My voting experience in Richmond, Virginia:

Polls open at 6am, and I arrived at 6:04. There’s no early voting in Virginia. Everyone must show up on election day with I.D. in hand at their assigned voting location. This is my third year of voting at this location–an elementary school gym–and the first time I’ve ever had to wait in line.

When I got inside, people were funneled into one of three lines, based on their last name: A-G, H-O, P-Z. For some reason, the P-Z line was three times as long as the first two. Large family of Peabodys showing up early maybe? Everything was so well organized that I can’t imagine the alphabetical division wasn’t done proportionately. No doubt the lines will even up as the day goes on, but I was happy to be in the H-O group.

The gentleman behind me remarked that he’d never seen so many people in line five minutes after the polls opened. I said I thought it was my best chance of not having to wait long, and he said I was probably right. Someone else said that turnout was going to break all records, and we were all agreed in wishing for a clear winner, without litigation. “We don’t want to make the lawyers rich!” the first gentleman said.

At the front of the line, I handed over my voter registration card and ID. Virginia seems to be serious about fraud. After handing them over, I was instructed to state my name and address. The two ladies manning the station found my name on the list, checked it off, and then X’d through a box numbered “19″ on a separate book. This second book was a list of numbers, each number in its own box, and appeared to be a method for recording turnout. They handed me a little blue ticket and sent me to the second line.

The second line was to exchange my blue ticket for an actual ballot. At first I thought they should have streamlined things by giving out the ballot at once and skipping the blue ticket, but then it occured to me that people who had questions about the ballot would end up holding up the nice ladies who were verifying registration. No one in the second line had any questions, though. I think the people who showed up this early were mostly experienced voters, and mostly people who had voted at this location before. There was one first-time voter who arrived as I was in the second line. She was obviously unsure how to proceed, and rather than being sent the the alphabet lines, she was given a demonstration of how to use the punch-card ballot. If anyone at my polling place isn’t sure if they voted correctly, it won’t be the fault of the very helpful and efficient poll workers.

After waiting in line for my ballot, there was a third line to wait for a free voting booth. This line was short. Even though we’re still using punch-card ballots, and have to make sure to insert the ballot correctly so that the numbers line up, there are only four races to vote on after doing that. In addition to the presidential race, there’s an uncontested Congressional race (Republican Eric Cantor) and two proposed state constitutional amendments. The amendments are not contentious issues. One of them provides for how to fill vacancies that occur in the middle of redistricting, and the other one adds to the line of people who can step into the governor’s position if he’s killed. This second amendment is rather sobering, especially after the MEMRI report that Bin Ladin was threatening attacks on individual states.

Leaving the voting booth, the next stop is to feed the ballot into the machine. Mine was number 60, at 6:20am. As I left, the lines were growing behind me.

Posted by: shell at November 2, 2004 08:41 AM