Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
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The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
With all of the hullabaloo about both sides’ Get Out The Vote (GOTV) programs today, I thought it might be helpful to outline the basic components that go into every successful Election Day effort.
Right now, staffers for Senators Barack Obama and John McCain are working frantically to keep everything together. Below, you’ll find a brief synopsis of what they are doing.
Both campaigns began the political season building a list — or “universe” — of supporters. Essentially, that means making lots of phone calls — using volunteers as well as paid call centers — to determine which voters are supporting which candidates. If you got a phone call asking you whom you were voting for, it probably came from one of the two presidential campaigns.
The process of adding names to a campaign’s GOTV universe continues pretty much all the way until Election Day, but campaigns also do their best to cut down on the number of names on their list by encouraging early voting. Both campaigns will attempt to call through their GOTV universes several times today to encourage their supporters to vote, and they will also attempt to knock on as many supporters’ doors as possible. As one might imagine, getting through the lists is easier when there are fewer voters left to vote.
Both sides will also work during the day today to narrow their lists even more. They have strategically placed pollwatchers in precincts where they have a lot of supporters. When a supporter enters the polls to cast a ballot, pollwatchers will cross them off their campaign’s list. Eventually, the names of voters who have been crossed off — or “struck” — by a pollwatcher will reach the local campaign headquarters. The campaign will then cross the names of those voters off of their lists, leaving them with fewer people to reach in their next round of phone calls or door knocks.
That means that if you do not want to be hassled by your candidate all day, your best bet is to vote now. Eventually, the fact that you voted will probably filter back to the campaign, and the calls will stop.
Do you know where to vote on Election Day? Do you know what to bring with you? Get comprehensive voter information for your state here.
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