Well, I’m properly chastened. I just got back from voting. For the first time ever in my 18 years as a voter (and four years at this precinct location), I had to stand and wait in line.
The entire process from putting the car into park and putting it back into reverse took 35 minutes. Compared to what we saw on TV for early voting, it’s still nothing, and in relative terms very quick. Up to now, though, I’d been bragging about how it’s never taken more than five minutes. So, I’m humbled.
You can make sure your ballot arrived by going here: Page Not Found!
Wow, that’s a lot. I only had five offices (president, senator, one state representative, and two local races), and two state consitution amendments (one about issuing bonds, the other about appointing judges), to vote on this time. Very small ballot this year.
For the record, we voted at about 7:30 this morning (an hour and a half after the polls opened), and there were only a couple of people in front of us at my tiny local place. This was actually a distinct upswing from previous years, where there’s traditionally been pretty much no one else there when I showed up. But we were in and out within five minutes, and that included me spending a minute wavering on the judge issue.
In Sweden there are three elections in parallel, national, county council and municipal. For each election, you pick up a pre-printed paper corresponding to your preferred party (there are papers available for each party) and put it in an envelope. Each election has differently colored papers so that they can be distinguished from one another. So you end up with 3 envelopes if you decide to vote in all elections, one of each color. All in all, it rarely takes very long since it consists only of putting the paper of the chosen party into an envelope.
Here is a video of the lines where my son and daughter and their spouses had to vote this morning. Apparently there were lines around the block when the polls opened at 6AM.
http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2008/11/long_lines_ever.php#comments
Excellent! The whole voting process, from leaving my apartment to returning was about 15 minutes! It felt much more important than I thought it would. I actually got a chill as I filled in the oval for Obama/Biden. I heart voting!
Hold on to that feeling, because we still don’t know for sure that we’re going to win. It’s harder to heart voting when it feels like you’ve just been mugged by the other party. Keeping hold of that feeling is important, win or lose.