PA precinct's results: Obama 76%, Clinton 24%

I have already posted a diary explaining the difficulties that we faced during the election today. My county has not reported any voting results yet, so it may help Obama's numbers slightly when they do, but I'm not overly optimistic. My precinct just tallied its votes, Obama 76%, Clinton 24%. But guess what? It could've been much better. And right now, I'm thoroughly pissed. More after the jump

We ran into numerous obstacles today at the polls. Many voters were turned away. Many registrations weren't processed or in the system. Many voters were told that they were registered as independents despite the fact that they had voted in previous primaries. We fought all day long, made numerous phone calls to the board of elections, filled out provisional ballots, and busted our butts to GOTV. But it feels like it was all in vain.

I'm sure that other polling places experienced similar situations, but there was no one there to address these situations and help these disenfranchised voters. I spent hours on my cellphone with the election/registration board contesting voter eligibility and in many instances winning, which gave those voters the opportunity to vote. At other locations, these voters were simply turned away and sent home because neither the republicans, nor the democratic establishment that supports Hillary, was going to go out of their way to help these voters and assure that their votes would count. I thoroughly respect Senator Barack Obama, and had thought that he's run a nearly flawless campaign until now. Bottom line, the Obama campaign ran a horrendous ground game in my area, Montgomery County (a suburb of Philly), which is one of the most important parts of the state in a democratic election, and this is the reason that the Clinton campaign was victorious today IMO.

On Election Day, the campaign decided to utilize all of its' volunteer force to canvass neighborhoods and for phonebanking. Why would they send people door to door, while most voters are at work, as opposed to having worker at the polls where undecided voters actually showed up to be educated and persuaded? I brought this to the attention of the local Obama campaign leadership, and was ignored. Our polling place had no one working it, there were no signs, no information leaflets, NOTHING. I printed my own leaflets from online, created our own signs, and set up a table at the polls including sample ballots and worked the electorate thoroughly. We showed voters how to understand the ballot, provided them with information, and persuaded them to vote for Obama. We kept track of the voters that showed up to vote, and called those who didn't show to persuade them to come. We worked our asses off.

Several Obama supporters from other precincts came to our polling place to request materials because there was no campaign representation at their polls either. We have three polling places in my township, all within one mile from each other, and all completely overlooked by the Obama campaign. As I stated earlier, the vote at my polling place was Obama 76%, Clinton 24%. The two other polling places in my township fared far worse. In one, it was Obama 51%, Clinton 49%, and the other was Obama 49.5%, Clinton 50.5%. The demographics are nearly identical, each of the poll locations were within 1 mile of each other, yet the results contrast each other sharply. What was the only difference between the three polling sites? That we said "screw the campaign's plan" and ran our poll the same way we always do, the way you need to in PA.

As far as I'm concerned, every poll in my township should've performed as well as ours did. The only reason they didn't is because there was no representation or leadership. The Obama campaign dropped the ball and turned what could've been a decisive victory into a draw. I am so angry and dissapointed that I cannot put it into words. After busting my ass to maximize voter turnout, educating voters, and running around like a bat outta hell for 13 hours today, I feel like it was all in vain because the apathy at other polls negated the positive gains of our efforts.

It's dissapointing to lose. But it's devistating to lose unnecessarily because of inaction. We could've won my entire district, we should've won my entire district. Did we. No. And why? Because the campaign would not listen, and undecided voters chose name recognation because there was no one at the polls to tell them otherwise. I'm proud of what my aunts and I accomplished at the polls today, but I'm disgusted that other opportunities and gains were squandered unnecessarily. I feel like everything I did was for nothing.

UPDATE: My aunt and I are running to fill the two vacant dem chair seats in our district! Thanks for the encouragement guys!(I know there aren't many people following this diary, but just wanted those of you who were to know)