Susan Bergmann recounts a disturbing day of District 2 poll watching and electioneering violations by partisans.
[Editor’s note: California Elections Code § 18370 forbids certain activities within 100 feet of a polling place, such as electioneering, placing an election sign, or speaking to a voter about whom to vote for.]
Just two days before the election, I decided I wanted to spend Election Day as an observer. So I read some materials about election rules, charged up my digital camera, and found a friend willing to spend part of the day with me. What I found surprised me.
Here in Oakland’s District 2, I did not see any evidence of voters being discouraged from voting or disenfranchised in any way. But what I did see was very disturbing: illegal activities on behalf of political campaigns that ranged from minor (and curtailed by assertive poll workers) to a major disturbance that required police intervention.
At 8 a.m., Karen Newton (National Park Service Ranger) and I met at my house, with the goal of visiting every polling place in Oakland’s District 2. She drove, I navigated, and we set off.
We found problems at the very first stop, Garfield Elementary School, just a few blocks from my home. Loud, aggressive electioneers were advertising for their local candidate very close to the polling entrance. The lead poll worker informed us that they had been right at the front entrance, and had told him, “if there’s no chalk mark, we can go wherever we want.” So he found a piece of chalk and marked off 100 feet in either direction of the entrance. Meanwhile, when he wasn’t looking, someone wrote in chalk, right near the entrance, “VOTE FOR ALLISON.”
Our first few stops were in the Eastlake and San Antonio neighborhoods. At almost every stop, we either personally observed aggressive electioneering or poll workers reported problems with illegal campaign activities. Several polling places also reported problems with machines. Not everyone could figure out how to make the scanning machines work and, often, a minor problem would make the machine stop working. Neither Karen nor I knew how to fix the machines, so we weren’t much help. But in each place, there was an old-fashioned ballot box as well, so no votes were missed.
At Roosevelt Middle School, the poll workers reported that there had been a man who was “snooping.” They said they hadn’t trusted him, and he had tried to look at their materials. But he had gone before we arrived.
At Bella Vista Elementary School, there were electioneers very close to the building entrance. In addition, signs for several local candidates had been placed along the edge of the school property. The head worker was unclear on the rules regarding polling places and uncomfortable confronting the electioneers. Karen was not at all shy. She told the campaigner, “I’m in law enforcement. I know 100 feet when I see it, and that’s not 100 feet from the entrance.” The head poll worker was also unwilling to deal with the campaign signs, and told us it was up to the school principal. A quick visit to the principal’s office was informative. She did not know the signs were there, and wanted them removed from the school property immediately. So Karen and I went out and removed the signs; workers from Abel Guillen’s campaign were there and took care of their signs, as well as signs for Phil Angelides. No one was present from the Allison campaign, so a school district employee took her signs and put them in his truck.
Once we got above Highway 580 (to the more affluent neighborhoods), the problems disappeared. There were no electioneers to be seen, no signs near entrances, and the polling places were all well organized and running smoothly. There were still problems with non-working scanners, but manual ballot boxes were used when the machines were not working.
Karen needed to get back to work around noon, so we decided to visit one last polling place on the way back to my house. When I went inside, the poll workers assumed I was from the Registrar of Voters. They were desperate to see me, and anxious for me to take over! It turned out there were 2 Chinese American workers who spoke little English, and 2 high-school students who didn’t really know what was going on. They were all upset because “Polly,” the head worker, had left two hours before and hadn’t returned. They could not get the scanner to work, and no one from the Registrar’s office had shown up.
I called the Registrar again, and the high-school students struggled to help the voters who came in. Finally, I told the workers I had to leave but promised to return.
I returned about 30 minutes later, and “Polly” had returned. She smiled brightly, with bloodshot eyes, and told me everything was fine now. She did not appear to be sober.
I made another call to the Registrar, letting them know the latest details. This time, their response was immediate. Within ten minutes, a replacement for “Polly” had arrived. I retuned for a final visit around 7:00 p.m. The polling place was bustling with activity, and all six poll workers were present and keeping busy (and Polly no longer looked high). The machine was working smoothly and had logged over 200 voters since it had been fixed.
The most dramatic incident of the day occurred back at Roosevelt Middle School around 3:30 p.m. When I returned for my follow-up visit, I checked in again with the poll workers.
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Comments
Thomas -
What do you mean "pat had paid field and many of her "volunteers" were trained"? I was there on election day - there was no paid field. Where did you get that idea? And the extent of training was a voluntary training session the night before, something that I assume the Allison campaign, if they were behaving at all responsibly about the issue, did as well.
Patrick,
I am the only person with the authority to delete a comment.
The offending comment was posted at 12:16:24 this morning (i.e., 16 minutes after midnight), when I was happily asleep.
I later woke up, went to my computer, and scanned the new comments. I read the offending one and immediately deleted it. It was gone by 8:03:45 a.m. So it was up for less than eight hours (during which arguably many people were asleep most of that time).
Q. Is there anyone “at the helm of the ship” on a 24/7 basis?
A. No. We’re an all-volunteer organization. I have a pretty demanding day job and a healthy appetite for adequate sleep, both of which constrain me from continuously monitoring the site for objectionable behavior.
I knew at the time the Guardian was launched that allowing anyone to comment anytime they want was an experiment with risks.
Of course, such incidents as this could be prevented by simply turning off the ability to comment. Of course, that would deny your ability to comment as well as those of your juvenile-acting potty-mouthed detractor. The proverbial “baby with the bath water,” as it were, and at this time that doesn’t seem a good tradeoff.
I could require that all comments must be approved by an editor before they are published to the web site (i.e., “comment moderation”). Problems with that: (a) a signifcant additional burden on the editors and (b) it would impose delays in the posting of comments and slow down the dialog. In addition, seeing how you didn’t think that first-thing-after-I-woke-up is fast enough, I can only imagine the kind of accusations we would receive if a comment wasn’t published quickly enough after its submission.
What I find fascinating is your high level of suspicion and paranoia. It’s certainly a refreshing change from my non-Guardian life, where I’m more accustomed to working cooperatively with reasonable people toward common goals. (BO-ring!) Thanks!
—Jim Ratliff, Publisher and co-Editor
In your response to the vulgarities directed at you, you make a number of assumptions that require a response. For starters, Bobby Blagg posted his comments a couple of minutes past midnight and Jim deleted them first thing this morning. I don't know what your expectations are, but please keep in mind that this publication is put together by volunteer labor and even Jim (who is the hardest-working and most-productive person I know) occasionally has to sleep.
This does, however, raise an issue that I've discussed previously with Jim. My own opinion, when the Guardian went online, was that readers' comments should be submitted to the Editors and held to standards similar to those used in the printed press for Letters--edited for brevity, spelling, grammar, civility and relevance. As Publisher and architect of this site, Jim prevailed--arguing that blogs are largely self-policing and inherently democratic and any attempt to censor anything but the most objectionable submissions would open us to charges of censorship--not to mention, a ton of extra work.
In my mind, based on the Bobby Blagg comments as well as those suggesting that "profiteers and their lackys in the Oakland City Council ...(should) all be 6 foot under!", this issue is still not resolved. As an aggrieved party, what approach would you recommend? Do you want the Editors to screen all comments and decide what to post or would you rather live with the knowledge that occasionally some idiot will send in a missive totally beyond the pale that will be removed as soon as it comes to our attention? I would add that, in many ways, the Guardian, as an instrument for communicating with one another, is an experiment that will continue to evolve over time. If it doesn't work as intended, it will change of necessity.
As for your comments about your politics being different than the Guardian's, I'd remind you that the Guardian's political stance is shaped by our columnists and reporters who are mostly "hands-on" community activists and, as Jim pointed out in his "Editor's Podium", the overwhelming majority of us did support Pat Kernighan. If, however, you were to look beyond the District 2 Council race, I think you and a lot of other readers would be surprised by our politics--which ranges from liberal to radical with a big dose of pragmatism.
Patrick, thanks very much for your reply. I’m glad to get the consequences of Bobby Blagg’s unfortunate errant post defused.
You raise an excellent point about the “anonymity of the blog/feedback format” we’ve chosen. It’s something we’ve discussed a lot, particularly after the Schilling Garden article elicited a large volume of comments, many of which were signed with “handles” rather than personal names.
Ken and I would both prefer that all comments were from people signing their real names. On the Internet, though, that turns out to be very difficult to enforce. Multiple email addresses, which can easily correspond to fictitious names, are cheaper than “a dime a dozen.”
A possibility is to allow comments only from “registered users,” in the hopes that that’s more likely to result in at least durably used identities (even if not the posters’ actual names in real life).
This is clearly a topic that needs to be discussed more, and regularly, by all Guardian participants (not just those on the masthead) as we get more experience with this medium in general and with how it plays out here at the Guardian in particular.
Jim -
As someone who posts with a handle, and was active on the Schilling Garden discussion, I'd like to chime in on this question. Having grown up using the internet, the practice of using handles is, for me, second nature. V Smoothe is as much of my identity as any other name people call me. Honestly (and I think this might just be a generational issue), I see no difference between someone posting under their handle and posting under their "real name." If one is some sort of neighborhood activist celebrity, I can sympathize with the choice to use one's own name as their handle, because it offers an added weight to their contributions. But in other cases, I just don't see the point. Were I to post as Joan Spagnoli, why should it make any difference? What makes that name more legitimate than the one I prefer to use?
I've used the same handle for all my internet activities for years, so I certainly feel that V Smoothe constitutes a "durably used identit[y]" as much as or more than whatever random person posts under what may or may not be their actual name. (Using the aforementioned example, I could easily post as Joan Spagnoli, even though that isn't my name, and no one would ever question it.) I ask these questions sincerely, since I have frequently been accused here of posting "anonymously," and it is a charge that I honestly don't understand.
V, thanks for your analysis, which I think is 100% on target. Although, of course, it took a few of your posts to fully appreciate it, you and dto510 are perfect examples of responsibly used durable identities. (By “responsibly used” I mean you use your handle consistently here and even on other Oakland-related sites.) By having a durable identity, you build a reputation that you value, you want to protect the credibility of your identity, and readers base the weight they put on what you say upon the reputation you’ve developed.
Particularly since we’re focused here on a local physical geography, running into virtual people IRL (“in real life”) isn’t out of the question. If someone wrote a letter to the Trib, spoke before City Council, wore a name tag at a meeting, or ran for local office, it’d be nice to be able to connect that name with their online personna. But, as you point out, for most people that’s at most a second-order concern.
One reason we might want to move to having registered users is precisely to protect the durable identities of those that have them. Having to log in with a password ensures that no one will try to cause mischief by spoofing your identity and saying something under your handle that you wouldn’t say yourself.
So the more-important goal would seem to be to encourage people to durably use an identity. Although that’s perhaps impossible to enforce, it might be self-enforcing to some degree. I think we’ve already seen that there’s greater scepticism attached to posts by those showing up for the first time. Anyone who hopes to influence or persuade will most likely need a durable identity and good reputation (unless their facts are well documented and their logic transparent and compelling).
It would help if posters would eschew the sole use of fairly common first names, because that invites needless confusion about whether a poster is the same as a previous one.