(OK--This turned out to be longer than I expected. Sorry for length!)
In junior high school, I remember a history teacher telling us that Hitler won an election by a single vote. Honestly, I'm not entirely sure if that's even true; however, that has always stuck with me and I have always felt, even as a teenager, that voting is incredibly important.
Having said that, I've also felt for many years that as a young person, my vote wouldn't mean much because mostly older folks vote and they tend to be more conservative, and I know most folks in my age group have felt the same, so those of us that did vote wouldn't be enough to do much good. This is something I have personally observed--at least until this year. At least, until Obama came along! Now I kind of think that young voters will be what makes the election. So, I didnt' end up getting the energy together to vote in the last presidential election.
I was going to vote for Kerry last time, but didn't make it to my polling location because I just couldn't get myself motivated to walk to it. I've always felt guilty about not voting that time..I hated Bush and co. at that point because of the war, and the Patriot act, etc. and I really wanted him out of there. I was about 21 for the last election, so it's my age group that is over there fighting.
So anyway, today was the first day of early voting in West Virginia. I'm 25, and this is my first time voting in a presidential election. It was just before 9 a.m. when I arrived at the County Clerk's Office. There were about 20ish people there ahead of me, mostly older and middle-aged folks. I think I was the youngest in the room!Well, there was one other girl that looked about my age, possible a tad younger. It was very orderly and everyone was quiet to allow the voters to make their selections. There were about 9 or so voting machines.
I got in line and took my registration card to the two ladies sitting at a desk. They each had a computer and found my info in the files. I was asked to sign a paper, and they wrote my precinct number and gave it to me. She told me that they had way more people than they expected! The polls had been open for about 25 minutes. And more folks were lining up. I just smiled and said "It's a big election."
I waited in another queue for a lady to take me to a machine. When they were ready for me, she came, took the paper with my precinct number, and took me over to an empty machine. She entered my precinct and asked if I knew how to use the machine. I voted in the primary for Obama so I remembered how to use it, and she left me to vote.
In my county we use electronic touch screen voting machines. They DO have a paper trail. It looks like receipt tape (like at the grocery store registers) inside a glass window. You can see every choice you make on the paper, even if you select and then de-select a candidate.
There was the ballot! I was excited. First off, candidates for President of the United States of America.
The first choice: John S McCain III. Hells no! I certainly don't want THAT ONE. Second was Barack Obama, from Chicago, Illinois. I selected Obama, of course. I watched as the machine printed "OBAMA" by choice for president. I nearly teared up. I want Obama to win so badly. I want my peers to come home from Iraq, and to finish their mission in Afghanistan so they can come home. I want our economy to get better. I'm actually homeless right now. I come to the libary every day to read the news and Dkos and keep up with everything. I became aware of Obama a couple of years ago and was hoping for him to run for POTUS. I was so excited last year when he made the announcement that he was running, and I've followed the campaign with bated breath since that day. It felt like all the wishing and hoping and work I've done--mostly educating my family and friends about Obama's positions and policies-and for that matter, McCain's as well, (I mean really, all you have to do is explain EXACTLY what McCain wants to do and leave it at that...his horrible policies speak for themselves!) had finally brought me to that moment. I felt such pride.
So anyway, I continued voting. I'm not as familiar with the local candidates as the national. I did vote pretty much straight dem though. There were a few I knew NOT to vote for, for various reasons, so I didn't chose the "vote straight democrat" option for that reason. Besides, I wanted to select Obama myself, as well as checking the paper trail to verify that my votes were being cast the way I wanted. As I worked my way through the ballot, I doubled checked every so often to make sure my votes were correct, and they were. At the end, it makes you go back and review all of your selections. Once again I almost teared up when I saw my selection for POTUS: Obama/Biden. At this point, I realized... I haven't seen Anne Barth anywhere! I'd heard of here through DKos but I didn't see her. It took me a minute but then I realized that I am in a different district. I was disappointed, because I really, really wanted to vote agaisnt Shelley M Capito! Oh well. I got my vote for prez though, and that was the one I wanted most! At the end when I had reviewed all of my choices, a green light at the top of the machine next to "Vote now" lit up and the words "Cast your ballot" appeared on the screen with a button to touch. For the third time, I nearly got weepy. This election means so much to me--I am having a really hard time finding a job, I got kinda screwed out of college and have to come up with a couple grand to get it fixed so I can finish my degree, I'm staying at a horrible shelter (I'll diary this experience when it's over), I don't have healthcare but I do have a ton of health issues, and besides, I'm terrified of a McCain/Palin administration. I can't wait for election night.
As a side note, at least 15 or so people were in line to vote behind me! And more were coming in as I left. The poll workers are going to have a long day I'll bet!
Thanks for reading my story...Here's some awesome fuzzy pandas, and a couple of great vids!
Panda Yoga: