Personal Note: Election 2008

[nebroadwe]

When I arrived at my polling place at the firehouse about ten minutes before it opened, the line already reached from the door up the steps, past the flags and the memorial garden, and over into the parking lot, snaking down along the line of parked cars on the east side. People were pretty cheerful, though, either waiting silently or discussing their children's college applications ("At least he's heard from his safety school, eh?") or current grades ("Honors Algebra -- she got a C, and I dropped down on my knees and thanked God!"). I whiled away the time reading the awful doggerel on the reverse of the memorial stones in the garden; there's clearly a reason they don't face the street. (Public poets of the world, remember: meter is your friend!) The Republican Party operatives arrived and began outdoing the already-present Democratic Party operative in terms of lawn signs: at least two for every candidate on the ballot and four for the state rep. They acknowledged, however, that the Democratic Party operative had the better lunch.

My precinct took a giant leap forward after the 2004 election, moving from ancient, gray, pull-the-lever machines (one step above tossing your ostrakon into the bowl) to spiffy, gray, hit-the-pad-and-watch-the-red-light-turn-on machines. The poll workers had some trouble initializing them when I voted in the primary this spring, but today voting opened on time and without any visible hitches, except for the inability to keep the firehouse door open. First one of the Republican operatives (the one not busy with the signs) held it for us; then one of the firefighters waiting on line found enough cones to prop it. The person holding his spot pretended briefly not to recognize him when he returned; I joked that no good deed goes unpunished. Sadly, he had to relinquish his place again not five minutes later when the siren went.

Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. Ow.

This is the primary disadvantage of voting in a fire station, not quite outweighed by the ability to rubberneck at the engines while you wait. I was just stepping up to sign the register when the internal buzzer honked (they run that first, which gives you just enough time to stab your fingers into your ear canals before the actual siren starts in). The poll worker and I didn't bother to try to talk: I handed her my driver's license; she pointed to the signature box next to my name. Fortunately, the company only gives five blasts on the siren (for identification?) when they head out, so by the time I actually entered the booth to vote, it was quiet again.

All in all, it took about twenty minutes for me to cast my ballot once they opened for business. I headed in to work only a few minutes late, and as I walked to the trolley stop I noticed that the municipal building also had a line of voters out the door. This is unusual, at least since I've been registered here. Oddly, the neighborhood hadn't seemed as invested in political advertising as it did in 2004, when homeowners attempted to outdo one another with bunting and posters and yard signs touting the various candidates on offer. The only signs I've seen with any frequency this year supported the incumbent state rep, who has an office in the area. We're a swing county in a swing state, though, so the national campaigns have more than made up for that by robocalling me daily and stuffing my mailbox with portentous advertisements. Good thing I recycle.

On the trolley, the chattering high-school students were, for once, drowned out by a near-hysterical young woman wailing into her cell phone. "I know it's my fault -- they said there'd be a line, but I wasn't expecting it!" she lamented. "What if he loses by one vote? What if it's a tie and he loses because I didn't vote? I'm really annoyed with this job," she added, anticlimactically. I never found out who her candidate was -- probably one of the presidential hopefuls, but perhaps she'd conceived a desperate passion for her U.S. rep or one of the candidates for auditor general. Politics, bedfellows ...

Campus was all decked out with red, white and blue balloons and political flyers; there are several polling stations within shouting distance of the library, but I didn't pass any of them on my way in, so I couldn't say whether the local (largely student) population was crowding in or had all voted absentee in their home districts. Several of my coworkers were absent, working the polls; I'll be interested to hear their stories tomorrow (and nateprentice's, of course).

Further bulletins as events warrant!

Comments

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tip! I was already primed to look for ishte's biking footwear, but this helps, too.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Yesh, if you were traveling through Indiana, I'd say, 'look for the pawprints...."