Belligerence at the Polls

The 2012 presidential election is extremely close, with President Obama and Mitt Romney running nearly neck and neck according to a new NBC poll, and that pressure has reached the voting booth. According to the Huffington Post, voters in North Carolina during the last two weeks experienced harassment from "poll watchers" and campaign volunteers as people waited in line outside of their polling place. 

Aggressive electioneering has always been a problem, officials said. But never like this.

"They're being rude, disrespectful and really just downright mean to each other," said Michael Perry, who heads the Durham County election board. "Someone's talking to someone, then someone else might stand behind them and talk louder, or step in front of them. It's gotten to the point of personal name calling."

"We've had to call the police twice to one location," Perry said. At one center near a library, two people from rival campaigns "had gotten into such a loud verbal altercation that it became a disturbance for library patrons, so something had to be done about it."

Read more at the Huffington Post.

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