Blog-IT-o ergo sum

	10/30/2004

"Just like voting in other countries."

The Leonard Recreation Center was absolutely jammed this morning for early voting. The entire parking lot (which is not a small one) was overflowing. Cars were parked on the grass on both sides of the driveway and for almost a quarter of a mile along Ballinger Road.

Making the long trek up to the polling station from the road, I did a double-take as I heard four or five extremely authentic sounding gunshots ring out in a quick succession of bursts. Not seeing anyone fleeing for cover or hearing any screams of panic, I continued up the driveway to find that a major percentage of the regular parking lot was was full of SUV police K-9 units.

ust around the side of the polling station in the ball diamond area there was a state-wide police attack dog competition going on. The dogs had to show both how well they took commands from their trainer and how effectively they took down a fleeing suspect who had just fired several blanks into the ground.

Talk about bad scheduling. The gentleman working the polls for Pricey Harrison was the first to comment that he did not think it was particularly appropriate to have barking police dogs and gun fire going off around a polling station. Mike Barber, who was coming out of the building having just voted, summed up the general feeling of our little cadre of poll works. Amidst the barking dogs and sporadic bursts of gun fire he dead panned, "Hmm, just like voting in other countries." We all had a good only slightly nervous laugh. (You know, I have to admit Mike has the best spontaneous one-liners in this campaign)

I would say that lucky for the Guilford County BOE the vast majority of voters at the polling station were an exact match to demographics of the K-9 teams and their spectators. And, just in case someone gets the idea that there is no EEO effort going on in our state's K-9 units, I have it on record here that there was at least one African American involved in the competition. If you look closely you can make him out in this picture as the fleeing gunman.

It wasn't all just dogs and gunfire though. Jeff Thigpen was working the crowd getting the diaper dad vote. If there are any messes in the Register of Deeds office, Jeff convinced a lot of people today that he is a guy that is not afraid to clean them up.

9:23:05 PM

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