04 November 2008

election day

Happy Election Day! I hope you're all going out to vote today.

James has the day off of school today, so after breakfast all four of us headed down to our town hall to vote. No voter drama here -- there was one couple ahead of us in line, voting went off without a hitch, and the poll workers gave my kids their own "I Voted Today" stickers. Then we headed to Starbucks for our free coffee (we don't have a Ben & Jerry's near us, and I didn't know about Krispy Kreme in time or else my children would have been in a sugar coma before lunchtime).

I have to say, regardless of political affiliations or opinions, Election Day is so exciting to me. It was so nice waiting in Starbucks and seeing almost every other person wearing wearing an "I Voted Today" sticker, and conversing with fellow voters. Evan finally changed his mind about McCain and was chattering happily about Obama, to the delight of other customers. We overheard one pair of customers telling another pair to make sure they vote today, because their employers have to give them time to vote.

I've been seeing a lot of inspirational stories in the news lately, about people waiting in line for up to six hours to vote early, about elderly people registering to vote for the first time in their lives because of this election. I know several people who've donated their time to help campaign during this election. James came home from school yesterday shouting excitedly that his school had elected Obama.

Election fever, it's everywhere.

And I have heard stories about voter fraud, about sneaky measures to impede people's right to vote or to disenfranchise people, rumors that the election will be stolen by one side or the other. Obviously there are some problems with our voting system. But to see people's hope and optimism and excitement and patriotism in the face of these challenges is just so heart-warming to me. I feel so happy to be an American today, to be able to be part of this process, to voice my opinion, to be part of something so much bigger than myself.

Please vote today. And feel free to share any interesting election day stories!

2 comments:

Jessica said...

I agree!! I get so excited about voting. I even got mildly teary-eyed when I got in line today.

I waited for exactly an hour, with the twins in their stroller. The girls were PERFECT. They just sat and sucked their fingers for an hour -- thankfully no whining or anything.

We are heading to Ben and Jerry's later. I REALLY wanted to take Kasia with me, and she wanted to come, but I think when she hears it took a long time, she'll forgive me (especially if she gets to eat the ice cream). She had school today.

karen said...

Here's a fun election-day story - my b/f and I were so anxious to watch the "race" and all the colorado outcomes that we went looking for a way to watch t.v. at his house. See, he has cable with his apartment & he has a projector for movies, but no t.v.
So we're going around town trying to figure out how to get the cable hooked up to the projector, and when not even the people at best-buy could help, we went to Wally World where he bought a t.v. We watched all the fun election "stuff," and then he took the t.v. back the next day.
heeheehee.
It really struck me as funny, 'cause it's the kind of thing most people would do for, like, the world series or superbowl. But he did it for the election. Awesome :)