"O," Brother—Where Art Thou?

I believe in early voting, but didn't explore my NYC options until I found myself instead voting early—at  6:30 a.m. Turns out early is relative, as I was confronted with a block-long line at my polling station on W. 45th St. between 10th and 11th Avenues. I figured it would take an hour (I'm pretty sure I voted in about 30-45 minutes for Kerry at the same place). It took two hours. WTF? Is this Georgia or North Carolina, where any one vote could tip the scales one way or another? No, it's just good old Manhattan, where we crazy liberals would sooner die than not vote for Barack Obama, it seems.

Back to school: Two fucking hours.

It took me 30 minutes to get in the door, but that was just the beginning of hell. Maybe not "hell." But at least "heck." I found out my precinct was 76 and then had to plunge into a formless mass of bodies, asking who was at the end of my line. (The other precincts were 82, 91 and just plain 1, suggesting a rather random allocation of who votes where.)

In line, I joked with two nice guys (they are at left—if you know them or are them, please reply, we should hang out!) as the line became more and more clotted. It was like Cheney's black heart in there, except hot, too. We were trapped together so long, snaking around the tiny school room, I feared we would begin devolving into Lord Of The Flies-like cliques.

Mean boss lady.

Ultimately, the end of the line for 76 started at the voting booth for 76—pure torture to stand so near and yet so far from either victory or defeat. Newcomers were incredulous when we told them we'd been in line nearly two hours; perhaps they were just on guard against voter-suppression tactics.

My sweet helper. (But I hope my vote counted 'n' stuff.)

Finally, with the table in sight, we stalled for 15 minutes as one guy's info was misplaced. The ladies in control were not. There was a very aggressive alpha, a frightened sub (having things like "I told you to only let people from HER line into booth 2!!!" screamed at her) and a lovely, graceful lady who was handling my "M—Z" line. She was so elderly, I'm sure her first thought on hearing of Obama's grandmother's passing was, "So young!" She took minutes to flip through the registry and find my name, doing the page-by-page routine when she wasn't even in the "R" section. Finally, she found me...then proceeded to handwrite my driver's-license info in the box above mine.

"No, that's me," I said helpfully.

"Thanks!" she replied, crossing out her mistake. Will that person above me get to vote? Who knows?

I would vote for a housecat running as a Dem. This time...I didn't have to!

Then I was on my own to enter the booth and vote. Which I did. Straight Democratic. What a relief—it was like edging for 18 months and then finally ending with the mother of all bangs. I like pulling the lever manually. It feels more official.

Okay, America—don't fuck this one up!

There were two lines on the way out, one in each direction. But both were mostly "left."

And how was your experience? (To see Barack & Michelle Obama voting, click here. It's so adorable. To see Sarah & Todd Palin voting—and then refusing to say who they voted for, citing "privacy" laws—click here. Not so adorable.)

Comments

[Ben]

I voted on Fri. Oct 10, the morning after I went to a huge concert-like Obama rally here in Cincinnati, in my neighborhood no less! They introduced many of the local and state candidate in advance of Obama, so everyone was fresh on my mind, including the 2 non-Democrat candidates I planned to vote for based on their records and the no opponent Republicans I had to make sure to skip so that they received no vote from me. (I'm talking about you, Simon Leis.)

Voting that morning took me 10 minutes. Longest part: signing all the various proof and forms before I was given the actual ballot.

[BI]

I guess I was lucky...I was expecting a long wait after watching the news but I went to my usual school on 18th Street between 8th and 9th around 9:15am and was in and out in about 25 minutes!

[John]

That is so funny. I voted on 18th Street in Chelsea and walked in around 11am and there was literally one person in line for the one machine that was designated for my district. Who knew District 21 would not be represented by anyone but me. I was in and out in 5 minutes.

I was shocked at those old lever machines...but all in all it was good to vote.

[BIlly D]

Up here in Boston, it took me about 40 minutes start to finish. I got there at about 7 am and the pace of the line was brisk. Straight democratic as well here, and I also got to vote on decriminalizing pot (yay) and outlawing dog racing (another yay).