D'Judge

I don't have any great insights into the Obama victory. I'm very pleased, though. It makes me feel young again.

Being a judge was pretty cool. I had a good crew, and they seemed to meld over time. It wasn't so great when the doors opened at 7 and people streamed in -- we were learning on the fly, as things we knew in theory turned into actuality, people at the wrong precinct, people who weren't registered, people who were required to prove their name or their address, people who got in line and then bolted, one of whom (at least) came back. I helped an elderly Vietnamese woman vote who had never done it before. I saw two blind people vote, one of whom had never done it before, and one who'd sworn never to do it again because it was so hard for him. I saw families with strollers, women who startled me with how attractive they were (in our town?), and guys who startled me with how thuggish they were (in our town?) -- and yet both kinds were standing in line, waiting patiently to get the chance to vote. I saw people who weren't sure how to vote, and people who wanted us to just start the machine and get on our way. I saw people who hadn't voted in years, and people who were voting for the very first time. After each one, or as often as we could, we asked if they'd seen the 'thank you for voting' screen at the end. That was because thats what you see when the machine has registered your vote. Some people were surprised by our insistence, but they seemed to appreciate it.

We had about 350 people in the first two hours, and overall we had over a thousand, in a precinct with 1178 registered voters. At times, the line was out the door and up the hill; most times, it was about fifteen people deep, and there were stretches in the middle of the day when there was no one there.

I drank three cans of soda, and ate one half of a doughnut. This despite having a lunch out in the car. I just couldn't grab ten minutes to do that. I was too wired. My wife was rather ticked with me when she found that out. And when I turned all the stuff back in to the Board of Elections last night around 10, I was never so relieved as when they counted the absentee ballots, did it again, did it again... and finally figured out why they had a mismatch on the count. They took it very, very seriously.

It was a very long day. I'm glad I did it.