Reply #22: Great plan if the canvassing can be... [View All]

started soon and can get lots of manpower put behind the effort. I worked the phones from my home for the Moveon "Leave No Voter Behind" project, and Moveon definitely has the infrastructure in place to carry out a precinct-by-precinct canvassing project of this type.

Some thoughts on the specific DU proposal that was made to Moveon:

Avoid canvassing the strongly Dixiecrat Florida counties that have a history of voting Republican despite having a majority of declared Democrats. Also, some of those counties have already gone through hand recounts, so there are fewer opportunities for surprises in those counties.

Ask the local Dems in any county initially selected for analysis whether they were surprised by any of the results in their county, e.g., reported turnout, undervoting, disparity between votes for county-wide Dem office-seekers v. votes for Kerry, Dem v. Repub ratios, disparity between early voting results and Nov. 2 results, etc... Avoid counties that seem to the local Dems to have had uncompromised election results, since the locals are in the best position to know if something looks fishy.

Be ready to canvass an entire county rather than just spot-checking a few precincts here and there. Many, many counties tally their absentee and early votes separately and don't roll those votes in to the final tally for a specific precinct. Also, at least one of the suspect counties (Cuyahoga Co. Ohio) says that votes have been rolled in from outside the county in order to facilitate vote counting for Congressional races. Any county canvassing project must have a clear handle on the exact scope of the work before it begins.

Don't pussyfoot with the questions, especially at this late date. From my experience calling for MoveOn, and as a deputy registrar here in my home county (Harris Co. Texas), most people are very forthcoming and ready to talk about who they will/did vote for. Just ask registered voters:

are you Mr./Ms. x?

did you vote in the Nov. general election?

did you vote in X state, x county and x precinct? (often county voter rolls are inaccurate).

did you vote on election day, Nov. 2, or did you vote early (either in person (Fla., Texas, etc...) or absentee)?

did you vote for president?

which presidential candidate did you select?

did you vote on a straight party basis?

if this canvass reveals a discrepancy between our results and the county's officially reported results would you be willing to sign an affidavit that describes how you voted?



That's my 2 cents. I'm ready to start phoning.