This is my diary encouraging everyone to get out there and early vote if it is available in your state! Here's my story:
I am a man of habit. I'm only in my mid-20's, but since I turned 18, I've voted in every election possible, be it city, county, state or national. Primaries and general elections. As far as I can figure, I've voted in at least 10 different elections in my short time as an eligible voter.
I'm not by any means a morning person. I do like being up in the morning, I just hate getting up. The one exception to this is on election days...especially national election days: I would always wake up at 7 a.m., walk or drive to my voting location, vote, stop some place for coffee/breakfast, then return home and turn on CNN or MSNBC to watch the election results stream in (usually I'd have a good 8 hours before any results actually started).
I had rarely...in fact, I have never encountered a line at my polling location. Since I knew turnout was going to be massive this year, and since I plan on being in Chicago this year on November 4th, yesterday I bit the bullet and went in and cast my early-vote ballot.
Let me tell you about my experience.
I live in very liberal Mid-Town Omaha. In fact, I probably live in the most liberal neighborhood in the entire state of Nebraska; a place where Obama signs and stickers out number McCain's at least 10 if not 20-1. A neighborhood where people proudly display Rainbow Flags. If Obama pulls out a win in NE-2, it's going to be largely based on how well this part of town turns out.
72nd Street is the demarcation point between liberal Midtown and Downtown Omaha and the rest of the state (save a few neighborhoods around the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 45 minutes to the South-West on I-80). Coincidentally (or perhaps not), East of 72nd street is the older part of town that was built in the pre-automobile age. Things are more compact, everything is more pedestrian friendly, there are bike lanes, etc.
West of 72nd is primarily development that occured after the 1950's: everything is spread out and surrounded by oceans of parking lots, buildings are short, boxy and ugly (although new city design guidelines have actually helped to prevent this from happening anymore).
This map is 14 years old, but it's still a pretty accurate depiction of the political divisions in Omaha:
So yesterday, I trudged out into that sea of red to go drop of my girlfriend's voter registration form and to early vote.
The Douglas County Election Office is tucked away in the back of a commercial and light industry area, and I had a little trouble finding it at first.
I had purposefully waited until after lunch time to avoid the lunch rush, but I got there around 2 p.m. and there was a line of cars waiting to get into the parking lot. After about 4 or 5 minutes, I was able to find a parking spot.
It was a beautifully crisp fall day. As I walked from my car to the election office, I counted 4 Obama stickers, and I didn't see any McCain stickers. Outside of the office just to the left of the entrance, some elections official was being interviewed by some news crew that didn't look local to me.
I didn't hear all of their conversation, but I heard the interviewer ask something like: "Are you surprised by the turnout?"
And he responded: "Yes, this is the busiest I've ever seen it. We're almost overwhelmed by the number of people turning out."
I walked in the door of the small, nondescript office and immediately ran into the back of the line. It was not a very big room, but the line of people snaked back and forth through it, taking up every available foot of space. I whistled in amazement and slight annoyance (I had an appointment I had to be to at 3).
It was 2:05. A young, quite gorgeous election official came up to me and asked why I was there, and then gave me the appropriate forms on a clipboard. There were so many people there that they were running out of clipboards and she had to keep going through the line to collect them from people who were finished filling out their forms.
Pretty much every demographic was represented in this line. Young college kids, business men, middle aged African American women, the old peeps, Latinos, Asians...you name it, they were standing in the line.
There was a woman about 3 or 4 people ahead of me in line that kept talking really loudly to the lady behind her, even though the lady clearly was not interested in anything this lady had to say.
By the time I got to the front of the line it was 2:35. I walked up to the counter which had five computers setup fairly close to one another. I gave the lady behind one of the computers my information. Since I just moved, I wanted to make sure they had gotten my change of address form, which they had.
She handed me my early voting ballot and I walked over to a bank of about a half-dozen booths setup behind some ropes on the far side of the room.
We do paper, scantron type ballots in Nebraska (never underestimate the pragmatic nature of Nebraskans). I pulled my ballot out of the envelope and looked at it.
I literally got light headed when I saw Barack Obama's name. I've been following him closely since 2004, read his books, studied his career, hoped beyond hope that he would run in 2008, caucused for him back in February...it was a surreal moment to see his name on the ballot. No one I've ever supported for President has won (again, I'm only in my mid-20s).
I grabbed the provided pencil and filled in that oval next to his name. I double and triple-checked to make sure that I filled everything in right. I went over that oval a dozen times with my pencil, making it as dark as I possibly could...I really wanted to make sure it counted.
I filled out the rest of the ballot, put it back in the envelope, sealed the envelope and signed my name on the outside. I walked over to the middle aged black lady sitting by the door and proudly handed her my ballot, which she slipped into the locked metal box.
She muttered a dry "Have a nice day." and handed me my "I Voted Today!" sticker. I put the sticker on my shirt and headed out into the beautiful sunlight. What a day.