Early Voting in Ohio: Day 2

DSC_0008, originally uploaded by Rock the Vote 2008.

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

Young voters registered yesterday: 26,381
Miles traveled today: 200 or so

5:02 pm – Somewhere between Akron and Columbus – The Rock the Vote Bus tour is kicking into full blown register and vote mode, which means we have split into smaller, more efficient groups. The bus is, of course, the mother ship, but we are now also using small cruiser vehicles for smaller missions. The cruisers in question: Miles — a beat-up ’94 Volvo station wagon that lives up to its name, having now broken 185,000 miles on the odometer — and Bessie, a minivan that can fit seven of us on a good day. Frick and Frack, our PA’s, bought a football, a frisbee, and a soccer ball to hurl around in dull moments, so Bessie is admirably living up to the stereotype of the minivan. All we need are some granola bars and Sunny D tucked into a cooler in the back and we could just as well spend our time ferrying children to soccer games.

Autumn has hit this state and we have suddenly found ourselves slightly blue in the lip and shivering during the shortening days. Somehow none of us anticipated that the seasons would progress as they normally do so our suitcases are stuffed full of shorts and sandals. We shivered through the morning before tearing across highway 71 to Lebanon, OH, where we took our first mini-stop in Bessie to register voters at a Warren Career Center. The mother ship stayed behind at the hotel for some reorganization and some last-minute preparation for the final six frantic days before the registration deadline here in Ohio.

Warren Career Center saw our first experience with potential voters who openly feared and disliked the idea of registering to vote. Why they refused is up for speculation since most were tight-lipped about their reasons. Feeling patriotic and loquacious a few of us made grand little speeches about the virtues of participation in our democracy, but we made little progress. We left with some few registrations and a simmering frustration.

Feeling down, we regrouped at a Wendy’s around the corner and stuffed ourselves full of pre-cooked bacon and low-grade beef patties. A republic relies on the participation of the people. That’s about as incontrovertible a statement as you can make in this country. But these folks would have none of it.

Fat and corn syrup can ease a lot of things though and it eased our frustration. After fast-fooding at Wendy’s and reuniting with the mother ship for the afternoon, we hovered near the Montgomery county election center in Dayton, walking or sometimes driving people to the polls and watching them register and vote.

On one such drive those of us riding in Bessie were lost to the mother ship and we were forced to wander our way alone, while the bus headed back to Lebanon to make another attempt to persuade the reluctant students of Warren Career Center to make themselves heard.
--Nick Brown