Sunny, yellowval? Not hardly. Was raining, but in my polling location, we gots to sit inside the combination Lutheran church and school’s gym, so all was cozy.
I was about 25th in line, but the ballot machine told me that I was #11 to vote. Got there 10 minutes early, was out by 7:15. Outstanding!
smooch Now my turn, I just got back from doing the same. Short ballot here in MA and in particular, my town. No big local races, no ballot questions. We have the “fill in the oval” ballot cards that go into a machine when you’re done. The whole process took less than five minutes. Six ( maybe 7) little Democratic ovals and I was done. Now, it’s just a matter of waiting til my Ex goes in and cancels each one out. Why let divorce ruin an 18 year tradition?
Well, I moved from TX to GA right after the date to register here, so I had to cast an absentee ballot in Texas. I voted a week ago, Kerry/Edwards and mostly other democrats.
~big smooches for Salem~
It’s going to be a lot harder for me to stay up to watch tonight, being in the EST zone now, but I’m going to try!
I walked out my front door 36 minutes ago, down the block to my polling place. There was one person in line ahead of me. It took as long to check in as my wait for a machine. As usual, I just gave the poll workers my Driver’s License, instead of having to spell my name 4 times. Punched the buttons, on a machine just like Eve described. I’ve been back for 15 minutes or so. So, quick and simple.
Kisses for all voters, Hugs and Kisses for the poll workers!
~S
This is the first time I voted non-absentee in my twenty years of being eligible. No lights, no cha-chunga machine, just an old-fashioned punch card thingie in a little book. (It looked like Playskool’s My First Voting Machine, but what do I know?) And only four things to vote on - President, Ed Shrock’s replacement, and two proposed ammendments to the state’s constitution. I was on my way to work by 7:30, and I was #252 to put my card (without hanging chads!) into the ballot box.
Obviously you’re in the wrong part of Minnesota. It’s still sunny and beautiful here in the southwest!
Mwah! Good job for voting. Although I can’t help but be a little jealous. I was in line for an hour and a half. Still, there were some really interesting people in line with me, so at least I had good company. 
Hugs and smooches for all you voters! MMMMUWAH
Just got back from voting. There were 5 people ahead of me when I got there and before I even got to the booth, the line swelled (hehe) to about a dozen behind me. Of the six booths present two were broken, so there was a bit of a wait (probably about a half hour). Cinnamon Little was very patient while I described what we were all doing there. She gets to go back this afternoon when daddy votes, too. Our precincts must be small because I passed two other polling places on the way to mine. I was #276 at about 12:15 pm. Nice!
We had punch cards with a little tiny pointy weapon thing to either choose your candidate or poke your eye out if you didn’t like the choices. You flipped the pages in a book to reveal the correct line and there were numbers next to the arrows to help you figure out which hole you wanted. Kinda boring really. Until I got up to the ballot box to drop in mine. The lady told me to make sure I got rid of my chads and laughed. She was serious though. Good on ya, poll lady! She also gave my daughter a sticker, too.
When we got in the car, Cinnamon Little asked me if I wanted her sticker. I told her I’ve already got one and she can wear it. Her reply: “But I didn’t vote!”
Oh, do I get an extra kiss for lecturing my young co-worker (at the suggestion of her mother) for not even registering? Hey, girlfriend, NOBODY likes politics! Wiping your ass isn’t pleasant either, but ya still gotta do it!
Oh yeah, with much vehemence, I voted NO (absolutely not; not in this lifetime or any; no way, no how…) on Ohio’s Issue 1. I will not have a hand in social injustice and don’t look forward to explaining to my children years from now how we could be so ignorant. PTOOOEY I spit in your general direction, you self-important jackasses!
Kisses / hugs / gropes / hearty handshakes (take your pick) all around!
really. I mean it. Thanks for voting.
Got to the preschool (our Local polling place) at 9:00 and was out by 9:15, no waiting, nothing, very easy.
I was in line at 5:50 a.m. and back in my car at 6:40 a.m. so it went pretty quick given the number of people in line. i have never seen such numbers and I’ve been voting for 32 years. It all went pretty smoothly. There were two poll watchers (one from each party), marking off names on their own lists as the official polling person called our names out. The partisan lists had some really tiny type, so those poor folks will be blind by the end of their shifts.
I voted straight democratic (even for that goof Moran). I wonder if his challenger, Cheney, will find her name a help or a hindrance?
Second presidential election I am eligible to vote in and the first where I voted in person. I was in college last time and voted absentee. I was very excited to vote in person. Yay! It was like Christmas this morning - I was up at 6 and ready to go.
Beautiful and sunny here - save for the dang Santa Ana winds drying everything up. I walked to the polls, waited for probably 20 minutes in line, had a quick check in and an even quicker voting session. It pays to read up and mark the sample ballot before going in! I was in and out in 5 minutes. And I’m wearing my nifty sticker “I voted electronically”. The whole of our county is electronic votes.
So MWAH to everyone who voted! 
I went in at 8 AM, no line whatsoever, went straight to a touch-screen, voted democrat.
Had to ask for an “I voted” sticker. They laughed at me, but I got a sticker, so I don’t care.
Of course, my district is 60% black and 30% asian, so our votes will probably get “lost” somehow…
You get an extra kiss for that and for having an adorable daughter. One extra, extra kiss if you actually said that, verbatim, to your vote averse cow-orker.
I was at the polling place at 0615 this morning, and had to wait 20 minutes because of the long line.
I was annoyed that they set up shop in a classroom at the elementary school, instead of a gym when I voted in Indiana. They needed more elbow room than was available in that room.
I went in expecting the much maligned Diebold touch screen machine (big news in Norfolk and Chesapeake) and got a paper fill-in-the-circle electronic count ballot instead. Only 2 political races, and 2 VA constitutional amendments to be decided.
The registrar handling A-G voters was doing the announcement bit (“So-and-so is ready to vote!”), but I have an H name, and my registrar kept quiet. When/where did this originate, because I’ve never seen this happen before, and it’s been mentioned in another voting thread over in the Pit… 
Forgive my ignorance, but where on Earth* is a precinct with that demographic? I can only think of a few possible places in the US, mainly West Coast and upper East Coast.
*Small play on Ghanima’s fairly generic location.
This was the first presidential election in which I’ve been eligible to vote, having missed the 2000 elections by two months. I didn’t really know what to expect, but I had a vague memory of the big clunky machines Eve described, which we used in a mock election when I was in kindergarten in upstate New York (the only thing I remember from those results is that New Kids On The Block was elected for something). I showed up at the polling place at 11:30. It was a senior citizen’s home, and the voting was in the dining room. I gave them my registration card and my driver’s license, signed my name in a ledger, and was handed a paper ballot and a number 2 pencil and directed toward a card table in the back of the room. There was a posterboard screen around the table to give the illusion of privacy on three sides. I filled in the bubbles, then put my sheet into a box at the front of the room. I did not get a sticker, much to my disappointment.
I ended up voting straight Democrat, although I hadn’t gone in intending to.
Vevila, I bet you were 10 ahead of me in line at the same polling place, because your experience sounds exactly the same as mine (though I was #75 to vote). I was so glad when they let us all inside! Was your polling place on Logan near 14th?
It took me about an hour and 45 minutes to vote, but I voted, and there were over a hundred people in line when I left. Colorado needs all the votes we can get.
I showed up at about 7:20 like I usually do, and found a long line. My polling place normally has no line at all! Then one of the campaigners told me that the long line was the A-L line, so I got into the shorter M-Z line. I waited about 10 minutes in line. My voter number was in the 90s, where normally I’m in the teens.
One of the poll workers said they’d been working the polls for about 30 years, and this is the heaviest turnout they had ever seen. IMHO, high turnout is good.