We had a busy start. We had about 50 people in line when the polls opened at 7am; the line grew to an estimated 100 people in line to vote. We cleared the line at about 11:30am. We have had about 500 votes cast.

We have had challengers from both major parties; everyone has been very cordial and helpful. While they call themselves challengers, they have not challenged any voters. They do challenge procedures on occasion; we have handled those challenges informally to everyone’s satisfaction.

We also had poll watchers from a 527 organization, the Moveon pac. They have a list of voter names and they are testing various get-out-the-vote methods. They asked for permission to question voters inside the building. At first, we considered them to be a partisan organization and asked them to stay 100 feet away. They appealed, we called city hall. We are now treating them as a non partisan organization; they may contact voters inside the precinct.

For the record, Ann Arbor is using a new methodology for filling out the poll book (the official of those who have voted). Instead of writing voter names in the poll book when the voters cast their ballots, we place preprinted stickers in the poll book when voters receive their ballots. We started with two voter lists; A-M and N-Z. As the day progressed, we split that into three voter lists and “load balanced” by tweaking the contents of each book. The first book, for example, went from A-F to A-E when that line got too long.

Oh Yeah
The Ann Arbor Police did show up. I went outside to check for illegal campaigning and a single officer was in his car staying warm. He indicated that the police would not be coming inside, they would be driving by on occassion.