Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!
I cast my vote today
I strode into the fray
To help democra-say.
I waited in a line
It didn't take much time
And then I drove away
To get a chai latte
I voted this afternoon in Tijeras, New Mexico, right off of Old Route 66. Voting early consisted of filling out a short form (name and address) for a ballot request, then a database check for authentication.
The wait was short. I went before 5PM, which might have helped. There were between twenty and thirty people there, and they were processing a voter once every few minutes.
I was then handed a fill-in-the-ovals style form and directed to a table with privacy screens for filling it out. Although the form gave the option of filling out a single oval for a straight ticket, I went down the list hitting each individual Democrat. It felt great to fill in the oval next to Obama's name and know I was part of history.
The forms were then scanned into a machine that looked like (basically) an industrial photocopier. There was no paper confirmation given, which I didn't like, and I heard several other people comment about this. The machines did keep count of how many people had voted so far. There were four machines, and they were each at around 200 votes. I asked the person who was assisting with the machines, and he said that the count included both Saturday and today. This is a small polling station in a rural area, so I'm not sure how it works out in terms of eligible voters expected. I haven't yet seen any local or statewide numbers on early voting percentages.
The chai afterward was quite tasty.