Heavy turnout in Minneapolis today, at least so far.  My wife and I went to the polls just after they opened at 7:00 this morning, and there were about 120 people in line when we there.  They came in at a rate of about six per minute.  Since the election judges were only handling people at the rate of about two to three per minute, the line just kept getting longer.  My next door neighbor, who always votes in the early morning, said she’d never seen anything like it.  The line must have peaked at about 160 people.  A raw, wet, rainy morning, too.

      By now, the weather is sunny but still cold.  The number of voters has died down a good deal.  There were only about twenty people in line at my polling place this afternoon at 2:40.  Still, the election judges said the volume had stayed higher than normal all day.

      I’ve also gone by another polling place, and was told the same thing: higher than normal volume all day, light volume currently.

      Other signs of election enthusiasm: people standing on freeway overpasses Sunday, Monday, and today, holding up signs for their candidates (mostly Kerry supporters, but I have seen one or two Bush signs).  And the local DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor party) get out the vote effort called at my house twice, to check if we’d voted, needed a ride, etc.  Apparently this was done on a neighborhood basis, as there is no party registration in MN, and I know of nothing to indicate our likely choice.  It is, though, a heavily DFL neighborhood.

      I’m currently out of the house (blogging at the public library), and I will see if I can find some more polling places to check on my way home.