Polls are beginning to close in the east coast and tonight it is going to be numbers, numbers, and more numbers on TV. For those of you looking for the stories behind the statistics, here are a few more of the wonderful election stories we've been receiving from our readers all day long. Here's one e-mail; there are three more after the jump.
From Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania:
When the poll in my suburban district opened at 7:00, I was approximately #30 in line. Within 5 minutes the line had doubled. Fortunately the poll-workers knew their business and were very pleasant and efficient. There were four touchscreen machines and the voters made their selections expeditiously, so it didn’t take long. By then time I left, the line had shortened considerably, to maybe 25 people total. I'm new to the neighborhood this year, but a man in line told me that he'd never seen that many people.
While we waited in line, some guy was attempting to hand us campaign literature. Pretty much everyone refused it. One guy jokingly asked if Tina Fey was on the list, and several people agreed that if she was she'd probably win. I called the Allegheny County Board of Elections to complain about the man flyering because I believe it's illegal, but I was transferred to someone's voicemail. I left a message, no idea if they'll do anything about it.
I carefully verified my selections before pressing the vote button on the touchscreen machine, and they certainly appeared to be correct, but since these machines have no paper trail, of course I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping that my vote is counted correctly.
From Edgewood, Kentucky:
Voting here went pretty smoothly this morning. My sister took her five year-old daughter so that she could take part in this historic election. There was a Kids Vote booth and the polling station, and my niece was very excited to tell me about how she got to vote for Barack Obama, then she went back to singing her “O-O-O-Obamaaaaaa” song. While KY will still almost undoubtedly go to McCain, but there was a larger than average Democratic presence, which hopefully translates into a bad day for Mitch McConnel.
I work in Cincinnati and I was struck by a couple of things on my way to the office. I passed two polling stations, and they both had full parking lots at 10:00am. I also passed two vans that were being used to help get voters to the polls, one was full and en route, the other was being filled by two older ladies in Obama shirts going door to door.
While I am definitely hoping that Obama wins, I am still absolutely amazed and excited by to see the people of our country getting so involved.
From Cobb County, Georgia:
I voted at my precinct in my very republican county this morning at about 11:00 a.m. There was no line, no wait, nada. This was one of 7 sites open in the county for early voting last week. I drove past it last Friday thinking that, perhaps on the afternoon of Halloween the line would be short. It wrapped around the parking lot like one of those terrible Atlanta airport security checkpoint lines. So I waited to vote until today. It was a breeze. What to make of it? I don't know. Perhaps the Republicans are staying home despite a hotly contested US Senate election.
From Ivan Shreve in Athens, Georgia
Just thought I'd drop a quick line and say that a pair of Obama workers were just showed up at my front door ten minutes ago. A young woman asked me if I had voted yet and I replied, "Yes, I voted last Wednesday." Since she was wearing an Obama apparel, I told her that I’d voted for the man on the front of your shirt.
There was a male volunteer with her who asked me about an individual on his voters list and I told him that she no longer lived at the address. But I was positively gobsmacked to see the level of the campaign's "ground game"--right at my front door. I've got a good feeling about tonight.
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