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Quick Tuesday Afternoon Report on Hope Springs GOTV in Ohio (Election Day) [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-08-08

This is it! The final hours of the August 8th Special Election on Issue 1. I don’t know about you, but is i’m ready for this thing to be over. There have been sporadic problems with ballots and machines and most of the reports i am seeing say there is heavier turnout than most expected. But nothing that the myriad county boards of elections shouldn’t be able to handle.

Special Elections (like this one) is one of the three core missions of Hope Springs from Field PAC. This morning, we had sent out 511 volunteers to knock on doors of voters we identified as opposing Issue 1 or were single-issue abortion voters. They made two passes before completing their shift. As i mentioned before, some of this mornings volunteers signed up for “all day” (which means they are as beat as our organizers are), something we did not encourage. My favorite story about this morning’s shift is one mother who brought her two boys to volunteer with her.

“Why are we doing this, again?” one of her boys asked.

“Because I want your vote to count as much as mine does now.”

“Oh.”

Our GOTV universe is 33,008 households, meaning that’s what we knew when we started our morning. In each pass (we have now completed three passes or rounds and are in our fourth and final round of door knocking), we have narrowed this universe. We thing we have between 15 and 20 thousand households still on our lists. Really hard to tell, though. This morning, we had 511 volunteers chasing down voters who we have identified as Issue 1 opponents who have not voted yet. This afternoon, we counted 462 volunteers for our afternoon push. Which is not to say that we had 973 total volunteers. I just don’t know yet what our real final number will be. Some of our Michigan and Pennsylvania volunteers have already headed home, having done more than their part! Like this morning’s volunteers, this group will be driving door to door and knocking on the doors of voters who have told us they are opposed to Issue 1. By now, our drive sheets are looking worn and ragged, strikes throughout. Each round has meant preparing new maps for our volunteers since we delete the homes where we are told they have already voted. In the staging location i am working, organizers printed out instructions on four different colors (light blue, beige, light green and yellow) so that drivers know which computer they should go to for new maps. That way, they can auto-populate new driving instructions. Very clever, these young people. All day, we have heard complaints from voters about changes in their polling locations. I know that a lot of churches are not precincts in the areas i am hearing about. And, as much trouble it is for people to have to change locations, i’m just not sure that i am sad that there are fewer churches serving as precincts for this particular election. However, making sure every canvasser had a precinct locator site up on their phone was part of our training. And to ask every voter they talked to, “Are you sure you know your polling location?” But turnout has been above expectations. In Cuyahoga County, the number of votes cast on Election Day now exceeds the number of early and absentee ballots. In “Hamilton County [turnout] neared 30% when accounting for absentee and Election Day voters. Cuyahoga County sat around 28%, while Butler County reported a turnout of nearly 26%.” These are terrific numbers.

A total 27 of our out-of-state volunteers stayed through today (they are not included in the 511 or 462 numbers). A handful will stay on to help with Ballot Curing, if needed. We will continue to remind voters they need to “fix” errors on their absentee ballots until the election is called. Most of us are hoping that it is called tonight.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/8/2185950/-Quick-Tuesday-Afternoon-Report-on-Hope-Springs-GOTV-in-Ohio-Election-Day

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