November 4, 2008 was my only second time to work at the polls. The first experience, at the local primaries, was fairly boring, but not this one! Nov.4th was a very good experience.
Since I had heard about people standing in lines for 8 hours in other states, I went to the polling place at 5:30am, prepared to stay there until Midnight. Needless to say, I carry enough food to survive until the next day.
There were six of us working at that polling site. When I got there, voters had already lined up- I was told they were there at 5:10am (polls opened at 6:00am). When our polls opened, that was the only long line of the day. Rest of the day there was a constant flux of voters, moving at a very manageable pace. There were lots of new voters in the 18-21 age group. They were excited and so were we. Some people broughts kids along. The youngest was 3 months old. There was a lot of energy in the atmosphere, because everyone seemed to excited. This election definitely inspired voters- no matter what party they belonged to.
Since we had to be quarantined while the polls were open, I missed the TV coverage. I made a couple of phone calls to find out what was happening- not much, I was told. I thought I would get home by 8pm and watch the elections coverage on TV.
At closing time - 7:00pm- there was no line, so we started packing immediately. It took almost 90 minutes to finish. Then I rewarded myself with the free coffee at Starbucks. It was the same Starbucks where I had hosted two postcard parties for Obama. It was a very appropriate place to celebrate. By the time I got home, the networks had announced Obama winner. I was so happy; there was no way I was going to have any regrets about missing the TV chatter.
Then came McCain's concession speech, and Obama's victory speech. It was still only 9pm here. McCain was gracious. It was so exciting to see Barack being announced as 'President elect'. I was happy that I did not have to pull an all-nighter to find out who won. The decisive, landslide victory was just icing on the cake. I watched coverage of the elections until 1:30am- it was nice to watch the 200,000 crowd in Chicago, Jesse Jackson's tears, Opra's tears. We were witnessing history! What was not nice was the crowd in Phoenix booing McCain for conceding the election so early (9pm, MST). What could he have done? I think he did well to concede early.
Working at the polls can be quite an experience. Things ran smoothly where I worked. After the material was signed and taken away, I had a sense of accomplishment. I highly recommend that more people volunteer to work at the polls. If they have enough workers, they could open more polling places, and that will make the lines shorter.