Early voting started yesterday in Maryland, so I figured no better time than the present to go vote.
Maryland pass a constitutional amendment in 2008 allowing for early voting statewide and absentee voting without a reason. I voted early in the primary, which was a little disappointing. As a Democrat in Montgomery County, Maryland, you don't exactly get many choices, apart from the countless candidates for school board that I don't know and don't really care much about, as I don't have any school age children or plan to have any in the near future.
Needless to say, I was very excited to vote early in the general, though. In Maryland, we have a rematch between Martin O'Malley and Bob Ehrlich. Although O'Malley soundly defeated Bobby Governor, or as many like to refer to him "Big Cat on Head", as everyone knows, 2010 is a year where no incumbent is truly safe. So I made up my mind to go early vote on the first available day so that I could do as much as I could to help re-elect Gov. O'Malley and help out in other GOTV campaigns if I can.
I went after work yesterday to the closest early voting center to my home. When I early voted in September, I was one of maybe 3 other people there voting on a Saturday afternoon, what should be prime voting time. So I wandered over yesterday expecting to find about the same: lots of poll workers and hardly any voters. But I didn't.
When I got there, there was a line! I had to stand in line to vote! It was such as great feeling standing in that line, knowing that in a few minutes, I was going to cast my ballot to keep Maryland and the rest of the country moving forward. As I was standing in line, I noticed the certification from the county board of elections that had been posted on the door when they had come to collect ballots part way through the day. The time stamp on the slip said that it had been printed at about 3:30 yesterday afternoon. When I looked at the numbers, I was shocked! over 600 Democrats had voted between the hours of 10 AM when the polls opened and 3:30 PM when the certification was printed. There were also about 25 Republican voters and about 100 Other/Unaffiliated voters. The extremely low number of Republicans isn't any shock to me, as I live in MD-8 (Rep. Van Hollen's district), and registration runs about 100 D to 1 R where I am in the district.
So I finally got to cast my ballot to send Gov. O'Malley back to Annapolis, Sen. Mikulski and Rep. Van Hollen back to DC, and Bob Ehrlich back to the hole he crawled out of.
I'm off to do some GOTV work now. You should too. And vote early if you can and haven't!