Votin’ it *clap clap*
typed for your pleasure on 4 November 2008, at 7.35 pmSdtrk: ‘Amour, vacances et baroque’ by Paul Piot & Paul Guiot
You might find this hard to believe, but I used to be a lot more cynical than I am now, at least when it came to politics. You could encapsulate my feelings about the voting process in a bumper sticker: ‘Don’t vote, it only encourages them’. However, since the Second Reich of George W., I changed my thinking to, ‘if you don’t vote, you have no-one to blame but yourself’. Well, myself, and everyone who deliberately votes for bigoted stupidity. So I voted in the last election, and I sure as fuck voted in this one.
They let us out fifteen minutes early at work, to allow people to get to the polls that much quicker. From the horror stories I was hearing from coworkers about lines wrapping round the block at the polling stations, I steeled myself for a two- to three-hour wait. Which wouldn’t have been that bad, as I had my .mp3 player, and I was going to use my Treo to finish up a couple of Emails. To that end, I was partially disappointed when I saw there were plenty of parking spaces at my precinct, as well as a complete lack of lines, when I arrived there at ten after five. I think if it were later in the day, it would’ve been more worrisome — I was one of seven people voting at that time — but I reasoned that at 5pm, most people would’ve been exiting their places of work at that point. I beat the rush!
Blurry, but you get the idea. Incidentally, I was voter no.361 in my precinct
All told, the whole process felt pretty good — I felt like I wasn’t just throwing my vote away.
You can do it, Brak O’Bama! If you won in the 7-Election polls, victory is assured everywhere else!
EDIT (11.40 pm): WOOOOOOOOOO
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November 4th, 2008 at 9.21 pm
I read in the news to maybe bring a crossword or something to kill time while waiting in line… I brought my DS. Got there about 5:30, walked in, 10 minutes later walked out. Took me longer to get there due to rush-hour. Where the hell were the lines they predicted? Dragged the DS around for nothin! Oh well, I did my civic duty, nuff said.
November 5th, 2008 at 3.07 pm
I’m so glad I live in a small town! I didn’t have to worry about long lines. Voting was very quick and easy.
I’m shocked that my seemingly extra-redneck state of VA was blue! Yay Barack Obama!
November 5th, 2008 at 8.59 pm
I voted early because I work (or used to!) over an hour away from my precinct. I live in a small southern town (yeah, I know) and not only had the mullets rised up and graffitied every Obama sign in the county, but they also stole my Obama bumper sticker. It’s pure madness, you would think they had canceled NASCAR or something.
November 6th, 2008 at 9.24 pm
This was a joy for this cynical old heart! A high voter turnout, with both popular and electoral majorities!
He made his case and earned the vote.
May the Fates smile upon him! 😀
November 7th, 2008 at 12.58 pm
Euchre –
You dragged that big, heavy DS in its official Nintendo trailer down there for nothin’. 🙂
Were you like me initially, thinking ‘okay, where is everyone? DID EVERYONE FORGET TO VOTE TODAY??!?’ Cos that thought ran through my head for a number of minutes…
Jamie –
Virginia, I think, astounded everyone. Formerly a Rethuglican (thanks for that term, by the way) state, it now seems that the old guard of hillbillies and bigots is starting to die out, which is fantastic. Well done, Jamie, and well done, Virginia!
Laura –
On my way to work, there’s a house that has had Obama/Biden signs flanking either side of its driveway, that were probably up since the beginning of October. Every now and again, I’d notice that one or both of the signs was damaged or missing. One day, I was driving slowly enough to notice a new hand-lettered sign: ‘EVERY SIGN YOU STEAL IS A DONATION WE MAKE TO OBAMA’. That effecively nipped the vandalism in the bud. 🙂
That’s ridiculous (and a bit scary) that they’d even resort to stealing a bumper sticker off your car. Freedom of expression is an alien concept to those ‘people’.
‘RETHUGLICANS: It’s not Fascism if we do it!’ 😐
Mahtek –
It’s times like these when you think, ‘wow; the system actually can work’. Of course, like The Onion wrote, you could argue that the state of the nation has gotten so bad that people are willing to try anything new, but in the end equation, that’s a good thing. If it wakes people up from a complacency and gets them to think ‘outside of the box’, then it’s all worth it.
A history-making election, on the cusp of positive change? This is definitely going to be worth viewing. 🙂