Meet Your Neighbors On Election Night

I'm hosting an election night party in my home for my neighbors.  Perhaps you can do something similar.  I'll also be putting up a "VOTE TODAY" sign on the road leading out of the neighborhood very early the morning of Nov 7th, and maybe even a series of "VOTE THIS COMING TUESDAY" signs in the days leading up to election day.

My neighborhood is mostly Democratic as far as I know.  The few political signs I've seen in the yards of my neighbors or stickers on their vehicles have all been Democratic.  There aren't that many of them so it's hard to say for sure, but I certainly haven't seen any "W" stickers.  The neighbors I speak to regularly are all Dems.

So it should be a fairly tame neighborhood get together where most everyone leans the same way politically in our Blue city in a Red State, Austin, TX.  It's mostly just a community building event and an easy way to meet some of the neighbors I have only met in passing or haven't met at all.  We all live on fairly large lots so if there's any major disagreements, we aren't really living shoulder to shoulder so it shouldn't be a big deal.

After the "national night out" a few months ago, there was an e-mail list sign-up sheet passed around and I'd guess that probably half of the 60 or so houses in my little neighborhood signed up.  I simply posted to the list the idea to come by my house to watch the returns starting after the polls close until about 11:00pm that night.  

I'll provide a cooler full of water and sodas for everoyone, and another cooler with some beer for the beer drinkers.  Beer will be free for anyone sporting an "I Voted" sticker.  I might even have a bottle of champagne tucked away in the fridge just in case of a Democrat take-over, but that will probably have to wait until Wednesday morning mimosas when we get the bulk of the returns.

I'll also put up some neighborhood signs about voting, which I think everyone could do as well.  I'll post another diary about how I make the signs from "liberated" right-of-way signs, stencils and spray paint, along with some photos.  And hopefully I'll get those done in the next week so that my diary might encourage others to do the same while they still have time to do it.

My little open-door neighborhood "stop on by" get together and the signs encouraging people to remember to vote are my own very simple, very easy, and very minor contribution to the cause.  Whenever I'm doing something like this I cannot help but wonder, "what if everyone did something small just like this?"

I thought I'd post a diary about my plans in the hopes that perhaps some of the rest of the dKos community will be inspired to do something similar in their own meatspace community.  This might be the contribution that you can make to GOTV where you have felt powerless before.  Any contribution, no matter how small is beneficial.  Any community building that occurs due to small efforts like this pay off in spades not only to one's own community, but has a ripple effect as well.  Hopefully my neighbors will go to work on the 8th and talk about watching the returns at a neighbor's house, which may inspire someone else to do something similar in their neighborhood.  And they tell two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on...

I'll post another diary after the 7th with comments on how the little get together went down.