Notes from Election Night: At the Midland
By DAVID MARTIN
Obama volunteer Jonathan Sheffi stood near the bar of the Midland theater, a hard-earned drink in hand, as victory approached Tuesday night. Earlier in the day, Sheffi had served as a polling-place captain at Immanuel Lutheran Church in midtown, where a mix-up delayed the delivery of voter rolls until 8 a.m., two hours after polls officially opened.
The wrong books arrived at three polling locations in the Fifth Ward. The mistake thwarted those who had risen early to cast their ballots. Sheffi says the longest line formed outside Immanuel Lutheran. "We had about 400 voters waiting," he says.
Sheffi handed out water bottles and tried to keep voters apprised. "A lot of people were really angry," he says. "But one of the things that I think helped a lot is we informed them that our lawyers went before the Jackson County Election Board to petition for additional voting hours. We did not get them. But when people knew that the Obama campaign was stepping up for them, they were determined to stay there."
The line thinned out between 11 a.m. and noon. By day's end, 74 percent of precinct's registered voters cast ballots -- a solid number under the circumstances. Sheffi says Obama received 82 percent of the votes that were cast.
A drug rep who lives in Portland, Oregon, Sheffi came to Kansas City on something of a lark. "I was sitting at home on Friday night, and I realized that I wanted Missouri to go blue," he says. "I wanted to help out."
So he sent a text to a college friend, asking if he could crash on her couch.
"I used up a whole bunch of frequent-flier miles, and I was canvassing by Saturday afternoon, phone-banking on Sunday and training to be a poll-place captain on Monday."
Sheffi says he asked to be assigned to a large polling site. He wanted a challenge, and he got one.
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