I really feel like I took part in the news today. So often, you read about the huge voting lines that snake out from the polls and into the surrounding streets and the two hour waits for the opportunity to spend two minutes voting. And you think, dear readers, "Wow, where does that ever happen? Where I vote, it takes 10-15 minutes." Well, I showed up at 7:00 AM at my local polling station at Eleanor Roosevelt High School and found out that a couple of hundred (if not more) had decided to come a couple of hours earlier to sit and wait and take pictures. By the time, I cast my ballot, it was 9:00 AM, a good two hours of slowly progressing through line after line. We only had 13 voting machines and it easily could have been more. I mean, really, let's think about this: PG County is predominantly African-American. Barack Obama has energized African-Americans. There's a good chance that polling locales throughout PG County will be packed. And thus it was. Interesting notes: The people who were at the very front of the line were exclusively African-American. And it's not like there was a celebratory atmosphere about the whole event, but rather a steely determination to make sure their votes would count. It's been interesting to read some African-American commentators who have recounted their their own or their friends' fears that somehow the white establishment is going to to rig the election and Obama is going to lose...
I wrote like three or four different sentences after the previous paragraph, but they were all terrible. So, there will be no sentence that follows.
2 comments:
Oh come one. Tell us what you were going to say.
They were energized alright. Where I voted, we were all so friendly to each other, (probably in part because there were no lines). And then I remembered that a good percentage of the people that were all cheery were voting for Obama, and they were probably just happy cause he was going to win. Sad day.
Oh. Well, where I voted last week, early, I waited with Gabbie in the stroller less than 5 minutes, there was approximately 5 old folk volunteers per voter, that fretted and fussed about you, even one saying "oh come this way, dear, where's there more room, you have a carriage." A carriage?
They gave Gabbie at least 10 "I voted" stickers. I did think the VFW whispering "VOTE MCCAIN" to every body in their booths was a little out of line though...
dang geriatric peer pressure.
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