It's an election day here in Cali today...

...statewide, we're voting on a bunch of propositions, several the darlings of Arnold Schwarzenegger. In San Diego, we've also got a mayoral race up for grabs. I had pretty strong feelings about both the props and the mayor's race, so I did a little campaign volunteering for the first time in my life.

On Saturday, I walked a 4-square-block area in San Diego's North Park neighborhood, knocking on doors of registered Democrats and asking them to vote for mayoral candidate Donna Frye. I followed that up on election day today by "poll-checking," where I periodically checked to see who in the 'hood had yet to vote (polls post an updated list every hour) and then knocked on those peoples' doors, encouraging them to get out and vote for Donna. Though I was initially nervous and unsure of what to expect, both outings turned out to be enjoyable: I got some exercise, talked about the mayor's race to a lot of people, and felt like I made a small contribution to Donna's campaign.

In between my two stints for Donna Frye, I also spent a few hours at a teacher's union, calling registered Democrats and asking them to vote no on propositions 74 through 77, which Arnold had put on the ballot. In 3 hours I made about 100 phone calls, reaching roughly 40 people and leaving messages with about 40 others (with the remaining calls going unanswered or going to disconnected numbers). Most people I talked to said they were going to vote no. One woman spent a full 15 minutes reviewing each proposition with me after initially complaining - rightfully, in my opinion - that the explanations in the voter's guidebook were hard to decipher. At the end of the call, it sounded like I had convinced her to nix the props, so that was cool.