IT'S ALL TURNOUT NOW:

Absentee voters absent for Dickerson Center balloting (RAY WEISS, October 28, 2002, Daytona News Journal)

There was a "get-out-the-vote" rapper, a sidewalk full of campaign workers handing out pamphlets and a gymnasium packed with election volunteers and staff.

All that was missing at the Dickerson Center Sunday were voters. Just 82 showed up.

Up to 3,000 were expected to cram the 50 small booths and fill out absentee ballots. The pre-election vote was sponsored by the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Volusia County Elections Office. Both sides agreed to the event after settling a lawsuit that stemmed from the botched 2000 election.

The NAACP had argued that black voters in several Florida counties, including Volusia, had encountered a disproportionate number of problems.

"It's not what we had hoped for. But maybe those people would not have voted otherwise," said Deanie Lowe, Volusia County Supervisor of Elections, right after the four hours of voting that began at 1 p.m. ended. "And 82 votes can make a difference, given how close some recent elections have been."

At this point, the GOP's best hope next Tuesday is that the post-9/11 George W. Bush has depolarized black opinion enough that it depresses black turnout, so something like this is a hopeful sign. But if black voters (or their ballots, at any rate) turn out in the proportions they did in '98, when Bill Clinton needed them, or in 2000, when the NAACP had scared them into hating George Bush, then it'll be a very long night for Republicans. Posted by Orrin Judd at October 28, 2002 10:16 AM