What's to say? Now, we wait. I mean, we vote and then wait. I can hardly stand the suspense!
Also, I'm stealing this photo from a friend of mine to show all you who live in more civilized places what our insano, Victorian-age voting contraptions look like.
Huge red lever, curtains, the whole thing. Seriously weird. But I only had to stand in line for half an hour! Early bird gets the ... shorter lines at the polling station?
22 comments:
Twenty minutes. Got there at 6. Then I went home and slept until 8.
As I said to Matt earlier today, my polling station was ridiculous.
It all started with a really nice white woman who tried to help me find the correct entrance to the school by speaking really slowly and using very dramatic hand gestures (b/c apparently, I'm Hispanic). It only got better.
I was like 5th in my particular line for about 45 minutes. The workers thought the voting booths were broken, but it turned out the levers were just really effing hard to pull. They also kept moving us around in lines--no one knew where they were supposed to stand b/c even if the sign for the line you were in said, for example, District 30, it might actually be for District 56. And guess what, you might have been standing in the wrong line for a half hour, and then made to stand in another one for an equally long period of time. Repeat until the workers figure out which line you should actually be standing in.
Two fights nearly broke out and much head-shaking and muttered cursing ensued. One guy just kept saying, "Democracy in action!" and sighing.
I'll be happy if my vote even goes through. But on a brighter note, I'm wearing my Barack t-shirt at work and no one can stop me.
Filled out my ballot while drinking a beer and mailed it in last week. I love absentee ballots.
However, after listening to some of the debates on the propositions, I would have changed a few of my votes...oh well, you can't always vote for the right thing...and chickens DO need bigger cages. Seriously.
Today is very exciting!
I'm glad I don't vote absentee. Despite the hassles, there's nothing like actually getting face to face with the ballot box (or archaic machine, as the case may be) on a historic day like this.
I walked by the history...the lines are long.
Maybe twenty minutes at my polling place, too. There was a bit of a crowd, but no more than three or four people in line for each voting booth.
And I must say, having voted four different ways (two different types of electronic voting machines, absentee ballot, and now the lever machines here), NY's archaic metal monsters give me the most anxiety about whether or not my vote actually got counted.
I sat at a table and filled out a scantron!
It was like high school...
I also filled out much of my ballot last week, but waited until today to finish the state and local measures. I am especially fond of the one dropping the requirement for a building permit for repairs/renovations costing under $35,000 and the one to require schools to teach students how to speak English. I am not very happy about the attempt in Oregon to block all but the two biggest political parties from the general election or the multiple attempts to add more mandatory minimums and take away judge discretion.
It is too late to mail in my ballot of course so I dropped it in the ballot box two blocks from my house in front of the police station. It took about a minute instead of 20 seconds because there were a few cars ahead of me. I voted from my truck after getting breakfast at the drive through and right before getting money and change for work at the bank drive through.
I usually run to the bank and close places (literally) but am grateful for transportation when I am sick like now.
I would really appreciate it if east coast news sources don't start calling elections over before people here even vote. Oregon voters have until 11PM eastern time to get our ballots in.
While I'm desperately ancy to know how this election will turn out, I completely agree with you, Steven, that the media should not prematurely call a winner. I think we at least learned that from the debacle of 2000. Really, it's unfair to make any such determinations until everyone from coast to coast has gotten their ballots in. But that won't stop them from doing it, because they all want to be first. CBS has said they might be able to make such an annoucement by 8 p.m. Eastern! That is infuriating.
Thank you. At 8 p.m. Eastern people on the west coast are still at work and many plan to vote on the way home or after. People should not be discouraged from voting because the news tells them they don't matter anymore.
I repeat, California, Hawaii, Idaho, North Dakota, Oregon, Washington, and other places are not finished voting until 11 PM Eastern. Alaskan polls do not close until midnight or 1 AM Eastern.
Screw you, Alaska.
Oh that's very nice. I bet people in Alaska would really appreciate that, including some of my very good friends. Grow up.
Apparently there have been problems at the polls in Virginia - even when people were trying to vote for Obama, it was defaulting to McCain. I guess there's something to say for the lines we Californians have to draw in a sweet game of "connect the arrow to choose your next president."
I am not very happy about the attempt in Oregon to block all but the two biggest political parties from the general election or the multiple attempts to add more mandatory minimums and take away judge discretion.
Something we agree on!
I'm also not happy about California's attempt to require parental notification for abortion, or ban same-sex marriage, and especially not about South Dakota's outrageous attempt to ban pretty much all abortions. (This is the test that supporters hope will make it to the Supreme Court to challenge Roe v. Wade.)
Check out all the other fun stuff states get to vote on.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/
POLITICS/11/04/state.laws/index.html
So many things to be worried about tonight! In New York, we need to watch to see if the Democrats take back the State Senate, putting the party in charge of the state for the first time in 73 years. That would then set us up to be the first state to legislate approval of same-sex marriage. Whee!
Matt, when I saw "I am not very happy about the attempt in Oregon" comment preview I assumed it was going to be something negative about something I said as usual. How nice.
"Screw you, Alaska" is obviously slander against the state, not the people in the state. Except maybe Governor Palin. Is she a friend? Sorry!
Hurray for small town voting. I walked in to the Masonic Hall, said hello to all my friends who were manning the sign-in tables, filled in the bubbles with the required black pen, fed my ballot into the mechanical ballot eater, got my "I have voted" sticker, and left. The car was right outside. All told it was about 5 minutes from car door to car door. Any body jealous?
Yay! Thank you New Yorkers!!! Obama won New York already!
Wow, back in Boston--er, Somerville, MA--I had to wait in line for an hour and a half (got there at 7:30, polls opened at 7:00). And, we had no levers, no scantron. We had to "Complete the arrows" with a special marker. Crazy.
I arrived at the polls at 6:50 am and heard "The polls are now open," on a very historic day. That was somewhat exhilarating. I waited about 20 minutes and I was the 7th person in line for my precinct. I'm not sure why they ask 80 year-old ladies to man the polls. Anyway, I, like Andy, filled out my scantron and like mama, fed it to the ballot collector machine. Then I headed to Starbucks for my free cup of java. They even put a little vanilla in it for free. Score!
However, after a day of totally feeling like crap physically, my emotions are torn. I am happy that we are looking at a Democratic government on the national level, I am VERY disappointed in the stupid Californian voters! Do they even realize that their votes just cost our already deficit state economy additional BILLIONS of dollars in new bond initiatives. What were they thinking? Not to mention how much Prop 2 is going to effect our food costs and farmers welfare, thus additionally effecting our state economy? Do I really need to say anything about Prop 8? Stupid Californians. I can say that for two reasons: 1-I am a Californian and 2-some of the employees at Josh's bank voted without even fully researching the props. One of them said but "The ad on TV said domn't support it." Hello, it's called politics, think for yourself. Don't substitute someone else's judgement for your own! Another even thinks that Obama is a terrorist!
Additionally, our local races were VERY exciting. The mayoral candidate we were supporting lost by 22 votes! One school board trustee was elected, while three others were re-elected, only one of whom I supported. So, that is disheartening.
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