Fearing Election Day trouble, some mainland schools cancel classes
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Students arrived at Falmouth High School in Falmouth, Maine on Oct. 21. The town of Falmouth is one of several municipalities around the country that has canceled school on Election Day to avoid placing children at risk in case the heated rhetoric spills into confrontations or even violence at the polling places.
FALMOUTH, Maine » Rigged elections. Vigilante observers. Angry voters. The claims, threats and passions surrounding the presidential race have led communities around the U.S. to move polling places out of schools or cancel classes on Election Day.
The fear is that the ugly rhetoric of the campaign could escalate into confrontations and even violence in school hallways, endangering students.
“If anybody can sit there and say they don’t think this is a contentious election, then they aren’t paying much attention,” said Ed Tolan, police chief in this seaside community, which decided to call off classes on Election Day and put additional officers on duty Nov. 8.
(General Election Day is a state holiday in Hawaii, where many schools are polling places. So public schools are closed here on Nov. 8)
School officials already are on edge because of the shootings and threats that have become all too common. They point to the recent firebombing of a Republican Party office in one North Carolina county and the shooting-up of another with a BB gun as the type of trouble they fear on Election Day.
Some of those anxieties have been stoked by Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the election is rigged and his appeal to his supporters to stand guard against fraud at the polls. Some are worried about clashes between the self-appointed observers and voters.
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Parent Alpay Balkir said he is glad children will be home. His 8-year-old son is a student in Falmouth, where the high school doubles as a polling place.
“If it’s going to be as chaotic as they say it’s going to be, it’s a good thing. Kids should stay out of it,” Balkir said. “I don’t know what the environment is going to be like.”
Schools are popular polling places because they have plenty of parking and are usually centrally located. It’s difficult to say how many school-based polling places have been moved this year, given how decentralized the voting process is across the country.
But state and local officials say voting has been removed or classes canceled on Election Day at schools in Illinois, Maine, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and elsewhere.
“There is a concern, just like at a concert, sporting event or other public gathering that we didn’t have 15 or 20 years ago. What if someone walks in a polling location with a backpack bomb or something?” said Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, co-chairman of the National Association of Secretaries of State election committee. “If that happens at a school, then that’s certainly concerning.”
Despite the concerns, the National Association of Secretaries of State does not advocate having armed guards or police stationed at the polls because their presence could intimidate voters.
Some of the pressure to close schools on Election Day or move voting is coming from parents. Sara Andriotis, a mother in the Easton, Pennsylvania, area, pushed for voting to be taken out of local schools.
“We were mostly concerned because of the risk that it puts our children in,” she said.
Easton Superintendent John Reinhart wanted to get voting out of schools altogether but was rebuffed by county election officials. So the school board canceled classes on Election Day.
“If you take the personalities away and cast the emotion with the election aside, one has to ask the question: ‘Are our schools the best places for that activity to take place?’” he said. “I just think we’ve reached the point where we need to look at other locations.”
That’s happening in Hall County, Nebraska, which got out ahead of the trend in May when it moved six polling places out of schools for a primary. Those changes will remain in place next month. Voting will be held at three churches and one community center.
Election officials elsewhere say that schools are vital places for voting and that removing them as polling places creates logistical headaches and voter confusion.
“We wouldn’t be able to conduct voting without them,” said Pam Anderson, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association. She said voting in schools has not generally been a concern in Colorado but acknowledged there is likely to be more security this year.
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In a 1982 consent decree, the Republican Party agreed “to refrain from undertaking any ballot security activities in polling places or election districts where the racial or ethnic composition of such districts is a factor in the decision to conduct, or the actual conduct of, such activities there and where a purpose or significant effect of such activities is to deter qualified voters from voting; and the conduct of such activities disproportionately in or directed toward districts that have a substantial proportion of racial or ethnic populations shall be considered relevant evidence of the existence of such a factor and purpose…” Trump’s call for his supporters to go to “certain areas” to intimidate minority voters is a clear violation of this order, which was due to expire in 2017. Thanks to Trump, the decree will likely be extended to stop future instances of the totalitarian voter suppression that he advocates.
IRT BS, the only organization bent on making trouble is the democrats, as shown on the released video of democrat operatives. On top of creating physical harm, the democrat operatives explained they are being compensated from the Clinton campaign through the Democratic National Committee (DNC). How you figga. Not very pono, don’t you believe.
Edited videos….or was it just “locker room talk.”
IRT Ad1, nice try.
How the Elites Blew Up the World
Those who squandered America’s economic and strategic advantage are trying to distract from their record
by Laura Ingraham | Updated 25 Oct 2016 at 8:05 PM
Let us be clear: If Hillary Clinton is elected president, all of the problems we see around the world today will continue to fester — because she will continue the same policies that got us here. Four years from now, if she is president, the United States will be weaker, China will be stronger, Russia will be more dangerous, terrorists will be more emboldened, the Middle East will be more unstable, and conditions in Europe will be worse than they are now. We already know that our current policies lead to these results. Why would we want to let things worsen for four more years?
The time has come to strike out on a different path. When you look past all the elite blather about Trump’s “temperament” and “tone,” one thing becomes obvious: On the big foreign policy issues facing America, Trump is right, and the elites are wrong. It is insane — and dangerous — to keep propping up a global trading regime that treats Chinese companies better than American companies. It is insane — and dangerous — to keep wasting the U.S. military on missions that cannot succeed. It is insane — and dangerous — to continue trying to maintain a position in the world that we can no longer afford. It is insane — and dangerous — to tear down all borders and effectively dissolve the nations of the West. Most of all, it is insane to install, as president of the United States, a vapid and untrustworthy politician who has consistently been wrong on every major foreign policy issue of the last 20 years.
Hillary Clinton may win this election. But Trump and his supporters will ultimately win the argument over foreign policy — because his policies at least have a chance of making the world better, while hers never will.
Google “Roger Stone Vote Protectors” to see how Trump ally Roger Stone is issuing Fake ID badges to poll “watchers” and instructing them to set up fake exit polls.
hiLIARy has already been exposed as Don of the Clinton Mafia Family and their use of paid thugs and Duck clad buffoons…hiLIARy should pay the Teacher Union for all the Free Day Off expense…why should the TAXPAYER have to pay for hiLIARy’s thuggery!
I think someone forgot to take their medication.
Overreacting. In WA state they have all mail in voting. Just switch to that way. My friends there got their ballots last week. A blissful two weeks to vote at your leisure at home and then stroll to the post office or a free drop ballot box. Sounds good to me.
Too fair and easy. Making people physically go to a polling place during working hours helps to ensure the vote is largely by either the idle rich or the 1% business owners. If I can file my taxes either online or via mail, I do not see what is different from casting a ballot. Now if voting in person is required for reasons of fraud prevention, I say make Election Day either a national holiday or else have it the first Sunday of November. Doing things the way they are done presently is nothing more than disenfranchisement set in place by the founders of this country. From the start, only the voices of the wealthy and white were to be heard. Don’t believe me, see who gets excited any time an attempt is made to make the system accessible to all.