This was it, the first door of the day—what would people think of white girls trying to get out the vote in the ghetto?
A middle-aged woman answered the door and smiled.
“I’m glad you girls stopped by,” she said to my partner and I in a sweet accented voice hinting that she was Haitian. We were armed with loads of pamphlets, information about what would appear on the ballot.
“You see, I’m a registered Republican, but I want to vote Democratic. How do I change my registration?”
Woohoooo! Victory number one, I thought. You don’t need to be a registered Democrat to vote Democrat, I explained.
“Sweatheart, we will be sure to vote,” she said after we had signed her and her mother up for a ride to the polls.
There were so many people out there who were unclear about the voting process it was unbelievable. Our goal was to get them all to the polls and to get them all to make sure their vote counted. Because where we were, Miami Dade County, their votes had not been counted last time.
We spent three days canvassing, encouraging people to vote early in low income neighborhoods where the bars on the windows made the houses seem more like fortresses than homes. After successfully supporting the prevalent idea that Bush was a liar and a jerk while dodging rottweilers and ignoring numerous comments about white chicks, election day finally came.
And none of us could believe it. We were a group of four Wesleyan students, five recent Wes grads, and one recent high school grad from New York who went down to volunteer during the elections. After leaving Friday, we spent day and night working with a group called ACORN (Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now), which was pushing an amendment to raise the minimum wage in Florida.
They sent us, along with over one hundred employees from the poorer Miami neighborhoods in which we were working to knock on doors of registered voters and encourage people to vote to raise the minimum wage. It was a nonpartisan way to get people out.
And it seemed to have worked.
On election day at the polls the people we met were so hopeful, saying it was a higher turnout and that there were more young black men out than ever before (there were maybe a handful of non black or mixed voters at this precinct). They came out even despite the fact that shady stuff really was going on: Rumors circulated that electronic voting machines would sometimes ask people to check they had voted for Bush even after they had touched the screen for Kerry. One of our colleagues had run into a Bush van in the neighborhood telling people that polls were open until midnight.
But people made it to the polls on time and waited in line. Some were turned away because they didn’t have ID or went to the wrong place, but we were able to tell them how they could insist on their right to vote. After hearing a policeman tell one woman she couldn’t vote because she didn’t have adequate ID, NAACP vigilante on site showed her that by asking for an affidavit to sign, she still had the right to vote and it would be counted as long as they could later check that she was registered.
One man, clearly in his eighties, hobbled to the polls supported by what looked to be his son and his grandson and led by his wife and daughter in law. He was blind and could only speak Spanish. Maybe he was the only one in the family who could, maybe it was the first time he could. The courtesy and patience by the election workers was admirable, as they brought out a laptop for him to vote on. From his car, his grandson translated the ballot for him.
Until 7 p.m., even though people were tired and weary, there was a tangible sense of importance and pride.
“Make sure we get Bush outta there!” people called in their warm southern drawl, supporting their friends as they stepped on line to wait. Many even booed as a van with a Bush-Cheney bumper sticker drove by in seeming surveillance.
Beaming, one woman leaned over and said to me how wonderful it was that so many young men came out. She was proud of her community.
Needless to say, at 8 p.m. when we got back to the office, we were not prepared for Bush to win Florida with such ease. Even though Miami Dade overwhelmingly voted for Kerry, the rest of the state quickly fell red. After being on our feet all day distributing information and food to people waiting in line, we were too tired even to cry.
There seemed to be so many voters everywhere in the country calling for Bush to lead us down a road that to us is frightening and uncertain. Even though these communities rose to shout no, to show up in higher numbers than ever before, to show defiance, we were devastatingly crushed. And it seems that the roar of moral values and fighting terrorism has drowned out the voices of reason from the other side of the fence.
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