Normally, there are loads of campaign signs in this spot. This time, they had all been stripped away. Voters were almost as scarce in this location…
I get up, and I read how painfully excited everyone is supposed to be across the country, which was to be expected — right?
But then I go check out the action at my own polling place, and — there’s nobody standing outside. And I drive by my Mom’s a couple of miles away, and — it’s the same.
Which is a shock. I mean, here’s what it looked like at my polling place in 2008, which is the year I think of when I think “big turnout.”
You may say, “Yeah, but it’s raining right now.” Yes, very lightly. And an almost identical rain was falling when I took those pics in 2008, too.
But thinking of that, I went back to my own precinct to see if the crowd was all jammed up inside the building.
No. Nothing. No lines at all. I talked briefly with a school board candidate who was standing out greeting people at the door, and he said the workers told him it had been like this all morning — one or two voters at a time.
I stood there and talked to him for several minutes, and during that period that description of the trickle was borne out — one voter went by us and entered.
It wasn’t like this at early voting, as you can see from my previous posts. But at the same time, while the early crowds were good-sized, they weren’t big enough to tell us there would be virtually no turnout on the Day.
What are y’all seeing?
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Another thing about that 2008 vote…
That was the year that, as far as I cared, it didn’t matter who won the presidential election. A wonderful thing had happened in the primaries — the candidates I preferred (and we endorsed) had won both of them. As I said over and over that year, that was a win-win election,
I turned out to vote, of course. I can’t imagine anyone considering that duty to be optional. I stood right there in the rain for 90 minutes, because I was that eager to perform that obligation.
That was despite it being a “win-win.”
This time, the fate of our country as the liberal democracy the Framers conceived hangs in the balance. There has never been a more critical election. I’ve been voting at every opportunity since 1972, and it’s like those times were all a mere warmup for this one.
So where is everybody? Where are all those people who’ve been making so much noise the last few years?
The same at our precinct. In and out in less than 10 minutes. They also changed the setup to a smaller room as if they weren’t expecting many.
It worries me.
My wife and I hit our polling place just before 2 p.m. and while there was no crowd to speak of, there was a fairly steady stream of folks passing through at that point. One of the poll workers told us there was a “pretty good crowd” during the morning hours. It took all of ten minutes to sign in, vote and get our stickers.
I had NO idea there were that many candidates in the presidential race and I’m a bit of a news junkie. At least I read up on the Congressional candidates, including an Alliance party candidate who had the most detailed website of the three outlining his positions on the issues. I also read up on the two competing school board candidates in our district. ALL of the other races were uncontested, but I gave an electoral nod to the two candidates I’ve had any dealings with. I left the other races blank. My biggest interest aside from the presidential race is a proposed special tax district to support our local volunteer fire department which has been given the short shrift from the county for years. I voted in favor despite the significant hike it will bring to my annual property tax bills.
This year I’ve been deluged with literally dozens of text messages from a variety of politically motivated causes (including three today!). I deleted all of them and reported them as junk. I suspect that some were outright fraudulent attempts to dun money from unsuspecting recipients, as several weren’t even clear WHAT they were asking for money to support.
Today continued my streak of voting in EVERY general election since I turned 18 (53 years ago).
I have no idea