Election Day: First reports
By C.J. JANOVY
By the time I left my neighborhood at 7:50 a.m., a TV crew was already setting up outside Immanuel Lutheran Church at Westport Road and Bell, where poll workers still didn’t have correct books.
Reportedly, four out of the five polling places in Kansas City’s 5th Ward didn’t have the right books, so election judges had to call the downtown election board to verify voters’ names in a process that took about 10 minutes per person.
From All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church at 45th Street and Walnut, Pitch writer Alan Scherstuhl texted us to report his experience: He was 40th in line when the polls opened at 6 a.m. Fifteen minutes after the polls opened, only one person had voted. Scherstuhl didn’t get finished voting until 7:49. Election workers came to pick up the incorrect registration books around 6:40, but didn’t return with the right books for about an hour. “It was a total cluster fuck,” he said. “Most liberal precinct in a swing state shut down for an hour.”
“That is the stuff of urban legend,” said Kevin Hennosy, who was volunteering for the Westport Landing Democratic Club outside my polling place at 41st and Bell. He wasn’t saying the screw-ups were intentional. But, he said, “This is the type of thing that, for a voter standing in line early in the morning, does raise questions.” Hennosy and I could see the line growing three blocks north at Immanuel Lutheran.
I’d arrived at my own polling place, Epworth Roanoke United Methodist church, around 6:20. By then the line snaked out the door, alongside the church, made a U in the parking lot, and continued back along a row of parked cars. People were sleepy and a little cold, but in good spirits as the sun rose.
When they finally got inside, people said to hell with the usual private voting booths and grabbed the nearest chair and pencil.
Back outside, Hennosy nodded toward the line and asked a question that didn’t need answering: “Is this an election or a rebellion?”
