District 5 candidate forum
Steve Roemerman was at Monday night's candidate forum for the Tulsa City Council District 5 election and his report is on his blog.
The big surprise of the night: Nancy Jackson dropped out of the race and threw her support behind Cockroach Caucus candidate Bill Martinson. I was never quite sure why Ms. Jackson was running, and I'm not sure she knew either. When she spoke at a meeting of Republican precinct leaders from the district just before the filing period, she was the only candidate who refused to answer a question about her opinion on abortion and refused to say whether she would vote to allocate any of the city's federal block grant money to Planned Parenthood. (Bill Martinson was not in attendance at that meeting -- last minute conflict came up.)
When you go to Steve's report, pay close attention to the candidates' responses to the question about zoning -- it's very telling.
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This morning it dawned on me a really quick and cheap way to boost voter turnout for the Re-Roopie Dew Election (District 5, May 10), and for that matter, the Recall ("What'd you voters say?") Election (Districts 2 & 6, July 12) as well.
If someone would be willing to coordinate time(s) and place(s), a well known parking lot, on the evening prior to and/or morning of the election where people could stop by for 2 minutes or less on their way to/from work, a volunteer with white shoe polish could simply write "VOTE TODAY" across the top/bottom edge of their rear window, side windows and/or front window (in reverse mirror). Easy clean up after the fact. Big boost in awareness.
A $5.00 bottle of shoe polish will go a long way. $20 gets four.
I don't really know a reason why this activity could not be done at the Polling Place as long as it only states "VOTE TODAY" and does not contain any reference to any candidate or party. In fact, those might say "I VOTED TODAY" like the little stickers Poll Workers hand out when you vote.
More ambitious people might walk the District neighborhoods and knock on doors asking people if they may write on a parked car in their driveway or streetside. There should be no unapproved writing on cars. Keep it straight.
They'd have to be careful to not obstruct drivers' vision and to avoid 'campaigning' per se if the car is to be driven within 300 feet of any Polling Place on Election Day.
Drivers' should be given the option of being handed a bottle of shoe polish to write their own if they don't want someone else doing it. And, writers should have a towel available to hold under their work as they write to keep drips and runs down.
Even if the car is going to be driven all around town, it will boost awareness, though, elections will be for specific Districts. Those not directly affected and unaware may end up at their (closed) polling place or at least asking someone else if they should be voting today. We'll just call that a penalty for not knowing.
I seriously doubt the elections will warrant more than a passing comment on local news until the 10:00pm editions. After all, the lower the turnout, the better for the Cockroach Caucus.
A much harder to coordinate effort could also involve Poll Watchers at each precincts' Polling Place. There when opened to see machines set to zero and empty Log books. Again at 7:00pm close to record the number of votes on the machine, number of signatures in the Log book, and the Poll workers' summary (votes, provisional ballots and undervotes, etc). I have no idea what coordination this might require with the Election Board to achieve.
I wouldn't think all day poll watching would be needed. The above procedure would be enough to trigger questions if things don't add up.
Of course, as long as voters are not required to provide some identification to obtain a ballot, anyone can vote as much as they wish. So, the process is inherently corrupted and needs fixing.