So, Didja Vote Yet?

[lydamorehouse]

My family and I were up at the crack of dawn this morning and at our polling place by 6:30 am, where, I'm happy to say, there was already a long line formed. By the time the doors opened at 7:00 am, the line went around the block.

That being said, my polling place, as always, was a model of efficency. Oncethe doors were officially opened, we got through the line and cast our vote within fifteen minutes (for some reason it took Shawn a bit longer... more registered voters with last names that start with "S"? Her line was O-S, I think.) Plus, I've never really needed a privacy screen and I saw an official guy with clipboards, so I asked if I could just go ahead and use that rather than wait for an open "booth." Here in Minnesota we vote on paper. We fill out something that looks a little like the SAT tests you took in school, except that instead of a #2 pencil, we use special markers to completely fill in the circles. Ball point pens, however, are also valid. Once the ballot is filled out it gets sucked into a machine that electronically records the vote... but there's an actual paper trail, which has always made me feel secure.

It was easy. It was fast. It was... ridiculously exciting. I'm actually still kind of pumped from casting my ballot, as it were. Just think... tomorrow morning we could have the first black president of the United States.

Wouldn't that be f**king awesome?

Comments

[geekgirl33.livejournal.com]

We have a paper trail in Dane County as well. Sounds like it is similar to yours only we connect lines to make a solid arrow. I can't wait until this is over but I have the sinking suspicion that there will be some contested state or two and the fight will go on for a while.

Please let me be wrong and let Obama be declared without trouble before midnight central time.

Long lines

[(Anonymous)]

Extreme f**king awesome!

That said, I have to voice a comment on all the "long lines, not enough volunteers" hysteria NPR (and presumably the other media, I don't watch so don't know) have been throwing around the last couple of weeks. No mention has been made whatsoever of Oregon's answer to the long lines.

Vote by mail.

I filled out my ballot--paper, complete the arrow with ballpoint ink--at my kitchen table last week, surrounded by voter's guides, local newspaper endorsements, and what campaign literature wasn't too vomitously slanted or deceivious to take into consideration. Then dropped my ballot off at a curbside pickup box by the county elections office (there's also one at the branch library, the U of Oregon campus, and twenty other locations around the county). Or I coulda put 52 cents in postage on it and dropped it in the mailbox anytime up until last Thursday and let the postal person deliver it.

Simple. Rational. And I never have to go into the booth only to find out I'd forgot my homework on an obscure office or ballot measure again.

Best of all? No exit polls...

Frank

[darkchallenger.livejournal.com]

I rode my bike over to the polls at 9:30 and was done in ten minutes. Good to see lots of folks at the precinct and this beautiful Minnesota weather should really boost turnout.

[argonel.livejournal.com]

I had a 45 minute wait, but that's what happens when you show up at 6:15. By 7:00 the line was halfway across the parking lot. My ballot was the 9th one recorded at my polling place.

[tiernsshadow.livejournal.com]

I went at 10am and there was no line at my polling place. I'm in a neighborhood with Obama signs on most of the lawns, and everyone came out of the polling place wearing giant "We are participating in a historic event" grins. Couldn't help but grin myself...and now I'm doing it again.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

I voted!

[grrremlinski.livejournal.com]

There was no line when I went to my poll place after work, and the folks there told me that despite the lack of line, an unprecedented 80% of the voters in our district had already come through.

[robvagle.livejournal.com]

That would be a whole lot of f**king awesome!