At 5.45am this new citizen is on her way in darkness to the local voting station along with many others. When I got there, the line was halfway down 18th Street and by the time the doors opened to let us vote at 6.00am, it was all the way to 8th Avenue and up to Starbucks on 8th and 19th! A neighbour said she'd never seen such long lines. If I can figure out how to download the pics from my cellphone onto my laptop, I'll show them here. In the meantime, my experience was par for the course.
I'd brought my registration card so I knew which district I was in and when I got to the desk, no ID was requested. The vote was simple and private. Here's to our old-fashioned NYC lever-pulling machines. By 6.20am I was home again to have coffee with neighbours who had also been out voting. When I got home my parents had left a message saying that the first results from NH had been reported on UK radio!
Update: unscientific data from nearest and dearest getting out the vote in small town mid-coast Maine is that Gene the (retired) painter is voting for the first time ever for Obama!
8 comments:
Hurrah! Barack the vote!
No lines here, not at my polling place at 9:30 am anyway.
So exciting!
Fabulous year to be voting as an American citizen for the first time. congratualtions!
And here's a glass of champagne to the right result later tonight - the world is watching. It's very moving to see you all queueing to vote.
brilliant
He won! He won! He won!!!!!!!!!
Hurrah!
Congratulations on citizenship and voting!
Worked all morning canvassing to get out the vote here in NC. Still too close to call, but the country has won, we know that. (Wept at the end of Obama's speech, which I watched on C-Span,sans inane commentary from talking heads.) And we know we ousted Liddy Dole from the Senate.
I was second in line at my polling station. The guy in front of me got there at 5:45 a.m. there would be no beating him to the polls. I had to pause and blink my eyes a couple of times to assure my self that I really was voting for the First African American nominee. I cast my vote and late last night after a day of volunteering and an evening with friends, Jodie and I bought airline tickets to D.C. for the inauguration!
But there is still work to do. While we voted in the first African American president yesterday Nebraska also voted in a ban on affirmative action that is so broad it could prevent the government from funding things like Breast Cancer screening, Prostate Cancer Research, and domestic violence shelters.
The vote is cast; now, the work begins. J+
Hey Jason, awesome that you guys are going to the inauguration. Christopher is going to be there, too, with a school group.
That would be Gene in his 70s voting for the first time.
I want to go to the inauguration too!
Congratulations on your citizenship and first presidential vote!!! I have never seen a turnout like this in all my 65 years - just amazing. There is a very small part of me that has some nostalgia for the communal polling station where we would see all of our neighbors, but not enough to to want to change back from our all mail-in voting. We cast our votes quite a few days ago by dropping them in the mailbox. Community for us was a celebratory election night party at a neighbor's house. It was about a half block away from another much less joyful gathering. One of my very good conservative friends was happy that at least I was not gloating while he was grieving.
CP
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