 18 percent of the registered voters currently being reported. None of the 51,000 votes cast during the early voting period have been reported.
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Davis ahead in early Senate 5 results
Snow Hill Mayor Don Davis continues to lead in the state Senate District 5 race.
Davis, a Democrat, has 15,633 votes as of 9 p.m. Republican State Rep. Louis M. Pate Jr. has garnered 12,831 votes, according to results posted on the N.C. Board of Elections web site.
State Senate District 5 consists of all of Greene and parts of Pitt and Wayne counties. No Greene precincts have reported but nine have in Pitt and 10 in Wayne.
Davis is ahead in Wayne County, which is where Pate lives, but slightly trails in Pitt.
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GOP party low key…for now
A dozen people gathered in the back room of the Pitt County GOP office on Commerce Street just around 7:30 p.m. — the tables surrounding their seats still crowded with phones and calling lists.
Their eyes were glued to the TV, trying to decipher which way Kentucky, South Carolina, Vermont, and Virginia were leaning as they snacked on tiny meatballs, pimento cheese and crackers.
Will Buckman, a 21-year-old Pitt Community College student, began volunteering for John McCain’s presidential campaign three months ago.
“He’s got the experience,” he began. “He knows a lot about foreign policy, who our enemies are and how we should approach them…about taxes. He’s generally a conservative candidate.”
Buckman said he tries to ignore polling data because it’s been wrong before. But he does know which states are key for a McCain victory.
“It’s shaky, but I mean, you’ve got to remain optimistic,” he said. “It’ll be a very tense night.”
The young voter also explained the allure of gathering with like-minded people to watch the results roll in.
“If we win, it’ll be a party,” he said. “If we lose, we lose together.”
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Turnout much higher than 2004 in Pitt County
Pitt County election officials reported that 16,619 ballots were cast in Pitt County by 3 p.m. today.
By 3 p.m., 876 of those were provisional ballots, officials said. 7,986 people voted between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., according to reports.
Combined numbers of early voters and absentee voters with those who voted today brings the total to 67,853 voters in this election by 3 p.m.
That means around 64 percent of registered voters in Pitt County had voted by 3 p.m. today, well above the 58 percent of voters who voted in the 2004 presidential election.
Polls close at 7:30 p.m. and officials will begin posting results on the Pitt County Board of Elections web site as soon as precincts begin reporting.
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One vote makes a difference - to the voter
A snippet of a statement overheard while watching TV this afternoon is all Khoa Pham needed to remind him to get out and vote.
Pham, 22, cast his first ballot around 4:30 p.m. before heading off to classes at East Carolina University. Pham was eligible to vote in 2004 but didn’t.
“I didn’t care that much,” he said.
But while watching television this afternoon he heard that pollsters were saying presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain were evenly split among North Carolina voters, so Pham said he went to the poll and marked the ballot for Obama.
“It made me feel like my voted counted. When I was 18 years old, I didn’t feel like my vote counted,” he said.
Pham works in retail when he is not attending classes and he said he is seeing firsthand how the economic downturn is hurting businesses and people.
He said Obama caught his attention in a way McCain never did and believes he has solutions that will help people.
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Small turnout, lots of voters in one precinct
Dick Briley, chief judge at Winterville East B precinct in New Destiny Pentecostal Holiness Church, said he was stunned when he checked to polling books at 3 p.m. today and saw only 217 had been in to vote.
He longed for the 2004 election, when the line of voters was so long at 7:30 p.m. the precinct had to stay open until 11:30 p.m. so everyone could cast a ballot.
“I thought it was great,” he said of the 2004 election. “Everyone makes a difference when they vote, but those people really made a difference when they stood in line three and four hours.”
Briley said he called the main election office to get staff’s thoughts on why so few people where coming to the precinct.
Briley said the staff started computing and called back to say when early voting, absentee and today’s ballots were added, 73 percent of the precinct’s eligible voters had turned out.
“It has seemingly been a slow day, but when you start looking at the figures and what (the office) told us, our percentages are up,” he said.
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Voting numbers unavailable until polls close
Elections officials will not have an update on Pitt County voter turnout until after the polls close.
At 6 p.m., officials said they were still counting vote totals reported at 3 p.m. They said they will not have an update on the total number of voters until the polls close at 7:30 p.m.
By noon, more people had voted than in the 2004 presidential election, Dave Davis, Pitt County Board of Elections director, said.
Combined with early voters and absentee voters, the 10 a.m. total for this election was 60,743, or 57 percent of the 106,000 registered voters in Pitt County, Davis said.
In 2004, 58 percent of the 80,125 registered voters cast ballots. Davis said by noon today the percentage of voters this year likely had surpassed the last presidential election.
At 2 p.m. more than 400 people had voted at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on Martinsborough Road.
As of 1:20 p.m., a poll worker at the Willis Building in downtown Greenville said 219 voters had cast a ballot.
The chief judge at the Elm Street Gym said 216 people had voted, as of 1:30 p.m.
At the Unity Free Will Baptist Church, a poll worker said as of 1:45 p.m. that 310 voters had cast their ballot.
As of 1:50 p.m., the chief judge working the polls at Oakmont Baptist Church said 324 people had voted.
A poll worker at Hooker Memorial Church said 443 people had voted, as of 2 p.m.
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Mother shares daughter’s first vote
Pam Garris always brought her children to the polls on Election Day because she believed experience would be the best teacher.
But Garris did not go with her daughter Ali, 19, on Tuesday when Ali walked into Unity Free Will Baptist Church on Tuesday to cast her first ballot in her first election.
Garris stood outside and handed out pamphlets listing the N.C. Association of Educators’ picks for candidates in the state and judicial races.
“I want people to know we support candidates who are about education and supporting children,” Garris said. “I think people like to hear what teachers think about candidates.”
Ali said she isn’t as interested in politics as her mother and other people she knows.
“My mom has had a strong influence in my active voting,” she said, casting a smile at her mom when asked about her memories of going to the polls.
“We use to press the button, what happened to that?” she asked.
While Ali said she wasn’t passionate about the campaign, she did create a ritual for filling out her ballot.
“I filled (the balloons) out and I saved the president for last because it was a tough decision,” she said, declining to say who got her vote.
“I’m happy and I’m interested to she how it turns out.”
To her mother, Ali said, “The card definitely helped.”
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Man champions conservative judges
Herb Perry spent election day handing out literature to voters on conservative judges.
Perry, who stood out side of the polling place at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on Martinsborough Road, said the polling place was busy in the morning and slow and steady by 8 a.m.
At 2 p.m. more than 400 people had voted there.
Perry handed out cards that told voters to choose conservative judges for the N.C. Court of Appeals and the N.C. Supreme Court. The supported Bob Edmunds, Jr. for the Supreme Court and Bob Hunter, Jr., Doug McCullough, Dan Barrett Jewel Ann Farlow for the Court of Appeals.
“Most people are very cordial,” Perry said. “Maybe less than 10 percent say they have it all in their head. Most don’t know who the judges are.”
He said he could probably sway some voters when it comes to judges even on election day.
“Most people know who they are going to vote for for president and you are not going to change their vote at this time,” he said.
Perry said he doesn’t agree with the idea of voting early, though he tried it himself this year. He said he went into his polling place this morning to make sure his name was marked off.
It was, he said.
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East Carolina freshman praises Obama
For Ambyr Maxwell, a freshman at East Carolina University, the choice for president was an easy decision.
Maxwell said Barack Obama is the best choice for North Carolina and the rest of the nation. Maxwell is 18 and this is the first election that she has voted in.
She has volunteered for Obama’s campaign, telling voters the “truth” about Obama and his policies, she said.
“I’m an intern for his campaign and I have been working for months,” she said. “His policies and everything, I agree with because I think we need a change.”
Maxwell said she hopes Obama accomplishes the policies that he has championed during his campaign if he is elected.
She said North Carolina and the entire South is waking up to the need for a change in American politics and Obama can bring about the positive change people are looking for.
Maxwell has been talking to people about Obama and giving facts to voters who were undecided.
“If they are undecided I ask if they have any questions,” she said. “Is there anything holding you back from voting for Obama — and basically the truth. Most people are not voting for Obama because of a stereotype. I just tell them the truth and the policies that I think will help them.”
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Obama campaign getting out the vote
Things are hopping at the Barack Obama headquarters on Evans Street this afternoon.
Volunteers are making calls, taking calls, sending out literature and organizing rides to the polls.
“We are just getting out the vote,” said NaTika Townsend, an intern with the Obama campaign.
“We are canvassing to make sure everyone has voted, giving rides and calling people to make sure they have voted.”
To get a ride from Obama volunteers to the polls call: (252) 413-0748.
Townsend said volunteers have been hitting every neighborhood in the city with yard signs, door hangers and posters.
The chaotic campaign headquarters constantly has volunteers running in to grab supplies and running out to distribute them all over town.
Volunteers are still knocking on doors and asking for support for Obama, said Annie O’Neil, an Obama volunteer from New York working at the Evans Street office.
“I have been surprised by how many people have called to get rides today,” she said. She did not have an exact count of how many voters were riding to the polls with Obama volunteers.
O’Neil said volunteers will be at the polls until 7:30 p.m., when the polls close. They will bring supplies like water to help motivate people who are in line at 7:30 p.m. to stay in line and vote, she said.
Parties for Obama are planned at the following locations tonight: Starlight, Phillipi Church, Chef’s 505, Mrs. C’s Kitchen and Faces.
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