RAK registers voters outside the Osan Air Show

RAK volunteers Kurt Mohay and Virginia Roberts registering voters outside Osan Air Force Base. My ironing board is in the background.

Despite a host of problems, RAK was able to register voters outside Osan AFB during its air show yesterday. The air show registration was originally going to be a joint event with Democrats Abroad-Korea, but that fell through after we were not able to get permission to set up inside the air base. On the other hand, that meant that, unlike the Yongsan event, we were able to be openly Republican (Our Bush/Cheney stickers were out).

Because we were unsure of what to expect, only a few volunteers made the trip down to Songtan. We were plesantly surprised to find that we could set up a table just outside the main gate. We were able to help 55 people register to vote or request an absentee ballot. We could have helped many more. Because of missed buses and trains, we did not start until about noon and we did not have enough volunteers, especially towards the end of the day when the air show was ending and people started flooding out. But is was still a good day's work.

Another piece of good news is that most of the military personnel that we talked to said that they have already registered to vote. Even if you assume that some of them were just saying that to get by, it is still a welcome improvement to 2000.

Special thanks goes out to Kurt Mohay, who did a great job bringing people to the tables to fill out the applications. Thanks also to Virginia and Evan Roberts, who brought the table for the event (which worked much better than my ironing board) and helped with registration. Bob Gilbert also put a lot of work into trying to get us on base. Their hard work helped make out last major voter registration effort a success.