Posts tagged voting
Making History
Nov 4th
I wanted to document this day in our online journal. Ryan and I woke up early and walked to our polling place (only 2 blocks from the house) this morning to vote. I don’t know how he voted on anything other than the Presidential ballot (we are both Barack Obama supporters, and proud of it, if you couldn’t tell). The line was out the door as soon as it opened up, but it was moving pretty quickly. People stood in line quietly, visiting with each other or just waiting patiently for their turn. It seemed like there were a lot more people in the 2nd half of the alphabet – our line was long, and the A-K lines were almost empty most of the time. Odd.
Now that we’ve done what we can, it’s kind of weird to sit here waiting for the day to end and the results to come in. There’s nothing else to be done. This is it…what we’ve been waiting for. And I’m so excited to be a part of it. Now I just hope it turns out the way I want it to. We are having some friends over tonight to hang out and watch the results. I’m thinking it’s going to be a happy get together. We are making buffalo chicken dip. It’s all a little surreal right now. I’ll say one thing – if Obama/Biden win, I will be elated not only because I agree with most of what they stand for, but also because I (hopefully) will not have to hear from Sarah Palin again until at least 2012. As I told a friend this morning, maybe she can find a respectable newspaper or magazine to read by then.
What are your election day stories? Were the lines long? Are you voting later on today? Fill us in.
A quick rundown
Nov 3rd
Halloween was awesome, visiting friends and Ryan’s family was great. Pictures will come soon. But just in case I don’t get back here, I want to remind everyone to VOTE tomorrow. Whoever you are supporting, make sure you get educated on the choices you have and make your voice heard!
I’ll be going before work tomorrow to try to avoid the super-huge lines I’m sure will be there after work. Plus, our polling place is only 2 blocks away. I can walk! ;-) Let’s all do our part to make sure that we have a say tomorrow. And if you can help someone else have their say by maybe giving them a ride to the polls, or watching their kids while they go vote you should do that too (although it would be a pretty cool experience for older children to see their parents vote).
I don’t know how widespread this will be – especially after a law was passed restricting it after the 2004 election, but if you see something going on at the polls that doesn’t seem right – people being intimidated, lied to, whatever, you can call 1-866-OUR-VOTE to report it and get advice. But I heard on MPR this morning that after the 2004 election, Minnesota passed some rules about challenging – mostly, you can’t bring in people from out of state to challenge a person’s right to vote, and the challenger has to have “personal knowledge” that the person they are challenging isn’t elligible. So hopefully it won’t be a big issue here. But for those of you in other states – be on the lookout. No one should feel intimidated into not voting if they are elligible.
