Please please please, let me, let me, let meeeee get what I waaaaaant this tiiiiime
Election Day is nigh at last; I can’t WAIT to vote. And, honestly, to have this campaign madness over with at last…not to mention the last eight years’ worth.
In case it didn’t go without saying, I hereby and without reservation endorse Barack Obama for President of the United States of America. I urge all American citizens in the readership, regardless of your party affiliation (or lack of same; I’m an independent myself), to vote tomorrow, no matter how cold or rainy it is outside where you are or how long the line is or whatever other minor hassle might prevent you from exercising your right to affect the political future of your country. We’ve all just proven that everyone doing a little adds up to doing a lot; your vote counts. Cast it.
To my international readers: fingers crossed for us, please; we’ll try not to biff it again.
Not sure where to vote, or what you need to bring? PopWatch posted a handy links guide.
Tags: Barack Obama civic duty friends politix sites
“I can assure you that we Canadians (yes, I do speak for all of them, as a matter of fact) have been watching this campaign very closely.”
Hee. It’s true: she does. We had a big meeting.
“… he disappointed some progressives when he became president of the HLR, because they assumed that he would see his primary task as advancing his side of every argument, and it turns out that as the president of the law review, he thought his primary task was, you know, making the law review good.
And I was like, ‘Oh, please please please…’ “
Linda, I feel you. I really do. What kind of a pass have we come to, that voting for someone smart feels like radicalism? (Just as true in my beloved Canada, I’m afraid, as in your homeland.) Good luck and best wishes to all, whether your vote goes “KECHONK!” (hee) or “scritchyscritch” (do any districts even have paper ballots anymore?) or “Beeep” or whatever. The most disappointing part of our recent and highly uninspiring election here is that voter turnout was apparently at an all-time low. Boo.
“Okay, everybody: Breathe regular.”
I voted around 10am today, and while it was busy in there, I didn’t have to wait. I was *thrilled* to see all the people streaming in and standing at the booths. We had PAPER ballots, no KECHONK for me. We just drew a line between arrows next to our choices. Fairly anticlimactic (4 yrs ago we had the touch screen machines, at least we got a BEEEP), but I still teared up a bit. Then we pushed these gigantic sheets of paper (I swear they were at least 2 feet tall/long) into a cardboard box with a slot cut into the front. LOOOOW tech, but hey, whatever works. What a great!!!! day!
Philadelphia got rid of the Kerchonkers a few years ago. I miss them so much! Pressing a flat panel and having a light stop blinking and stay steady just isn’t as satisfying.
I’ve voted in every election (primary and regular) since I turned 18 in 1978.
Since then, the presidential candidate for whom I voted has only won twice (same guy both times. Guess who. Lesser of two evils). In the same span of time my Phillies have also won the World Series twice.
I fully anticipate, in the event of an Obama win, stepping over bodies in the streets tomorrow of Philadelphians who have fainted in astonishment at two major things going their way within the span of a week. That never happens in our city!
In 2004 I arrived at the polls at 6:45 am (they open at 7 am here in Michigan) and there were about 20 people in line ahead of me. Today I arrived at 6:30 am and I was the 34th person in line. (!!!) By 6:45 the line had grown to over 100, and by the time the doors opened at 7:00 am there were around 150 people in a line that snaked around the building.
After I voted, the line snaked all the way down one side of the building (inside), across another side (outside), and back down the opposite side of the building (also outside). The people I talked to in line all shared amazement and a lot of excitement at the huuuuge turnout. (Seriously, I’ve lived here for 11 years and have never, *ever*, seen a turnout like this.
I agree with someone upthread who mentioned being excited, but worried about being excited at the same time. Today in the office when people were asking each other “did you vote yet?” there was an urgency that I’ve never seen before.
C’mon, America – we can do it.
(Oh, the thing that kicked off my building sense of optimism? Checking the mailbox late last night to find this week’s New York magazine. It features a closeup of Barack Obama with the caption: “January 20, 2009.” Please, please, please, make it so!)
I hate the electronic voting machines here. They don’t even go beep. Weak!
I voted Halloween morning at a grocery store near my parents’ house. When I got there, the line went down a couple of aisles, out the front of the store, along the front of the shopping center, down the side, around a couple of corners, and eventually ended out behind the store, by the dumpster. And even while we were stuck back there with the smell, everyone was in high spirits. I had a great time in line eavesdropping on other people’s cell phone conversations, all of which were variations on, “I’m voting! Today! Isn’t it exciting?” It’s so strange and foreign to see people actually EXCITED about going to vote.
I was telling my husband about how NY TNers were talking about the sound of the lever machines and – before I could get the sound out – he said “kahgchung”, to which I said “Close: they were saying “KECHONK!”
Also, we went to vote at around 7.15 this morning and the polling place was the most crowded I’ve ever seen it (I’ve been voting at the same place since ’96). Afterward my husband said that he felt that Election Day is a little like Ash Wednesday: after you’ve gone to vote/get your ashes, you walk around with a bit of a “special” feeling.
I’m a Canadian expat in Australia and refreshing CNN is making me insane, so I can only imagine how all of you are feeling.
My fingers and toes are crossed for you all. PLEASE PLEASE.
@Natalie- Gratz on your first time voting! Illinois hasn’t gone Republican in twenty years, so yeah, good chance it’ll go to Obama this year. :)
I’m jealous of all you NYC folks and your KECHONK, man. We have paper Scantron ballots with bubbles; it’s like taking the SAT. Sadder still, mine is one of the last 2 counties in Washington state that has polling places at all, and from now on, it will be all vote-by-mail for us. It’s more efficient and cost-effective, but I will sorely miss seeing my neighbors and drinking bad church-basement coffee.
While I was waiting, I watched a tiny little blonde girl, maybe 2 years old, sort of marching around and around her mom’s legs in the booth. She was carrying a large Obama button in both hands, and chanting quietly to herself: “Ba. Ma! Ba. Ma! Ba. Ma!” So, that was the FIRST time I teared up. Today.
Please. Please. Please. Please. Please!
“To my international readers: fingers crossed for us, please; we’ll try not to biff it again.”
Please don’t, friends to the South. I’m still getting over my feelings about our recent election in Canada. I live in our Prime Minister’s riding, which is the same idea as your electoral districts, for anyone not in the know on Canadian politics. It pained me to actually have to see my Conservative Prime Minister’s name on my ballot. And know that no matter who else I voted for, he would likely win given that he took 70% of our riding in the last federal election. Sure enough, he and his party did win again.
We biffed it up again big time, up here in Canada. Please cheer me with the news come morning that Obama has taken the election in a landslide. And now I must anxiously go and wait for the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert coverage to begin.
http://www.citypaper.net/
Sars, look about half way down the left side of the page for the front cover illustration above “Pleeeeeease” because I think that may be you.
Very few problems in the ward I was assigned. One certificate carrying Republican poll watcher who was denied access to a division’s polling place by a really ignorant judge of elections. But she did get in to do her duty eventually. HUGE turnout, 60-80% across the ward. And one little four year old who, “Pushed the green button!” to transmit his mom’s vote. Very cute.
Interviewed a young woman from Puerto Rico voting for the first time on the mainland and wondering why it is so difficult to get info on the election because it took so long to read the ballot questions and she’d have liked to have known how she would vote before she got there. So we directed her to resources. But she’s right, it should be easier to find on the web than it is.
My partner and I were struck by what a stupid myth this Republican Democrat divide is that supposedly has us at each others’ throats. Maybe on television and in a few wacky places. But nearly everywhere we were today the Republican and Democrat poll watchers and campaigners were just neighbors out doing their civic duty and enjoying one another’s company. Disagreement doesn’t mean hatred.
I voted this morning near Detroit and waited about an hour. I was crazy nervous excited the entire time. I had never voted in person for a presidential election (absentee the past two during college) and actually being in a huge room with hundreds of other people voting is so much different than filling out a ballot in my kitchen. I spent the rest of the day trying unsuccessfully to focus on work. My coworker and I determined that we have election induced ADD.
Stealing from another web comment, but oh the *sniff*
Come, I will make the continent indissoluble,
I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon,
I will make divine magnetic lands,
With the love of comrades,
With the life-long love of comrades.
I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America,
and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies,
I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each other’s necks,
By the love of comrades,
By the manly love of comrades.
For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you ma femme!
For you, for you I am trilling these songs.
– Walt Whitman
No line for me this morning to vote, but I was the 111th vote in my polling place, where I am usually about number 35 (voting around the same time). Those scan ballots are sort of creepy in the shredder way, but it looks like oHIo has delivered!
“KECHONK!!” :D
Aussie here, folks. I’m excited and getting periodic butterflies in my stomach…and I’m thousands of friggin’ kilometres away in Melbourne, Australia! I just hope and pray that America truly gets it right this time around by voting in Obama – goooo Obama!
He just seems so lovely and genuine – obviously a rare and elusive quality in the vast majority of world politicians – and every time I see/hear uninformed morons scornfully labeling him ‘a socialist’ (in TV coverage here), I feel like hauling ass to their neck of the woods to punch them in the face . Violence does not become me. :P
At present time, it’s Wed Nov 5th 1:47pm, so Tue Nov 4th 9:47pm on the East Coast. On CNN.com, Obama has 194 and McCain 69…
…I’m at work and constantly checking CNN, NY Times and our local newspaper The Age online.
Earlier I was getting lunch in a cafe, there was a big plasma with the election special on and all the little red and blue boxes ticking over, yada yada…and then there was a cut to Chicago’s packed Grant Park, and for the briefest moment I felt myself welling up at the thought that history might be made in only a matter of hours.
I’m sooo excited for you guys…! Kechonk-kechonk!
Woo-hoo! Check out Sarasota! REPRESENT!
Voted at 10am this morning, and usually I’m #100 at that time of the day – but today, I was almost #500!! WOOO! (Tearing up right now at the shots of the crowds in Chicago and Times Square) no wait, though, I think I hit the lull between people rushing to work and people voting on lunch break. AND they just announced that polling places here in WA, in a couple counties that are doing in-person voting (for the last time, boooo! from now on only mail-in, boo!), will be kept open until every single person has voted, not closing at 7pm. They’ll stay open until the last ballot has been cast. WOO!
Done and Done Sars. Done and Done. I imagine that your upcoming tomato dance will be a much happier one now.
Well, folks, judging from the sounds of celebration in my neighborhood, it seems tomorrow AM (EST) we’ll all be waking up to the words:
President Barack Obama.
Now that’s AWESOME!
May I be the first to say, “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Looks like you got what you want!!!
Yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.
Yes we did!!! yay!!!! :)
YES WE CAN!
*dancing happily* Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
If the tomato wants to wait until Jan 20 for the DC trip, I’d be 100% behind that.
YAY! We didn’t screw it up this time!
AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
HE WON.
HE WON.
HE WON.
YES WE CAN.
OH, my God I just got home from work and am waiting for my husband and we are going out to celebrate. OH MY GOD!
Oh MY God. I’m pretty young and I never thought I’d live to see the day.
It’s a great day for America. I am honored and grateful…congratulations, America. We deserve a celebration. :D <3
HOORAY! How is this for a global phenomenon? I am an Australian living and working in Cambodia. When Obama made his speech, my whole work shut down and hundreds of people rushed to the TV in the canteen. I sat and watched his speech in a small canteen just outside of Phnom Penh with Khmers, Vietnamese, French, Canadians, English, Thais, Belgians, Iranians, New Zealanders … the list goes on. And each and every one of us cared about the election, had been following the election, felt it affected us individually and was applauding Obama.
Congratulations to all the Americans! You didn’t screw it up this time!! :)
“This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time – to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth – that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people:
Yes We Can. Thank you, God bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.” – Barack Obama, President-Elect of the United States of America
AMAZING!!! I am currently full of love, pride and hope!
Thank you America – as an Australia, we are greatly affected by what/who you guys decide to elect and the last 8 years have not been good. I’ve been hoping for this result, to restore the faith that americans have in themselves and the opinion the rest of the world has of america.
At lunchtime today 30 people in my faculty were crowded around a tv watching the results come in – this extended to about 200 people when the result was announced. Not one single person was supporting McCain, in fact I think the international polls suggest something like 90% worldwide preference for Obama
Congratulations and thank you for electing a leader the world can respect
i can’t read anymore…had to skip to the end, my eyes and heart were so full…