My partner and I woke up at 6am, when the polls open here in NYC. Brushed teeth, threw on clothes, fed the cat, then walked around the corner to the school where we vote – we can literally see our polling place from our window, which is pretty sweet. When we turned the corner, we were surprised to see a long line already wrapping around the opposite corner. We were excited at the turnout but a little worried about the wait. There was a bit of chaos inside; people were confused about whether or not folks who already knew their election district could bypass the longest lines (they could, at least early on), some folks started getting grumpy and impatient and frustrated by the confusion, and one of the voting machines broke down. But the line for our election district was rather short and things went pretty smoothly for us.
When I stepped into the booth after my partner, it was pretty damn exciting to see Obama/Biden right up in the top left corner. Finally, after this impossibly long presidential campaign and all of the ups and downs within it, the moment had arrived! I actually moved down the line to the right and found Obama/Biden on the Working Families Party ticket and voted for them there (New Yorkers, remember that you can do that – a vote for a candidate on the WP ticket counts just the same as a vote for the same candidate on the Democratic ticket and helps to support a third party.) Voted Working Families and Dems for everything else. The only Green Party candidates were McKinney and Clemente. I was tempted, really tempted to vote for them. Still feel a little conflicted about that. Sigh. (IRV, IRV, IRV!) I checked my entire ballot over about six times, then pulled that big red lever to the left and locked in the most exciting vote of my life thusfar.
The lines were still stretched out long when we left the polling place, beaming happily but unfortunately not wearing an “I VOTED” sticker – they didn’t have any! Anyhow, I hope people stick it out through the long waits. Since I live so close to the school I might try to check out the situation later and maybe figure out a way to help people endure the long wait.
So – how about you? Head over to my post on Feministe to share your voting stories. You can also share them here, but I’m guessing there will be more people posting comments over there.
