The polls opened this morning in Washington at 8am (11am EST), just as I was trying to coax my third grader out of bed in time to eat breakfast and catch the school bus.
At 8:30 a.m., after watching the school bus drive away, I intended on going right to vote. But my husband, who had an unexpectedly free morning, invited me to go to breakfast.
So after an unintentionally leisurely breakfast (great food but slow service) we went our separate ways.
I vote at a megachurch with seven other precincts. Huge parking lot, plenty of space. Typical of this part of the continent, it's all big hills, with the church set at the bottom. Usually I can park in the parking lot closest to the entrance. Today, I had to park one hill up. When I entered, it wasn't as busy as I expect it to be -- the registration tables were one deep, and all the carrolls were filled. There is one electronic machine, and there was a small handful of people waiting to use it.
The tables had the names of the precincts on signs hanging on the front. The problem was that the people signing in blocked the signs, so there was some good-natured neck craning and shuffling back and forth. I was #20 in my precinct -- usually I am #1 or #6, so I was pleased to see the active turnout. I live in what I think is the most apathetic precinct in my legislative district, so that was exciting to see.
Once I had my ballot, I had to wait a couple of minutes for a carroll, but once I was in there I voted quickly. We had a lot of county initiatives and unopposed judges on the ballot, which took a little longer. On our ballot we are required to fill in an oval to the left of the candidate's name, like taking a standardized test. I confess that I teared up when I voted for Obama/Biden and for my neighbor, Darcy Burner, who is running to unseat our incumbent Congressman.
As I was leaving, I saw Darcy, so I stopped and wished her luck. From the time I arrived to the time I was driving out of the parking lot it was fifteen minutes.
I love voting!
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