November 1st 2008—3 Hour Plus Early Voting Lines and Controversy in Lillington, North Carolina

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Jacqui
About Jacqui

November 4, 2008

I spent this afternoon with the team staffing a table and working the lines at the Western Harnett High School Polling Station in Lillington, NC. With wait times as high as 3 hours and 20 minutes, the table, which offered sweet iced tea, water, cookies, and lollipops, was very popular indeed.

Between interactions with voters, Gail, one of the volunteers, gave me a bit of background on the community. She said that it is a working class area. She also stated that it was fairly racially segregated. One illustration was a gentleman who came up and we offered him an “I’m A Woman of Color and I VOTE” button and said he could give it to his wife, whom he said was in line. Then, as he walked away, I said, “Well, I guess I can’t assume his wife is a woman of color”. Her reply was, “In Harnett County, yes, you can.”

During my time there I was fortunate to be able to interview one of the women who came out to vote, Reverend Patricia Hurley, as well as Antoinette Fitzpatrick, a veteran activist who is serving with the Democratic Party. Videos of the interviewees can be found at www.youtube.com/womenofcolorunited

One interesting bit of drama that happened while I was there…there was a fellow who had been working hard from the time I arrived on going through the line, handing out voter guides and sample ballots to those waiting to vote. Another person staffing the booth came back from an errand and found him in line handing out materials to everyone. She rebuked him saying that he should only be giving the materials to the black people in line! Well, this caused quite a stir indeed as most felt that yes, the materials should go to all but her feeling was that there is a clear racial divide which says that the white people are likely republican so why should time and materials be ‘wasted’ on them. Where as everyone else felt that a) there are white democrats, even in Harnett County and b) regardless, it looks bad for the Democratic Party and is bad for race relations in general for the outreach efforts to be viewed as discriminatory. A very interesting exchange.

Sadly, during the course of our time there (about 3 hours for me) there were many who went home because they didn’t have the time in their day or the time off of work to be in line for 3 hours. I noted that of those that left, the majority (maybe 75%), were people of color. One African American fellow in a security guard’s outfit said, “Work starts in an hour and my boss won’t let me be late, even to vote.”