Election Day - Part 3: Way ahead of '04

Hadley Park numbers highlight broad turnout trend

Email | Print By NashvillePost.com Staff

11-04-2008 3:45 PM —

From Nate Rau — 4:43 p.m.: Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC), the state wide advocacy group which has its offices in Nashville, said it has had a busy and enthusiastic election day.

TIRRC spent the build-up to election day organizing a get-out-the-vote campaign and informing eligible immigrant voters about their rights.

Amelia Post, the civic engagement organizer for TIRCC, said today has gone well.

“In general today has been really exciting,” Post said. We had the entire staff working today. I think we had 2 high school students going out into communities and door-knocking and phone-banking. In general the response has been enthusiastic, especially for first-time voters.”

Post said there were some hiccups reported in Davidson County with immigrant voters being allowed to take translators into the polls when they fill out their ballot.

TIRRC and the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union educated voters in recent weeks about their right to bring in a translator if needed. The voting rights act said those who need help may bring someone with them into the booth.

Booth pointed out some naturalized citizens and voters from Puerto Rico may not speak English. She said there was more than one incident of such a voter having trouble bringing a translator to the polls, but did not go into specifics.

“We’ve heard some accounts of some people having difficulty accessing their right to a translator,” Post said. “That’s something that can be misunderstood.

“The majority of what we’ve seen has been very positive and a lot of enthusiasm,” Post said. “But there has been some challenges.”

From Nate Rau — 3:41 p.m.: The early statistics courtesy of the Davidson County Election Commission show that, as of noon today, voter turnout is up dramatically across the county. Nowhere is this more in the Hadley Park precinct in District 21.

That’s where 316 voters had already made their way to the polls. Just 70 voters had done so by noon in the 2004 presidential election.

Across town, early voting appears to have taken a bite out of election-day lines. At the Norman Binkley Elementary School in South Nashville, 379 voters had already made their way to the polls, many like Seth Denton, without the annoyance of long lines.