Patience at the polls

By Darrell Laurant

Published: November 5, 2008

We tend to treat politics like sports events in our society. Election Day reminds us that there’s an important difference.

Unlike football and basketball games, political contests always percolate underground, keeping us in suspense until the votes are counted. To use another analogy, it’s a little like a cake baking in an oven that you’re forbidden to open until the baking is done.

It’s hard for today’s impatient election-watchers to grasp this, and every November, we get a few daytime phone calls at our newspaper from people asking: “Who’s winning?”

Unfortunately, there is no giant scoreboard in the sky that lights up with every vote cast, no running total. All we have are exit polls and pundits, neither of which are terribly reliable.

Becky Wuergler, however, is one not bothered by not

knowing.

“It would suit me if nobody was allowed to report any results until all the polls have closed, even in Alaska and Hawaii,” she said.

The lone representative of either party at Big Island Elementary School early Tuesday afternoon, she expressed concern about the domino effect possibly caused by the time changes in this vast country of ours. Potential voters out West might hear the results from Virginia and Pennsylvania and opt to stay home, either out of despair or overconfidence.

“It’s just not a good system,” said Wuergler, who stood next to a sign that proclaimed: “I’ll Keep My Freedom, My Money and My Guns. You Can Keep the Change.”

She wore a Hilton Head Island sweatshirt, partially obscured by a large McCain-Palin sticker and a McCain-Palin button, and she was actually doing double duty. Besides representing the Republican Party, she was also informing voters of an upcoming Brunswick stew to benefit the restoration of the Big Otter Mill.

But only when they were on their way out. Politics came first.

“To be honest, I don’t know if it ever makes a difference to stand out here,” she said, “but I just feel like the party should be represented.”

And at that point on a long Election Day, there wasn’t a Democrat in sight.

It was very different at the polling place at Robert S. Payne Elementary School in Ward II, where Garnell Stamps stood in his usual spot at the base of the steps, resplendent in a suit and colorful tie.

A longtime civil rights activist and teacher at Dunbar High School, Stamps used to know just about every voter who appeared at Payne. Not anymore.

“I’ve seen a lot of young, first-time voters, and that is very exciting,” he said. “Most of them were proud to be a part of history, and what impressed me was that they didn’t mind asking for help. They were almost humble about it.”

Rena Lindevaldsen, standing a few feet away, witnessed the same phenomenon — not at Payne but Liberty University, where she teaches.

“There’s a lot of energy over there right now,” she said.

But not all those energized by this election were young. According to Carolyn Eubank, a poll worker at Timberlake Christian Church on Timberlake Road (“Worship Here Sunday, Vote Here Tuesday,” a sign outside proclaimed), there was already a milling crowd when she arrived before 6 a.m.

“The neat thing was, it was a very diverse group, all ages.”

Over at the Community Funeral Home on Fifth Street, where the overtly (and proudly) Democratic Lynchburg Voters’ League has been ferrying voters to the polls for decades, more than double the usual number of drivers had shown up, most of them with gray hair.

“We’ll pick them up all over the city if they call,” Ada Smith said. “We never ask them how they’re voting.”

The Rev. Stuart Jones, one of Tuesday’s volunteers, said he thought the fact that Barack Obama had actually appeared in Lynchburg had a lot to do with galvanizing not just Ward II, but the entire city.

“It’s like Doug Wilder used to say,” he said. “You’ve got to put foot to pavement, let the people see you.”

As for the election, Jones declared: “If Obama wins North Carolina or Virginia, it’s over.”

At that point, though, all was uncertainty. Alongside Virginia 122 in Bedford County, the Booker T. Washington Highway, the campaign signs leapfrogged one another in unreadable patterns — Obama-Biden, then McCain-Palin, then Mark Warner, then McCain-Palin.

“I don’t believe the polls,” Becky Wuergler said. “Not for a minute.”

Twenty miles away, fellow Republican Lindvaldsen continually offered literature to the tide of voters (over 1,200 by 3 p.m.) pouring into Payne.

“I want to be here in case anyone has any questions about the Republican positions,” she said.

Did they?

She smiled.

“Not yet.”