Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Voting

I got up early because I haven't adjusted to the change in time yet. I decided to go and vote before going to work.

I got in line around 6:35 am. I was given a number. I'm not exactly sure why but my number was 79. I'd say that by the time the polls opened at 7 there were at least 200 people in line.

The voting is done in a school's art room. The set up is not the best because there's only one door and it's a regular size door. Other than that it's fine. I was lucky that my last name fell in one of the shorter lines to check in. As the person in front of me was signing their name, I was giving the poll worker my drivers license. It sped things up considerably. Once I signed my name I went to another line to receive my ballot.

I got the ballot and then it was off to vote. The ballots we use are read by an optical character reader. What you do is link two ends of an arrow. There's the name of the person you are voting for and then the end of the arrow. There is then an empty space and then the start of the arrow. You take a number two pencil and draw a line connecting the two parts of the arrow.

Here's an example (click on it for a larger view):














I have to say I paused for a second to take in how historic a moment this was. I very carefully marked my ballot for Obama/Biden and then filled in the rest of it. I then very carefully checked my ballot to make sure I'd voted for who I want to vote for. I think took it over to the machine and put it and got my I voted sticker.

When I walked out of the school I walked passed the line of people waiting to vote. It was essentially where it had been right before the polls had opened. Again my guess there were probably around 200 people in line.

I've done my part to help elect Barack Obama president.

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