Voting

Just got after voting. Actually, as a local precinct captain, I did much more than voting with my day starting at 5:00 a.m.

After a quick shower and cup of coffee, I was loading the car and to the polls by 5:30 a.m. There was already a line and the Democrats were hard at work - my usual adversary who's been working my precinct for 30 years as well as a 80 year old retired WWII vet on a respirator. He sat at their table, she was handing out sample ballots.

I quickly set my table up, took a couple of minutes to put my signs up, and began handing out sample ballots. At 5:50 a.m. my poll watcher arrived and I had her in place inside. By 6:00 a.m. when the polls opened, we estimated a 45 minute wait to vote. By 6:10 a.m. it was up to 90 minutes and stayed that way until about 8:00 when they reconfigured the lines inside to move more people through. Newt Gingrich and his wife were dropped off by their car (Black Lincoln) around 8:15 and we spent a good 20 minutes talking and joking about the election. He is a shrewed politician, waiting along with everyone else, and chatting everyone on line up. He was gracious to everyone, Democrat and Republican, and asked for a Democrat sample ballot to use on TV later today. If you see him on TV holding up sample Virginia ballots, I gave him the green one.

My replacement, a doctor, showed up at 8:30 as well as the replacement for the inside poll watcher. Both appeared professional. The democrats shift change brought a 30 something year old guy who looked homeless as well as a charming Indian (as in the India sub continent) who was voting for Kerry because, well, I don't really know.

I got on line about 9:00 and it took me 35 minutes to walk through and vote. How did I vote - pretty much the same as
John Tant, who explains his decisions with regard to every issue (national and local) with far more elequence than I could. I'll just adopt his explanaitions.. My wife's votes were identical to mine.

I've got some work to do here in the office, so blogging will be light, and plan to return to my poll post by 4:00 for the evening rush hour. I'll post more tonight - if I get out at a reasonable hour. If they keep us there till 10:00 pm, then well, I'll post in the morning.