Four years ago, I was determined to see George Bush drummed out of office and replaced with John Kerry.  Though I had no real enthusiasm for John Kerry (I was on the Howard Dean bandwagon since 2003), it was a matter of going with the candidate you had, and not necessarily the candidate you wanted or needed.

Well, I spent Election Day ferrying people to the polls and actually, watching the polls for any kind of repeat shenanigans like voter suppression.  And sure enough, I had to report a few folks who tried to deny people the right to cast a ballot, because they were at the wrong polling location.  In California, if you showed up at the wrong polling location, you were entitled to vote absentee at the location where you were.  After seeing four poll workers trying to turn people away (I mean people came out at 6am in pajammas and bathrobes, telling me, “I know I look crazy, but Bush gotta go!”), I stepped up and started passing out those absentee ballots and directing people to stay in line to cast their votes.

I did this for eight hours – and NO PAY.

So, this Election Day, I will be doing the same thing in Alexandria, Virginia.  I will be poll watching, and getting ready to bum-rush any attempts to suppress people from voting.  However, here in Virginia, we got the Michelle Obama robo-calls, encouraging us in Northern Virginia to go and vote early.  She also advised us that we have the right to get up to 2 hours off work to vote, and what to do if we were being blocked from voting.

Imagine if John Kerry had done similar methods back in 2004.  It was hard for me to go back to work the next day – and one of my office mates supported Bush; but the rest of us, including my boss, made life miserable for him in the days that followed.  I’m heartened to see that Barack Obama will not go quietly in that good night should the evil forces conspire to steal this election from him.

You can do your part, too.  Bring it for Barack.  I’m in the process of doing so, despite being unemployed, and not having a credit card, but I will do so, just the same.  Will you help Bring it for Barack?

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