Ye ballot if caft

I voted, of course. The polling place was run by a much larger—and younger—group of volunteers than in the past, and they were cheerfully efficient, but the sheer number of people meant that the line was an hour and a half long. The woman in front of me met up with her husband as he was leaving; apparently, turning up when the polls opened meant a two-hour wait. Ouch.

Although my district is about as liberal as it's possible to get, the feeling in the line was not really woohoo-party in spite of the promising numbers. People weren't talking about the candidates, or talking much at all; it was as though this was a lull before the nervous watching of the teebee returns. One pair of women, probably first-timers, stumbled out laughing and crying as they hugged, but most people emerged looking calm or smiling just a little. The poll workers checked the line occasionally to find anyone who might have trouble waiting without a seat; Voter Protection Act volunteers did a circuit to provide the numbers and URLs to use if there were problems; a single guy in an Obama shirt came by to offer Democratic sample ballots. That was the extent of the excitement. The rest of the time, you'd have thought we'd been taking queuing lessons from the British.

After I voted, the guy handing out stickers looked at me reproachfully. "Voting is a happy time; why you lookin' so down?" I hadn't realized I looked sad; I was just trying to process the mundanity of voting with the history involved in this election, and it was making me a little sniffly. "Aw," he said, "First time voting?" No, I said, but the first time I'd been so happy to vote for someone, naming no names. He smiled. "Good feeling, isn't it."

I walked past the line on the way out. It was down to an hour and a quarter.