That's my ballot, via my cell phone cam.
I took advantage of Ohio's early voting system and voted today after Senator Obama's rally at the Ohio Statehouse.
Barack Obama held a rally today at the statehouse here in Ohio. Conveniently (and not by coincidence) the location of this rally was just two blocks away from Franklin County's early voting site.
I got to the rally later than I had hoped. I was supposed to go with a friend who decided not to answer his phone all day, so I spent most the morning calling him and waiting for him to answer. After awhile, however, it became clear that wasn't going to happen. So I got there and hour and a half after the "gates" opened. Which means, I was about four hours later than I needed to be if I actually wanted to see anything.
Anyways, Mayor Coleman was speaking when I got there, but from my vantage point on High Street, I couldn't see him or even the podium from which he was speaking. I spent most the time trying to find a good spot, but couldn't. My view was blocked by tents, port-o-johns, statues, trees, and yes, people.
I ended up having to watch the rally on a monitor someone (I'm assuming it was the campaign) set up. It was disappointing because I could have watched the rally on tv at home. I knew I wasn't going to be anywhere near Obama or the stage due to my late arrival, but I was hoping to at least be able to see him in person, something I haven't been able to do this entire campaign.
Anyway, He gave his standard fare stump speech, hitting key policy notes and getting in some good jabs at McCain. But the part that really got me was when he was talkign about making college affordable and available to anyone willing to serve. I had to drop out of college because, like so many others, I couldn't afford it. But Obama's plan offers me a second chance. And while I'm voting for him for many, many, many, reasons, it occurred to me, as my eyes were beginning to tear up, that his college plan was perhaps the most personal for me. It's the one thing he could do that would have a direct and substantial impact on my life.
When i went to the rally, it wasn't my plan to vote.
I was going to vote on election day, but since i was in the neighborhood, and Senator Obama was really encouraging folks to vote early I figured, what the hell?
I got in line at 2:18 pm. I made a point to check the time because I wanted to see how long it would take.
I received my Ballot at 8:33pm. That's 6 hours and 15 minutes from the time I got in line, until the time I had my ballot in hand. It took me about half an hour to fill out my ballot (i'm very careful and thorough that way), so by the time i was done with the whole thing, closer to seven hours had passed.
One advantage of voting early is that they give you an optical scan ballot to vote with and not one of those hackable machines that don't leave a paper trail.
As I was talking to the election official, he told me they were seeing "unprecendented" turnout. They provided food (pizza, hotdogs, candy), water, and chairs to keep people from bolting and going home, but the ultimate solution is to offer more than one place in each county where you can vote early. Veterans Memorial is the designated place for "In-Person Absentee Ballot Voting" as they call it, for the entirety of Franklin County, Ohio (estimated pop. 1,118,107).
Turns out when you have over one million people and you only give them ONE place to vote, it leads to long waits. Who knew?
But, when you put it all in perspective, if seven hours can change the world for the better, I'm more than happy to sacrifice my Sunday to that end.
And basing this on nothing more than my own take on the composition of the people in line, I'd say Ohio has a very, very, good chance of turning blue this year.
But there is more work to do. And now that I don't have to vote on election I can head on over to Obama HQ and volunteer for them.