"Bust" For Bush

Johnny_Blaze_47 · 11-08-2004

http://www.nola.com/search/index.ssf...46190.xml?nola

BUSH OR BUST
To comply with polling rules, woman strips down to bra to cast vote
Saturday, November 06, 2004
By Sheila Grissett
East Jefferson bureau

Debbie Dupeire was so intent on helping to re-elect the president Tuesday that she shucked her Bush-Cheney T-shirt and voted in her bra after being told that state election law prohibits displaying a candidate's name in a polling place.

"I really thought it was OK to wear my shirt. I didn't go there to cause trouble," said the 38-year-old makeup artist from Jefferson.

Dupeire said she was worried that she would lose the chance to vote if she left to change her shirt after signing the voter's book; the commissioner in the busy polling place might not remember her, or might be away from the booth on break when she returned.

So Dupeire pulled off the offending red-white-and-blue shirt and marched into the booth at Deckbar Elementary School clad in her white sports bra, exercise pants and flip-flops.

Jefferson's Registrar of Voters Dennis DiMarco confirmed Friday that electioneering laws ban the display of candidates' names within 500 feet of a polling place. DiMarco said he wishes someone had seen Dupeire's shirt as soon as she came in, so corrective action could have been taken immediately.

But veteran poll commissioner Dorothy Angelico said the T-shirt wasn't spotted sooner because she and other commissioners were overwhelmed by the number of voters in the crowded space they share with two other precincts.

"I'm 80 years old . . . and I've never seen anything like it," Angelico said Friday, still chuckling about Dupeire's quick decision to get down to basics and vote. "It happened so fast, I don't think my husband and the other male commissioner even saw it happen," said Angelico, one of two female commissioners who broke the news to Dupeire.

Dupeire said she understood the request and is not angry about the incident, but thinks that Jefferson Parish might need more poll workers.

"I'd been in line wearing the shirt for 15 minutes, and no one said anything until I was about to vote," said Dupeire, who said she always votes. "Had they told me before I signed the book, I would have gone out and turned my shirt wrong-side out. But I wasn't going to leave after signing because I would have had no proof that I hadn't voted. I just did the fastest thing I could do to vote."