Battlegrounders
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MICHIGAN: GRAND RAPIDS REPORT [Brian Flanagan 11/02 01:04 PM]

The rain is not turning Michigan voters away. A report from Bush country. Colleagues of the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies are reporting heavy voter turnout in the affluent suburbs of Grand Rapids: in East Grand Rapids, Forrest Hills, and Grand Rapids Township.

Meanwhile traffic has been equally heavy in Wyoming, Michigan, a working-class suburb of Grand Rapids. At Kent County precinct 17 volunteer workers talked about being overwhelmed by an overflowing parking lot and a three-hour line early this morning.

Gleaves Whitney, director of the Hauenstein Center, reported a thirty-minute wait shortly before noon at the relatively liberal college town of East Lansing. He inquired whether any poll watchers had shown up, and officials there said they had not as of noon.

Judy Putnam and Peter Luke of the Booth Newspapers Lansing Bureau said that "Record-breaking voter turnout could mean record-breaking lines in Michigan today."

Where the weather has failed to suppress the vote, man is determined to step-in. The Associated Press and the Detroit Free Press are releasing reports of disruptions at the precincts. Secretary of State Land's office told the Associated Press that they had received complaints about members of the liberal group MoveOn.org causing disruptions across the state.

— Brian Flanagan, Assistant Director, Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies, Grand Rapids