Voting lines in the West Village …
We live in Chelsea, probably not much more than a mile from where this video was taken, but a different neighborhood. Millet and my experience this morning was pretty painless compared to a lot things we’re hearing about — but still a crazy amount of turnout compared to previous elections.
From the Indianapolis Star …
The removal of two Republican election workers from a Warren Township polling site – for using improper methods to challenge voters’ rights to cast a ballot – has prompted local Republican Party leaders to issue a statement of regret.
The two officials – an official challenger and a clerk – were removed by unanimous vote of the Marion County Election Board.
The officials were reportedly challenging voters with information obtained through party affiliation reports, which is not one of the accepted challenges such as a person’s address, age or lack of ID.
“We were disappointed to hear of the incident regarding these two workers. The Marion County Republican Party was not aware of these alleged activities, nor did the Party instruct any worker to engage in such behavior,” Marion County Republican Party Chairman Tom John said in a statement issued at 2 p.m.
We’re getting in a flurry of exit poll data, some from official sources (the stuff you can see on the networks) and others leaked. You have to remember, the early unweighted 2004 exits were grossly inaccurate. So we’re trying to plow through the numbers and try to sift the fog from the real information.
More soon.
Late Update: Remember, these are exit polls are that are often unreliable. So take these as hints, not facts. The early exits we’re seeing out of Virginia suggest a close race with an advantage to Obama. The split of the white vote looks similar to what Jim Webb got in 2006, but with blacks making up a substantially larger percentage of the electorate.
The exit polls we’re seeing suggest a substantial Obama victory. That’s encouraging. However, I have to emphasize that they showed something very similar with Kerry four years ago. I don’t think the result will be same. But there’s probably some ancient proverb — put not your faith in exit polls. Let’s see some real results.
The current round of exits are showing Obama up in pretty much all the toss up states. But remember, they said that about John Kerry too. And he’s still a senator from Massachusetts.
We interview Karl Erik Stougaard, the U.S. correspondent for a major Danish newspaper: