How's it going at your VA polling place?

[dsewell]

I worked the polls in Crozet (Albemarle County) from 5:30 to 8 this morning. Heavy, heavy turnout. The Democrats were better organized at getting tables and signs up before the polls opened. The Republican table next to us had a volunteer down from Greene County--heck, if they have to ship in out-of-county helpers in a Republican-majority district Bush is in serious trouble today.

We had an agreement with the Republicans that no one would stand along the narrow sidewalk going into the polling place even though it's outside the 40-foot limit, because it creates an uncomfortable "running the gauntlet" feeling for voters. Jim Camblos, the county Commonwealth's Attorney, showed up for a while all decked out in his bow tie and Bush/Cheney regalia, and proceeded to plant himself in the middle of the sidewalk to glad-hand people and pass out Republican sample ballots. We decided not to make an issue of it. It was hard not to smile, though, when someone loudly proclaimed as they stalked around him, "I'm here to vote against you Nazis again!" So much for voter intimidation...

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

1. I live next door to a polling place

I could barely get out the drive from my apartment building due to the mass of traffic trying to get into the school parking lot.

Turnout is very heavy.

[soothsayer]

2. Strong turnout at 6 a.m. in NOVA (Arlington). We always vote Dem, but

it's great to see that people came out anyway!

[spooky3]

16. Arlington--long line at 9:30; I tried again at 11:30 and line was even

longer; took 1 1/4 hrs to vote. At least 1000 had voted by the time I did. Local news at 5 said over 64% of eligible voters had already voted in one Fairfax Co. precinct.

[11 Bravo]

3. I voted in Vienna (Fairfax County).

I have never in my life had to wait in line at my polling place, but today I stood for about 45 minutes before casting my ballot. Then I headed to work. The school where I teach is also a polling place, and I have never seen turnout like this. Our huge parking lot was completely filled, and both sides of the street had cars at the curb as far as the eye could see.

[RedCloud]

4. Southern Virginia reporting...

Radio expects about 75% turnout of all elligible voters due to registration and gorgeous weather. This could easily spell curtains for Bush. If Virginia turns blue, he is in deep doo-doo.

[Squatch]

5. About 200 people at Windsor Oaks Elem School, VB

Took about 1/2 hour to get through the whole process. Everybody was very congenial, drinking coffee, enjoying the *beautiful* AM.

The only voter intimidation I witnessed was a bumble bee that constantly went after Bush supporters. (no shit)

[carolinayellowdog]

6. Touchscreen in Southside

Hey,

At 6:20 I was 33rd to vote in my small Southside town. We had touchscreen voting, and on the back of the machine was the name Patriot-- somewhat unnerving. No more than 5 were in line behind me, typical in this town of under 2000.

So glad to see Sabato predicting a Kerry win.

CYD

[carolinayellowdog]

7. Trouble with machines

Hey,

Just talked to someone in whose precinct the machines went down and people were given paper ballots and *pencils*-- he demanded a pen and so did a woman in line. The machine went back up after a frantic phone call for instructions on restarting it. Wonder if votes got erased.

Damn.

[sofa king]

8. A pic of Rosslyn, VA.

I've voted here in the past three elections, but it's never looked like this:



This photo requires a little bit of explanation. That line going into the blurred distance contains about 200 people in line to vote at the Rosslyn precinct. It goes past the point where another, equally large line heads off in the other direction to the Wilson precinct. The line has been this large since shortly after the polls opened at 6:00 am. The photo was taken at about 9:10 am. According to my housemate, the wait is about an hour (I waited about half an hour after showing up to the polls 20 minutes before they opened).

In the background is Bush-Cheney national campaign headquarters. I've denoted it with the Eye of Sauron. The photo is taken from in front of the Rosslyn headquarters of Kellogg, Brown and Root, the dirty-nosed subsidiary of Hallilburton. Yet right here is where this election can be won--and we are winning it.

Six out of ten of the voters in that picture are going to vote for John Kerry. It's not possible to see it 'cause I'm a terrible photographer, but those voters are young, and a lot of them are chatting on cell phones. This is the Republican nightmare come true.

Every Democratic vote cast in the state cancels out one of your neighbors and lets one of the people above score one for John Kerry. This is overwhelmingly good news, but only if you do your part, today, right now, as soon as possible so that you are not stuck out in the cold at closing time.

Come on, Virginians! Take this one to the hoop!

[demnan]

10. I work two blocks from there

and I have for 5 years. The only time I've seen that many people was in 2000.

In Prince William County:

Lake Ridge Middle School: Huge turnout. I waited about an hour to vote. One guy in line wore a "Redefeat Bush" t-shirt. I believe that says it all.

Potomac Library: I took my mother and brother to vote. This was just an hour ago. The lines weren't long but past the prime time.

Later I'm going back to Lake Ridge to work the polls so I'll check in later.

[sofa king]

13. Update.

I talked to two of the workers at the Rosslyn precinct. They said turnout is huge. There was an unrelenting line for seven solid hours between the time the polls opened and one pm. If you've got a chance to pop in, now is by far the quietest time of the day--the line appears to have finally retreated into the building. It is expected to grow again soon.

There was a problem of some sort, but the workers were reticent to say what it was. CNN has a camera crew on hand so no doubt they know better than I what happened.

[sofa king]

19. demnan, this is important.

Can you please verify for me that the 2000 election was of about the same size?

I don't step back from my description above, as rosy as it is. But the numbers from 2000 and 2004 appear to show a similar turnout.

Here are the numbers for the two precincts I described from the 2000 election:

The 2000 election:



http://www.sbe.state.va.us/web_docs/election/results/2000/nov/nov2000/detail013.htm#01

The 2004 election:



http://sbe.vipnet.org/nov2004/detail013.htm#01

My own recollection of the 2000 election was that it was not nearly as crowded as what I witnessed, but then again I went after work that day so I would have seen a totally different part of the cycle.

I don't know what to think. Except that the second set of numbers gives me a chill.

No, scratch that. I'm scared shitless. Someone do me a favor and save this thread to a document, eh? I'd hate to go down without dragging someone else down the memory hole with me.

Here also are both of the photos I took, unedited. There were at least two camera crews at the polls between 0600 and 0635 I believe I also saw a camera crew when I took these two pictures at 0908.





There was a line in front of the Rosslyn (firehouse) precinct for seven hours, according to a Democratic poll worker I talked to there.

Let me think out loud for a minute. There's something else weird I'm too tired to get my mind around. I calculated that it was taking almost exactly 30 seconds a voter once the polls started moving. I was #34 on one of two lists, and I was done voting by about 0635. But I voted at the Wilson precinct in the school next door, which seemed just as busy to me. But the line would have had to have moved at full crank for 12.5 hours to amass 1,500 votes. The time per vote would have had to have been reduced at some point for it to be cyclical, and the 2000 results show that 926 more people could vote in the same time.

I cannot recall the name on the electronic voting machines. It was not Patriot.

Okay, I'm posting this now. To the special one I love here's a sappy little message: I long for a Pink Floyd album in my future, but not the one I'm the first against.

[sofa king]

20. Okay, finally an explanation.

I don't know where the apartments were, but somehow my precinct has lost 1,444 residents in the past four years. That effectively explains the much lower voting numbers. Rosslyn precinct has gained a few hundred voters and that figure was represented at the polls.

So there we are. No election theft. The people have decided, and now we're gonna get just what we deserve.

[electricmonk]

9. Here in Roanoke

I was in and out in less than 3 minutes becasue my last name starts with an M. The line for A-F was taking about 45 minutes. Drove by two other precincts and they were packed.

I think I've perfected the walk through the gauntlet. I always get by them without getting hassled. I don't like either side trying to talk to me. I just want to get in and out as quickly as possible.

[kegler14]

11. Also in Roanoke

my wait at Woodrow Wilson at 7:10 was about 10 minutes, but by the time I left the line had more than doubled as people stopped in headed to work. I was voter number 163, which is a heavy turnout. This precinct will go to Kerry, but probably not by overwhelming numbers.

[demnan]

12. I'm back from working Polls (Prince William County)

I was pleasantly surprised that my precinct showed a lot of favorable faces when I handed out literature. I consider it now about half and half, before I would never have thought there were that many Democrats.

If we can show in affluent suburbian Lake Ridge, we're a shoo in everywhere else.

One old guy commented (caustically to the Republican guy handing out literature) when he left, "I hope our long nightmare is over."

I said, "Sir, so do I, so do I."

[Buck Turgidson]

14. Falls Church is very quiet

I shuttled a nice lady to the polling station on Spring St. There was no line at 2pm. It was a beautiful afternoon, trees are at the peak of color. I chatted with the K/E people on the sidewalk out front. They said there was a line in the early morning, but nothing right now.

[Eurobabe]

15. Going to pull the late shift NOW

and monitor after polls close!!

COME ON VIRGINIA!! LET's GO BLUE!

[ElectroPrincess]

17. Yeah, Tweety just said that VA is too close to call

Oh sure, the pubbies will prevail in the end but I bet we'll pull 45+ percent for Kerry.

I sure wish he and "The Boss" would have visited us within the last two weeks. :-)

Just closed up Stafford County at 7 PM. Lots of volunteers, young people (HS and College Age) volunteers. We had a wonderful time.

[sofa king]

18. This is lookin' pretty good.

Remember, we don't have to win this outright. The best possible scenario is Kerry with the thinnest of margins--hundreds of votes.

Then, the GOP will have to divert resources here. And, thanks to the arcana of Virginia's unique statutes, it will require the attention of virtually all of Virginia's GOP lawyers.

They will have to steal one of their gimme states back, proportionately diluting resources in other states they will need to steal to win. If they really weren't expecting this, they may be unprepared to deal with the problem.

Or, I'll take thirteen for John outright.

[Virginian]

21. At my precinct

There was a long line when we opened at 6:00. It got longer. Between the people who had checked in and were waiting to vote and the people waiting to check in, I think we had about a thousand people waiting at the peak time in the morning. We definately needed more voting machines. One froze with only 7 votes on it; rebooting it didn't make it work. We had another one brought in to replace it.
By lunchtime, the lines had eased up. Several times during the day, some of the machines needed to be rebooted. They came back and were totally functional. Rebooting a machine does not cause it to lose votes.
By 3:00, the lines to check-in had eased to a trickle. There was always a wait for the machines.
At 7:00 there was no-one waiting to check-in, only about a dozen waiting for the machines.
:) All the machines were included in the vote talleys, even the one with 7 votes. The number of people voting was the same as the number of votes cast. Kerry took our precinct 58% to 40% for Bush.
:( I have no idea what went on outside, but I heard parking was hard to come by in the school parking lot.
:( I think it must have been a two hour wait at peak.
:) The mid afternoon was definately the time I would choose to vote if I wasn't already there as a poll worker.