reggieandTFE
Member
I was recently hired on as an intern organizer for a Service Employees International local (SEIU) in Ohio and most of the staff was recently assigned to political work. We've been working 85 hours a week talking to union members and their families across the state from rural areas like Woodsfield to cities like Columbus and Cleveland.
I'm from Illinois so the difference in political coverage between a swing state and an oft-ignored blue state is amazing; it seems that every week any of the four candidates are here for at least a couple days a week and there's a million bumper stickers, yard signs and TV spots.
Not surprisingly, the state seems to be evenly split between Bush and Kerry. Scarily, the state also seems to be the Florida of this election. The republican secretary of state, Ken Blackwell, has attempted to disenfranchise people any chance he gets. The most egregious example was when he tried to throw out thousands of new registrations because it wasn't on "eighty pound weight paper" even though his office had issued the forms on the lower grade paper. Also, the ballot (at least in Franklin County, where Columbus is) is a confusing punch card ballot that lists the presidential candidates in an order that favors President Bush because the holes on the right aren't lined up evenly and areout of order.
If the other planned voter suppression stuff continues (and it likely will) than we're going to see some crazy shit come Nov. 2nd and 3rd.
I'm from Illinois so the difference in political coverage between a swing state and an oft-ignored blue state is amazing; it seems that every week any of the four candidates are here for at least a couple days a week and there's a million bumper stickers, yard signs and TV spots.
Not surprisingly, the state seems to be evenly split between Bush and Kerry. Scarily, the state also seems to be the Florida of this election. The republican secretary of state, Ken Blackwell, has attempted to disenfranchise people any chance he gets. The most egregious example was when he tried to throw out thousands of new registrations because it wasn't on "eighty pound weight paper" even though his office had issued the forms on the lower grade paper. Also, the ballot (at least in Franklin County, where Columbus is) is a confusing punch card ballot that lists the presidential candidates in an order that favors President Bush because the holes on the right aren't lined up evenly and areout of order.
If the other planned voter suppression stuff continues (and it likely will) than we're going to see some crazy shit come Nov. 2nd and 3rd.
