I voted for Barack Obama today
Tuesday, November 4th, 2008
Warren, Connecticut (pop 1000). I’m quite hopeful that our country will elect Barack Obama today. I did my part by organizing numerous fundraisers, donating money and time, and of course, voting.
I thank my 93 year old mother for convincing me that Obama is the right candidate.
Now I have the rest of the day to worry. Best to get busy splitting wood for next winter, raking leaves, and staying away from this computer.
Somehow it’s become tradition for me to go to our local polling place early with Anne. She has to vote before school and I like to vote early. We were there twenty minutes after the polls opened and it was crowded already which is a great sign. There were ten people in the room (no lines of course).
There are a few ways to vote in the US now and one of them is this paper ballot which is filled in with a marker pen, then fed into a scanning machine that counts the marks (we hope). This leaves a paper trail of voting should the machine not work properly. My guess is in my town they run the ballots through the machine numerous times to make sure the numbers are the same each time.
You know you live in a small town when you’ve met almost all of the people on the ballot who you’re voting for. The only two I’ve not met are Obama and Biden. Keep your eye on our Congressman Chris Murphy, I think he’s going places.
There are a few ways to vote in the US now and this ballot is filled in with a marker pen, then fed into a scanning machine that counts the marks (we hope).
good for you and it should be an easy win for your candidate.
e
I am proud to say “I voted for Barack Obama today” as well.
Dan & I voted at 6 AM in our small town in Kansas. Most of my friends in the city voted early which KS allows. We were back home in 25 minutes. This is an exciting day.
Have fun splitting that wood!
Pam: I tell you, I never thought I’d see a day like this in my lifetime. It gives me hope.
Richard and Pam,
I just watched the cell phone video on NYC and Sidney (from this site) so I’m already in an emotional state.
I got to vote last week as Oregon is a vote by mail or drop box (which I love), but Richard’s description of small town voting sounds good too.
As long as we finally get away from this past/current administration marked by way too much deception, exclusivity and a righteousness that has brought about some disastrous results; and in hopes that this days end will bring some real hope for cooperative leadership.
Richard, good luck in staying away from the computer :)
Sanford
I miss living in a small town!! I loved voting in Point Arena CA (pop 461) – not only do you know the people on the ballot, you know the people at the one voting place in town. It makes politics personal enough that you really can make a difference, motivate others, organize people – and most important to me – it makes it easier to CARE about what you’re voting for!
I will be voting in my current county in CA for the first time today – and I am excited! (I will also be cashing in on my free coffee from Starbucks tomorrow for having voted – I feel a slight bit better about them as a whole after seeing their get out and vote promotions).
Sandy, yeah, it’s a tear jerker. Leave it to me to get all swollen up during this amazing time.
Caitlin: I think Starbucks is doing a great thing with that promotion, please ask them how many people are taking advantage of it and come back and tell us. I’ll be very curious.
My congratulations to the people of the United States on your choice.
Richard and the rest of the world, congratulations!
Now, what you guys need to do next is send Bush and friends over to The Hague so that we can see some justice…
Congratulations Richard. Yes we DID! :D
Change has come to America!
I am so very proud to be an American this morning. And, while Obama is far from perfect he’s a decent human being who’s intelligent and will pull the country and maybe the world together.
Wow!
David N. If that happened it would be icing on the cake. I’ll be happy with cake for now.
what a perfect morning you have ;-)
Gedas: The only downers are Michele Bachmann in Minnesota and Ted Stevens in Alaska. Bachmann is a horror of a human being, Stevens is now a convicted criminal and is winning.
I’m completely happy otherwise.
YES WE DID!!!!
It’s hard to work this morning!
Pam: I’m walking around, can’t sit still, crying spontaneously. It’s killing me. I’ve only felt this once before and that was when we landed on the moon.
I would have voted for Obama if I could!
Thanks so much for the pictures and story of your day voting. So interesting and what a result!!! :-)
Jon, Yes, of course, it was an amazing (and long) campaign. Glad it’s over, I need the rest.