Report from Reston VA voter (GOP is worried :)

[Tesibria]

Just received this email from my good friend ElJayCee, who "lurks" here but hasn't written (yet)
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I can report that when I arrived at Buzz Aldrin Elementary at 10:45 a.m., there was no place to park in the parking lot ... cars lined Center Harbor Road. The line of voters snaked out of the gym, into the lobby, around the lobby, out the front door and down around the sidewalk. It only took 40 minutes to vote. The poll workers said the line has been continuously long since 6:00 a.m. when the polls opened. Many people I met on line, neighbors and strangers, said they had come at 7:00, but the line was too long so they came back expecting the line to have shortened. It hadn't. Poll workers were expecting the line to get significantly longer during lunch and about 6:00 p.m.

In the 3 prior presidential elections in which I've cast my vote in Northern Virginia, this has not happened. I've shown up at 7:00 a.m. and have been able to walk in and wait on a very short line. Even when I lived and voted in Manhattan, I did not see lines like I saw today.

North Point ROCKS! However, North Point has always been strongly Democratic ... despite some of my neighbors who were poll watchers for the GOP. I talked to one of them and said, "Isn't this great? Citizens demanding to be heard?" His response was to shake his head back and forth and say, "I don't know ... I don't know."

[VivaKerry]

1. LOL - "I don't know. I don't know"

I wonder -- will these blind people wake up? We have a lot of educating to do once we take this election.

[critchmj]

2. There have been reports of heeuge turnouts in Northern Virginia.

It took me 40 minutes at 6:00am in Alexandria, Jim Moran's heavily Democratic district. In 2000 it was in-out. The line had lengthened considerably by the time I left. Conventional wisdom says that high turnouts favor the Dems and Zogby called the election for Kerry if Kerry could energize his Democratic base. It looks like that has/is happening.

Maybe that is why Zogby now has Virginia as a tied state and a runner on his electoral map saying to look for "big surprises" in Virginia, Colorado, Florida, and Pennsylvania ... as I scroll through all the other threads, I'm seeing lots of States with high, unexpected voter turnouts, I would expect other surprises as the day goes on.

http://www.zogby.com/

[spooky3]

3. yepper--I'm a little north of you and it took 1 1/4 hrs to vote.