Early Voting

[Lilith]

In my state today is the last day for early voting. We left this morning for one of the few polls that they opened and wated over an hour and a half to vote. I felt very proud standing in line for that long with all the other people who were there to have their say too. I heard lots of people stating their opinions and communicating with strangers about their ideas. No one was rude or bickering. People helped one another by holding places etc so peeps could pee. It was a really positive experience.

Have any of you Americans already voted?

[IowaMan]

Yep, sure did. I believe it was Wednesday I went and cast my ballot.

[PantyFanatic]

Glad to hear you voted early. :) To avoid the lines I'm planning to vote late, maybe Thursday before the weekend rush starts again.
:D

[jseal]

I am a middle-of-the-road type. Tuesday will be the day for me.

[Scarecrow]

I will cast my vote on Nov 4. Our early voting ended yesterday and they said that the lines where 2+ hours long. I should get in and out in about 20 minutes.

[osuche]

I voted by mail - did it about 3 weeks ago

[Pita]

We went down on Thursday to try to vote but the wait was over 3 hours long and frankly that wasn't how I wanted to spend one of my days off. We plan to get up early on Tuesday and be at the polls before the masses show up.

Sure wish I had thought to find out about how to vote by mail. That would be great! :nod:

[Scarecrow]

In the state of Illinois if you go to work 2 hour after the polls open and work untill 2 before the polls close your employeer must give you 2 hours off with pay to go vote. The polls are open from 7am to 7pm so if you work from 9am to 5pm you get paid to go vote. This is only on the day of the election(Nov. 4)

[Jude30]

I have my ballot filled out I am going to drop it in the mail tomorrow.

[scotzoidman]

I was all set to vote early, then the wife wimped out, the 1 1/2 hr waiting lines discouraged her. I'm hoping the long lines for early voting will mean few left to do the deed on election day.

[gekkogecko]

No early voting in Maryland; there's a question on this year's ballot to amend the state constitution to allow it.

*However*: voting by absentee ballot is allowed, there's no a whole lot of close questioning about why yone might request an absentee ballot, and those of us working the election are highly encouraged to use the absentee ballot (unlike provisional ballots, all absentee ballots are counted). The deadline for requesting an absentee ballot has already passed, though.

Yes, therefore, I have voted already. And yes, I voted for the early voting amendment: that's going to do something at least to take the heavy election-day corwds down, and anything that does that while still allowing people to vote gets my vote.

[fzzy]

I always vote by mail in vote ... in California (as of a couple of years ago) you can request to be permanently on the mail-in list and so I automatically get a ballot a few weeks before every election ... I love that! ... so yes I've voted already! Now I just wish they would stop running all those pesky election ads! :)

[Aqua]

In my state today is the last day for early voting. We left this morning for one of the few polls that they opened and wated over an hour and a half to vote. I felt very proud standing in line for that long with all the other people who were there to have their say too. I heard lots of people stating their opinions and communicating with strangers about their ideas. No one was rude or bickering. People helped one another by holding places etc so peeps could pee. It was a really positive experience.

Have any of you Americans already voted?
Glad to hear the experience was so positive, Lil. Given how nasty this election has been at times it's really refreshing to hear.

I'll be voting tomorrow.

[gekkogecko]

Vote early, vote often.

[Oldfart]

Let's hear it for a hung Parliament! Yaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy!

[rabbit]

No early voting here in NY state, so I will be getting up early to get it done before work.

[Irish]

My wife & I just voted(in NH).In & out in 5/10 mins.Altho we spend 4/5 mos.
per year in our home in Fla.,our home state is NH.I was slightly surprised that
they didn't even ck our IDs.We just gave them our names & they ckd it off on the voting list.We have been registered for yrs,but we could have been anybody.This is your only chance to keep the(in my opinion) biggest con artist
that I've ever seen from getting elected! Irish :irish:

[scotzoidman]

No lines at all when I went today. Longest delay I had was for the guy manning the machine, he was so busy shooting the shit with others he didn't notice me. The lady that checked my signature noticed that I had changed my sig slightly; I looked at the scanned original she was checking against, it was the slow, careful scrawl I recognized as how it looked when I was 18 (& had time to try to make my penmanship semi-legible)...

[Aqua]

They were checking all ID's when I voted this morning.

Eager to hear the results.

[Lilith]

Today some conservative pro-life group decided to fly a banner over our town, including over several elementary schools, that said, "This is a fetus aborted at 10 weeks." It included a picture.

[Aqua]

How considerate. *sigh*

[jseal]

Which group?

[Navarre]

I walked into the precinct after work, gave them my name, was escorted to an empty voting machine and voted. Took all of 5 minutes. :thumbs:

Then I went to Starbucks, etc......etc........

[jseal]

Similar story here. I had planned to vote this morning before going to work, but there was a line, as there was at two other polling places I passed. This was an unexpected, but encouraging development. When I stopped in this evening after work, there were only a handful of people at the school where I vote, and the election judges processed me through without issue. Pleasingly well done.

Now that the campaign is safely behind us, I have to say that McCain’s projected winning of South Carolina, the first state to secede from the Union, was a bit amusing.

[Scarecrow]

I spent more time talking to the election judges than it took to vote.

[Scarecrow]

EXTRA - EXTRA CBS just declared Obama the winner.

[Neige]

Thank god for that.

[gekkogecko]

Maryland has passed the early voting amendment by more then a two-to-one margin, excepting only one county, whose results aren't in yet (still).