Absentee Voting Confused With Early Voting, Every State's Rules Are Different
HOLMES: Well, we have gotten word that Barack Obama's grandmother in fact has died. She died of cancer after really a long battle with it. Madeline Dunham was her name. She was 86 years old. Obama calls her "Toot." That's short for the Hawaiian word for grandmother. Obama has repeatedly talked about her on the campaign trail and what a key figure she was in his life at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina he talked about it.</s>OBAMA: Some of you heard that my grandmother who helped raised me passed away early this morning. And look, she has gone home. And she died peacefully in her sleep with my sister at her side and so there is great joy as well as tears. I'm not going to talk about it too long because it's hard a little to talk about. I want everybody to know a little bit about her. Her name is Madeline Dunham. And she was born in Kansas in a small town in 1922. Which means that she lived through the Great Depression, she lived through two (ph) world wars. She watched her husband go off to war while she looked after her baby and worked on a bomber assembly line. When her husband came back they benefited from the GI Bill and they moved west and eventually ended up in Hawaii and she was somebody who was a very humble person and a very plain-spoken person. She was one of those quiet heroes that we have all across America who -- they're not famous. Their names aren't in the newspapers. But each and every day they work hard. They look after their families. They sacrifice for their children and their grandchildren. They aren't seeking the limelight. All they try to do is just do the right thing. And in this crowd, there are a lot of quiet heroes like that -- mothers and fathers, grandparents who have worked hard and sacrificed all their lives. And the satisfaction that they get is seeing that their children -- and maybe their grandchildren or their great- grandchildren -- live a better life than they did. That's what America is about. That's what we're fighting for.</s>NGUYEN: Dana Bash joins us now on the phone from Phoenix, Arizona, where John McCain is wrapping up a major marathon run on a campaign trail. Dana, we saw you a little bit earlier. Now you're finally in Phoenix. Is John McCain going to get any sleep tonight or early this morning as it is?</s>DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on phone): For John McCain? What about us?</s>NGUYEN: Yeah, me too.</s>BASH: Exactly. It was actually funny. I'll tell you that as we were landing my alarm went off from the day before yesterday, the last time we actually woke up in a bed which is pretty funny. But yes, he is going to get a few hours of sleep and then he is going to do what you'd imagine he would do in Arizona on Election Day. He is actually going to go vote and then he is going to go campaign in two more states, in two neighboring states. He is going to go to Colorado and New Mexico. These were somewhat last minute decisions to go and campaign in neighboring states because he's here and because his campaign insists that he is coming up from behind in those states although public polls tend to suggest something different although I've got to tell you, at this last event where John McCain spoke in Prescott, Arizona, he - it was very interesting for a number of reasons. But first of all he didn't mention Barack Obama's name at all. It was very much about himself and what he has to offer as president of the United States but also it was his - the first time speaking in his home state and it was after a very, very long day. And he likes to make jokes on the campaign trail about other people who ran for president from Arizona. And didn't fare very well. Barry Goldwater is one, Mo Udall is another. So he started to tell that joke but then he sort of came back to himself and he got a little emotional. I think we have a sound bite. Let's listen to it.</s>SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, (D) AZ: Barry Goldwater, our beloved Barry Goldwater from Prescott, Arizona used to come up here for every race and including the presidential race in 1964. Another guy that ran for president was a guy named Mo Udall and he said - he used to ask sympathy for the families of the State of Arizona because Barry Goldwater ran for president and Morris Udall from Arizona ran for president and Bruce Babbitt from Arizona ran for president and I for Arizona ran for president. And he used to say Arizona may be the only state in America where mothers don't tell their children that some day they can grow up and be president of the United States. Tomorrow we're going to reverse that unhappy tradition and I'm going to be the president of the United States.</s>BASH: You heard there John McCain get a little bit emotional when he was talking about what tomorrow or actually what today means for him and means potentially for the state. Obviously very, very long road and he has been remarkably energetic considering the pace that he has been going at, particularly in the past couple of days and he wasn't the only one who got emotional. His wife, Cindy McCain, when she was introducing him, when she said his name she broke up and she kind of just moved away and let him move over to the microphone. So as you could imagine, this is very trying for these families and when it reaches a climax they kind of let it out a little bit, Betty.</s>NGUYEN: It is a schedule that is almost unimaginable. Still 13 hours to go till the polls close and John McCain has a lot more work still to do today, although along with Dana some of us are going to try to get some sleep and John McCain is going to be one of them as well. Dana Bash, thank you so much.</s>BASH: Thank you.</s>HOLMES: All right. Let's bring our deputy political director Paul Steinhauser back in from New York. Paul, we keep talking about, they have a little more work to do on this Election Day. Is this traditionally and historically what we have seen? Do they still keep stumping on Election Day? Don't they usually lay low?</s>STEINHAUSER: Usually they lay low, but T.J., not this time. There is more work to be done. And, Dana, as you've just mentioned, was just talking about what John McCain is going to be doing today. What about his running mate? Sarah Palin wakes up in Alaska. She' s not even there yet. She's probably flying there as we speak, because we saw her in Nevada just about two hours ago. She votes in Wasilla, at the city hall there. And then, basically, she hops on another plan and flies back to Phoenix and she'll be hanging out with John McCain - and Dana Bash, I would assume -- down there, Tuesday night, tonight, I guess, if you want to call it - for, with McCain. As for Barack Obama, he's now in Chicago. You guys had those live pictures of him arriving in Chicago a couple hours ago. He wakes up Tuesday morning, this morning, in Chicago. He will vote. And then he's going to head next door to Indiana. And he's going to go to Indianapolis and meet and greet voters there, as they head to the polls. Indiana, of course, such a crucial state, we've been talking about it. It hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential election (sic) since 1964 and it's dead even in those polls there. Joe Biden, his running mate, he's not in Delaware. He ended up the night in Pennsylvania at a rally. Now back in Delaware, he's going to wake up and vote in Wilmington, Delaware. That's where he lives. He is going to head over to Virginia. Now, Virginia, another state just like Indiana, hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential election (sic) since, again, 1964. He will be in Richmond, Virginia. He is going to meet and greet voters heading to the polls. And then he's going to head out to Chicago, team up with Barack Obama and that is what is going to happen.</s>HOLMES: All right. That's it?</s>STEINHAUSER: That's it.</s>HOLMES: That's enough, isn't it?</s>STEINHAUSER: Yeah, that's enough.</s>HOLMES: What else can they possibly - are they still trying to get votes? What's the point in doing it? Like you say, we don't historically see them out and about on actual day, why was it important that they do it this time around?</s>STEINHAUSER: You know, it is, I guess, a little bit of symbolism, it gets them on TV, obviously. And, of course, they're going to crucial states. While they're doing this though, T.J., they're campaigns are doing the real work. It is called GOTV, Get Out The Vote. Both campaigns have sunk millions of dollars into this and they're going to have people across the country, in all the polling stations, and checking off whether they're supporters have voted or not, and if they're supporters haven't gone to the polls yet, they will be calling these people, making sure they get to the polls. If these people need rides, they will be doing it. It is a massive coordinated effort and they have new technology - bar codes, now, to check whether people have voted or not, instantly finding out. Getting out the vote, this effort is huge and it could be the reason why either John McCain or Barack Obama wins on election day.</s>HOLMES: Which is today, now, we're finally realizing.</s>STEINHAUSEER: Yes.</s>HOLMES: Paul Steinhauser, buddy, good to see you.</s>STEINHAUSER: Thanks.</s>BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR, ELECTION DAY '08: We've been covering this for so long you just kind of loose track of time. So throughout the night, or this morning, whatever you want to call it, the CNN Voter Hotline is logging more and more calls from people who worry that their votes won't count. Now, one caller says some people are being told they're not allowed to vote early. CNN's Josh Levs joins us with that disturbing story. It sounds like we're getting a lot of rumors out there.</s>JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We are, yeah. A lot of people really concerned about them, as you can imagine. It is a great thing we set up this hotline. I want to show you something. Let's zoom in back here. I want to show you a look at the numbers. What we've gotten. This right here, at CNN.com/hotline, you can see logs of calls from all over the country. This is our latest numbers over here. National complaints, total calls, is now close to 35,000 and the complaints among them is about a third. So, a lot of these are calling and saying, not sure where to vote, can you help me? But about a third of them saying there are some serious problems. Now this, is a call that we got from the toss-up state of Missouri.</s>ASHLEY THOMAS, KANSAS CITY, MO.: Here in the state of Missouri there is a little conflict as to whether you can vote early or not, and they're saying it's only reserved for veterans or people that are disabled. And then they're saying that anyone who does vote is being given a - the ballots where it really doesn't even count, whether you have all your information or not. I don't know if that's true, but that information has been given out a lot over the past couple of weeks.</s>LEVS: All right, now here's how it works. I want to give Ashley some information here. Basically, Missouri does not have early voting. What it has is absentee voting for people who have an official excuse. A lot of people have been lining up to do that. So it acts like early voting for those people. I pulled up the web site here, from the Missouri secretary of state. Let's zoom in on it for just a second so people can get a sense of who is allowed to do this inside Missouri. You have to have a official absence and these are the reasons that they allow you to do it. First of all, you have to not - if you are a normal voter who just won't be there, but also if you are someone who will still be in town, but has incapacity, or confinement, or religious reasons to do this; or if you're working as part of election authority that day. If you are working at the polls, that is another reason you're allowed to do it. Or people who are incarcerated and still allowed to vote. So, it is true that not everyone is allowed to do what some people are thinking of as early voting. But that is because it is absentee voting. One more thing, here, because we try to give people as many answers as we can. I want to show you this graphic from Kansas City, in Missouri. This is really interesting. I'm telling you all these people lining up. Check it out. They have 231,000 registered voters there this year. Well, 36,000 of those are new voters. This is microcosmic of what's going on in America. And a spokeswoman told us that, "We have never had this kind of absentee voting. We were overwhelmed." But she add that, of course, they're happy to see that kind of turn out. We're asking you to help us track voting problems. We're reporting them in real time, as you can see. That is the number, right there, 877-462-6608. It is 877-GOCNN-08. Also, if you forget that number, or you want to learn more about it, just go to CNN.com/hotline. You can see the map behind me. You can click on different states and you can see what's being reported in your state. Guys, we're keeping them honest all the way through election day, and beyond, this effort is going to keep going.</s>NGUYEN: All right. Thank you, Josh.</s>LEVS: Thanks, Betty.</s>NGUYEN: You know, it's not just the White House that is up for grabs today. Some of the other races could have an explosive impact on the Senate. And we're going to look at the battle for Capitol Hill.