Dave Pentecost was part of Michael Moore's "video the vote" group in Ohio. We offered to host their videos over at ivft, so I got this mail earlier in the evening. So depressing. I got some new CDs from amazon today and truly enjoyed listening to them while driving rather than to the news. Anyway, thanks Dave!
From: Dave Pentecost
Subject: Ohio Video the Vote postmortem
Date: November 3, 2004 9:24:04 PM PSTI owe all you kind folks an update.
Slowness in getting tapes back from the field prevented my getting any video posted on Election day. It was also just chaotic enough that the video crews didn't know the importance of what they had witnessed and recorded. The general impression was that we were seeing more confusion and incompetence at the polls than actual manipulation or intimidation. But just around the time the polls were about to close, there was a report of Republican challengers and police at one site. A video team and our lead producer headed over to see.
The first report said that there were five challengers at a polling station where they were only allowed two. Our team had to stay outside and record statements from voters and the Democratic challenger, who told a peculiar story. Remember, these were all black neighborhoods.
Sometime around noon, eight white people showed up, claiming to be GOP operatives but refusing to show any ID. They said they were there to see the Republican challenger, but no one knew who they were referring to. Several of them came into the polling station and set up shop looking at people's documents and making notes in clipboards. When a couple of them came outside and someone asked them what they were doing, they said they were just delivering sandwiches, and that they had to go. But the same dark blue PT Cruiser had been seen driving around several different polling stations.
