Yesterday, the weather sucked in North Carolina. 

I don't blame the weather for the closeness of the result here.  It might have been decisive if not for early voting, but fortunately we'll never know. 

I sensed it was closing back up in this state over the last week.  McCain-Palin stickers started proliferating after being largely absent until the last ten days.  Worse ,my tap into the world of the serious religious fanatics and the general stupid shitkicker segment of the population told me that the hysteria level was being fanned to a well-timed climax and some people were discovering they weren't as broad-minded as they thought they were a couple of weeks ago. (Today, btw, a lot of these people thing the Tribulation has begun and the Rapture could occur at any second between now and January 20.  Really.)

The campaign sensed it was closing as well.  There was an urgency to poll observer training I had not felt even during the must-win days of the primary, an even greater emphasis to do everything possible to minimize provisional ballots simply because, as they only ballots that Republicans could link to a name, they were subject to levels of challenge not possible once the ballot was in the box (or the memory chip, or whatever) with all the others. 

Which, unfortunately, is exactly where we are now anyway. 

Anyway, the weather sucked.  As was the case during the primary, although for different reasons, I was stationed as an outside observer at a polling place in a predominately African American neighborhood, this time in the adjoining county of Guilford.  Unlike the primary, when the weather was absolutely beautiful, it was cold and it was raining.  Worse, the precinct captain took a distinct dislike to me.  

To be fair, the precinct captain was apparently under close scrutiny by Republican election judges (who were, shall we say, definitely from out of the neighborhood) and a contingent of roving Marmalards and Neidermeyers from various College Republican groups who would drop by to try to make sure that anything that could be done to suppress votes was being done.  The precinct captan was clearly protective of his voters  and was determined, I think, to make sure that the integrity of their votes was beyond reproach. Compounding, that however, was the fact that he apparently he blamed me a complaint that got phoned in about someone being forced to vote a provisional ballot and he was pissed. Beyond that, he was seemingly suspicious of my presence in general and, perhaps, even doubted I was who I said I was and that I was, in fact, with the Obama campaign.  He kept asking me, each time we interacted, as if he was expecting me to change my story.  

So, there I was in the rain, rules regarding distance from the door and acceptable conduct applied by a precinct captain who clearly ran a tight ship in the first place being applied with special rigor and specificity to me.  Associated with that was a rather stricter rule of silence where I was concerned that had apparently  been imposed upon the other poll workers when they stepped outside for a smoke.

Information that was, in fact, public information, and which was given out freely to anyone else who asked, was denied to me.  Because of that lack of real information about conditions inside, I was forced to glean what scraps of intelligence on how things were going I could indirectly, by asking people if things were going okay as they came out and, if they seemed unwilling to talk, by judging demeanor. 

And for a a couple of cold gray rainy hours, I was very concerned by what I was seeing. 

When I covered an African American precinct during the primaries, the attitude of the voters coming out was generally happy, but only a little happier than you would expect people to be who had voted on a an absolute gem of a beautiful spring day.  Some were jubilant, a few were solemn, a few more seemed downright nonchalant.  Yesterday, however, many of my precinct's voters seemed subdued after they voted.  Quiet, thoughtful.  The weather accounted for some of that, the attitude of people who braved some mildly unpleasant  (if you weren't sitting out in it for 13 straight hours) weather to complete a task that needed doing.   

However, with rising alarm,I noticed that many of them, unaccompanied men in particular, seemed quite distressed, even distraught, as they came out of the polling place.  Bereft of any information about what was going on inside, I felt a rising fear that many of these men were being turned away without being allowed to vote, so after I detected the pattern, I asked a few of them "everything go okay in there?"  or "get it done?"  or "any problems" or some such.  All of them said yes.  So I sat my soggy butt back down in my soggy camp chair and saw yet another man come out with that experession and then it hit me and I mentally slapped my forehead.   

These men weren't upset or distressed.  They were simply struggling to keep from crying.  

I hadn't seen it during the primary, because that was just a primary.  It was great to be able to cast the vote, a real achievement "no matter what happens" (a phrase I heard dozens of times that day).  They were armored against despondency by the knowledge that, win or lose, the wall had been broken. Yesterday, however, these men had just cast a vote for a man they knew was actually about to become the first African American President of the United States.  For many of them, the enormity of what had just happened, what they had just done, hit them full force as they left the warmth and community of the polling place and, trudging through the cold rain to their homes and cars, were alone with their thoughts.  ,

I hastily took a drink of water from my bottle to wash down the lump that had suddenly developed in my throat.  

In the end, I doubt that I did much of account.  Certainly, I did infinitely less good than the brave woman who sat and stood beside me that day.  She was much older than I was, on disability and knew she'd be so sore she could hardly move today.  Over and over again, as voters came, she popped up off her chair over handed out her flier and explained North Carolina's ridiculous system by which a straight party vote does not cast a vote for president.  "Vote for president, for a straight ticket, and then vote in the judicial races, these are the candidates who have been endorsed by the Democratic Party."  Up and down, time and again, soaked to the bone for 13 hours and she'd done the same throughout early voting.  I know she's suffering for it today. She's my hero. 

Maybe one or two voters voted who would not have if I not been there to answer their questions. Maybe.  More likely not.  Probably, there was little I did that justified either the inconvenience to myself or the aggravation I caused the precinct captain.   Still, short of being back in the precinct I covered during the primary, I can honestly say there was nowhere else I would rather have been yesterday than that precinct.