Well it’s finally here, “Election Day 2008″. I decided that since the experts had indicated that a huge turnout would be voting today the best thing for me to do was to get in line early to cast my ballot. So at 5:05AM this morning I pulled into my polling place and I was #19 in line. One of the nice things about getting there early was that I had the opportunity to meet and talk with some very nice people.
There was the young lady who had recently moved from Ohio and was in Gwinnett County for her first election. She commented on how nice the weather was this morning, a little brisk, but no snow as she has seen in previous elections in Ohio. Those of us close to her in line informed her that we just don’t see much snow here however she should watch out for the dreaded “Ice Storm”.
The lady directly in front of me in line was a trip. We cut up for almost 2 hours while we waited for the poll to open. We joked about selling our place in line to the highest bidder, especially at about 6:30 when we guessed that there were probably close to 400 voters in line. We also joked with the gentleman directly behind us in line. You see he was setting a bad example for all the other husbands in Gwinnett County. He had voted early but got up and came to stand in line to reserve a place for his wife. Now that is a dedicated husband! A comment was made that this had to be somewhere in the wedding vows, maybe in the for better or for worse section. No this is just above and beyond the call of duty. We decided that he should be allowed to have whatever he wants for dinner tonight and advised his wife of that when she arrived at 6:45AM. We all got a good laugh.
Since I live in a large neighborhood, over 650 homes, it was inevitable that I would see some of the neighbors and even meet some that I had not met previously. Not only did this happen for me but also for several of the neighbors. We met college students who had come home to vote and were enlightened by their willingness to get up early to get in line to vote and then head by to Athens and UGA about an hour away to attend classes. It is good to see the youth getting involved in the election process.
Sure enough the doors opened at 7:00AM and in we went to begin filling out our paperwork. The poll had two machines to verify that we were in the right polling place and guess what, one of them was not operating right from the start. After a few minutes to reboot the machine it began working just fine. I hope that these two verification machines will be sufficient to handle the crowds. After casting my ballot I would estimate that there were probably close to 100 voters inside the building with another 500 to 600 still waiting in line to get in.
Make your plans to get to your polling place and cast your ballot. Rumor has it that the officials are expecting close to 5 million voters to turn out for today’s election in Georgia. Get out and vote, it’s you duty as an American.