Election Day, 2004

[grrgoyl]

WHEW.   It's done.   We voted, and the patriotic high is beginning to wear off.  All in all without a hitch, although they couldn't have found a narrower location to try to set up 3 side-by-side lines without hiring a series of schoolbuses for us to walk through.   And people.   How many weeks have you known this was the polling site?   And in that time, it occurred to NO ONE to get some kind of signage so people knew which line to stand in?    Sending out a 4-foot tall woman to holler "422 needs to stand against THIS wall" (ummm, we can't see you back here) "423 against THIS wall" (still can't see you) "and 437 in the middle.   If you are in the wrong line, you WILL be sent back to the end"  really isn't satisfactory. People started getting a bit ugly after waiting in the wrong line for half an hour and having to go back to the end, but overall they remained civil.  And redundancies...first we got our name checked off the list as eligible to vote. Then an additional worker handed you a card that said "Ready to Vote." Was this necessary? Wasn't it a given that if you make it past the list-man's table that you were good to go? And if the cards WERE necessary by some antiquated law, was the list-man so harried that he couldn't handle both jobs? I thought the "ready to vote" lady would have better served by going out to the end of the line and directing traffic. Tery is sure they'll work out all the bugs by tonight when the after-work crowd shows up.  Based on the large amounts of available parking by the time we emerged, we probably DIDN'T need to be there the minute they opened at 7.    I was prepared to wait in line all day if necessary, but the whole process took just about an hour, a small price to pay for democracy.

Still, glorious.   I've never seen so many people come out to vote.   I tried not to think about the possibility that being in Republican Colorado, we might very well have been surrounded by the Enemy.   I was so super paranoid about making sure I hadn't hastily hit the wrong button that I checked it three times.   But I don't think the butterflies will go away entirely until it's all over, and Kerry makes his victory speech.    Thank god I have to work tonight.

If you haven't already, get your ass out there and vote, goddammit.   Preferably for Kerry.