Carmen Lampe Zeitler and John Zeitler honored a late friend who was very politically active, and wore buttons that read “Josh Sent Me” to their polling place in Des Moines. (Photo by Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
DES MOINES — Carmen Lampe Zeitler and John Zeitler walked out of the polling area at Central Presbyterian Church on Grand Avenue this morning proudly wearing buttons that read “Josh Sent Me.”
Lampe Zeitler explained the buttons were in honor of a friend’s son, Josh Riggle, who died recently at a young age.
“He’d be really pissed that he couldn’t vote in this election,” Lampe Zeitler said and spoke about Riggle’s political activism.
Lampe Zeitler said Riggle’s mother made the buttons and gave them out to her late son’s friends and family.
“So we should all go vote and tell them Josh sent us,” Lampe Zeitler said.
She said she would have voted regardless, and opened up her jacket to reveal a t-shirt endorsing Kamala Harris. Lampe Zeitler said she also voted for Lanon Baccam in the congressional race.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
Poll workers at precinct 40 for Des Moines said the traffic was heavy early in the morning from about 7 a.m. until 7:45 a.m. and that there had been a steady flow of people coming in to vote all morning. Marianne Monday-Edsill said “everything has just been swimming,” for poll workers thus far into the day.
Staci Williams, who voted for Harris in the presidential race, said she was encouraged by the amount of people at the polling place.
“I’m cautiously optimistic,” Williams said. “I think if there’s a really strong turnout, it will lean Democrat.”
Williams said the “attacks” on women’s freedoms and on LGBTQ populations are some of the issues that are most important to her.
“It was incredible,” Williams said when asked about getting to vote for a female presidential candidate. “Hopefully a different outcome than the last time I got to vote for a female.”
Donna and Ralph Rieck said they voted because it’s part of their “duty” and it’s something they’ve done for 50 years.
The couple declined to share who they voted for, but said they were registered Republicans.
“(We’re) not happy with what’s going on in the fighting and the ugliness that’s in this race,” Donna Rieck said and said it’s the first time she has felt this way towards her party.
“We have to keep the democracy together,” Ralph Rieck said about what’s most important to him as a voter.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.