On the way home from work last night I swung by the early voting location in my home town. This is North Carolina, so that means we've got One-Stop Early Voting this week. In my case the polls have been open all week from 11 AM to 7 PM and 10 AM to 1 PM today (Saturday). That's a tight fit for some people, but preferable to gambling that you'll be able to get away from work long enough to vote this coming Tuesday.
Anyway, with all the talk about an "enthusiasm gap" and the attendant predictions of low voter turnout as usual in a mid-term election, my expectation was that I'd be able to sail through voting. As I pulled into the parking garage next to the town's community center I called home and left a message that I'd be home "in about fifteen minutes".
Imagine my disappointment when I found myself at the end of a long line going into the community center, surrounded by other surprised voters firing up their cell phones to report that things were not going as planned.
Yesterday's early voting numbers from the NC state BOE aren't nearly as spectacular as what we saw in 2008 (as of yesterday turnout was 11.9%, 2 years ago it was 40%), but they also don't seem to be the harbinger of voter apathy we've been told is gripping the electorate. The trend all week has been ever-increasing numbers of people coming out to vote early. The numbers have also shown Democratic voters outnumbering Republicans. Independent voters (labelled "UNA" or Unaffiliated probably in an effort to de-romanticize their status) like me have also come out in healthy numbers.
So the question remains: last night I lost a half hour waiting in line to vote in an election that was predicted to have only "light turnout", who's going to pay for that?