The Newtster Heads To The Polls

Julia and I went to vote this morning. Her alarm started going off at 6, which is when the polls opened. After snoozing a few times, we got up and out of the house at 6:33. We walked to the fire station where we vote and got in line at 6:52. The line was probably 4 times longer than any of the other three times we have voted there in the past.

During the wait, we were a captive audience for an overzealous Obama worker who took her responsibility to hold a homemade sign very seriously and felt the need to continue talking to the line to tell us how long it was taking, where we could get free stuff with our "I Voted" sticker, and generally just being annoying.

A couple more observations from the wait.
- The fire station is located just a street away from one of the last bastions of Section 8 housing in Old Town and the line wrapped around to that street. It was pretty obvious that the Mini Coopers and Priuses parked along the street were likely people voting and not residents.
- At 7:30 a minivan rolled down the street blaring 'Father Figure' by George Michael. It's hard to imagine who that person might be, but I have a feeling I might not like them. Or would I? It's hard to tell.
- At 7:45, an SUV full of girls rolled by yelling, "Yea!!!! Right to vote!!!" That was pretty entertaining.
- There was also a woman in front us of wearing a red and black jacket with "Badd Girls" emblazoned across the back. She had two young sons with her and would occasionally step out of line to talk on the phone and/or smoke a cigarette, at which point the kids would start acting up and she would yell, "Michael!!! Jordan!!!!", which could be their names or maybe just her favorite former NBA player and they were expected to stop acting up and show him some proper respect. Either way they would straighten up. She did have to flick one of them in the ear once inside the fire station to get him to stop playing with his gum and used that as a warning for the other kid, who was told he would be next.

We got into the fire station at around 8:15 and went through the line to verify our identities. I then went to the next line to get my PIN number for the voting machine, which was printed at 8:33:50. I stepped out of the door at 8:35, completely satisfied that my vote would be effectively canceled out immediately by 75-80% of the people I had just seen in line.

I also wore my Androewood t-shirt to vote, though it was under a hooded sweatshirt. I guess people will not be able to judge for themselves.