Candidates, citizens and advocacy groups mobilized in Virginia on Tuesday in an effort to increase voter turnout on what is typically an ignored Election Day. Official parties and partisan organizations alike worked hard to generate greater participation in this off-year election and boost what is usually a low voter-turnout.
At a hotel bar across the river in Crystal City, groups of young people were seated around tables pouring over maps of Northern Virginia.
Boxes filled with manila envelopes were piled against the back wall beneath framed vintage photographs of airplanes. Cardboard coffee cups, napkins and papers were strewn around the room. A handwritten poster hung on an easel by the entrance welcoming volunteers.
One of these groups, The Media Fund, was organizing canvassers to encourage Democrats to vote. As a section 527, the group raises money to support candidates for office, but cannot legally coordinate with their campaigns.
Three recruits were seated at the bar. A young woman dressed in jeans and a t-shirt walked by waving sheets of paper. "Whoever needs to be trained come with me," she announced. The three recruits got up quickly and followed her out of the bar into a payphone alcove a few feet away. They stood there nodding for a few moments, and then their trainer led them out of the hotel to a waiting van.
Farther down Jefferson Davis Highway, the Alexandria Democrats were coordinating their own get-out-the-vote effort.
At their headquarters in the basement of a brick building on North Washington Street in Old Town, volunteers shuffled around the office, some were making calls from phones arranged around the open room, while others were waiting to give voters rides to the polls.
Stacks of campaign signs leaned against the walls, stickers were pasted everywhere and a life-size cardboard cutout of Sen. John Kerry, D- Mass., stood in one corner wearing an American flag top hat.
Volunteer Diane Crawford-Batt was walking in between desks chatting with people. She was working as a circuit rider, making runs to the polling stations to bring refreshments to Democratic poll workers.
There aren't any voters waiting in line at the polling stations, Crawford-Batt said, it's been going really well. "Here, people have done it before," she added.
She turned to face the window at the front of the office. Campaign signs were taped to the glass blocking the view of the sidewalk. The weather outside was mild for November in Virginia. "I've been stripping off layers," Crawford-Batt said.
Crawford-Batt arrived at headquarters at 6 a.m., and planned to stay until 7 p.m, she said. She works in the accounting office of a non-profit organization, and usually cannot volunteer on Election Day because she is too busy closing the previous month's books.
"This is the first time I've been able to take the whole day off," Crawford-Batt said. "We all care very much about who gets elected."
Across the street at a motel, a desk was set up on the sidewalk in front of an open room. Inside the room were knapsacks, boxes of campaign literature, door hangers and maps stacked on the double beds. While three women and a man, all in their 20's, sat in chairs behind the desk, another woman, Jessy Tolkan was standing up in front arranging pamphlets.
Tolkan, who is from Wisconsin, had been campaigning in Virginia for the past few weeks.
We went to the bars, the places where young people hang out, she said. A team of five to seven volunteers, decked-out in Young Democrats of America t-shirts, would go each Friday to Dr. Dremo's, a neighborhood bar in Arlington, Tolkan explained. We'd give out pins and literature to people sitting at the bar, or we'd go up to talk to people playing pool. "We recruited over 1,500 volunteers to help with this effort," she claimed proudly.
Later in the day, people started filing into a banquet room at the Best Western Old Colony Inn on First Street in Alexandria. Inside people lined up for a buffet, while a band played covers of Dave Matthews. Others stared intently at televisions tuned to CNN, and a projection screen displaying the election returns.
Crawford-Batt stood facing the screen holding a glass of white wine. Election Day went well, but was exhausting, she said. "I learned how bad Alexandria traffic can be. I can see why it was a [campaign] issue."
Bill Euille, the mayor of Alexandria, wandered over after looking at the returns. "This makes me very comfortable," he said - with the screen projecting leads for several Democratic candidates, including the candidate for governor, Tim Kaine.
As the evening progressed, the banquet room continued filling up, drinks flowed and shortly before eleven the banded stopped playing so the victory speeches could begin.
