i voted

Yes, this evening after Georg got home from work we drove up to Northern Highschool and did our civic duty. Northern is one of four locations in Durham County where you can vote any day this week.

We went today to avoid the election day lines, but we still ended up waiting in line for half an hour. I bet the lines during the daytime are short, if any, but Georg couldn't get off work to vote early during the day. And we had already driven all the way out there, so we stayed. With lines like that a week ahead of time, I can't imagine how crowded the polls will be on election day. In a way I'm glad there was a line: it means people are voting.

The process was a bit slower than normal election day voting. Mainly because the early voting places aren't divided by district. People from all over the county were there, and the election workers have to look you up on a computer to see which ballot you get. They print out a form with your name on it that you hava to sign, then they get the correct ballot out of a box that has all the different ones. Also there were only 2 people looking up names, plus one more taking signatures.

However, it was just like regular voting in that we did not have to show ID, just say our names and addresses. The ballot is exactly the same and they even had those same blue cubby things to vote in. At my regular precinct on election day, they have a bunch of tables because there are always way more people than cubbies. But today the room was very small, they just had 4 or 5 cubbies and one table where 2 more people could sit. They controlled the crowd by only letting people in as space permitted.

Voting itself was easy. I had printed a sample ballot and marked down the candidates I wanted to vote for, so it was just a matter of filling in the arrows. I don't know why people complain about the arrow ballots. It's the easiest ballot design I've ever used. The arrow pointing right at the name makes it easy to see that you're voting for the correct person.

So that was our early voting experience. All told it took about 40 minutes, plus the time to drive up to Northern High School, which is on Roxboro north of Latta. I'm really glad we got this out of the way. I think I'm going to volunteer to drive people to the polls on Tuesday. Not that it will make a difference -- we are still in a red state, in that sense my vote doesn't even count -- but I think I ought to do something that at least feels productive. My anxiety about the election increases every day, and maybe doing something will keep me from totally losing it on election day.

I'm going to save my "I Voted" sticker because the Indy had a list of businesses that have free giveaways if you wear your sticker on election day. Free fries from Jo & Jo's, woo!