Across the river in MD, we opened an hour later than VA (i.e., polls opened at 7). I was in line at 6:35, about number 150 according to my quick count.

But three is the greatest number in the universe! You got lucky! See my screen name :)

I had loads of time to stand and read in the Kindergarten hallway while waiting. Two notes to self, vote early from now on (mom went right in and came right out), and go write down what I saw in the hallway. I giggled the whole time.

Vote for Pig! Longer play time Longer Summer school
Vote for cow! Cows give ice cream!
Vote for cow, without him your cereal will be dry!
Vote for Pig if you like being dirty.

I love living in America because...
I want to touch the Statue of Liberty
I love to party
I love Halloween
I want my sister

Good manners board
"Don't holler at teacher"
"Don't look under the toilet seat"

When you're President you
Don't holler (different classroom, but seems to be a theme going on here)

I don't think there were more than ten people ahead of me. We seem to be having a good turn-out, don 't get me wrong, but the team of poll workers had the flow moving through very efficiently. I love to people watch when I go. It would make a good commercial for our democratic process because of the diversity of the participants. Young people heading off to work, retired elders, farmers with mud on their boots, young mothers. You could smell food drifting up from the cafeteria, where volunteers prepare food for the throngs, so that people who are time crunched can eat and vote too, and the locals can sit around their chili and coffee discussing their choices. LOL.

Well, I thought I beat the bunch and instead of walking around the parking lot I went to the polling place. Was there at 06:05 AM and about 200 people in front of me. I had taken a book along, but the light in the parking lot was out. Once insides it went relatively fast and I got out exactly 1 hour after arrival. By that time the line was shorter.

Your posts make me grateful that Texas has early voting. I voted two weeks ago, so won't be standing in line at all today. In fact about 45% of the registered voters in our county voted early & they are still expecting lines today.

I think we're going to see turnout numbers that smash through all of our voting records & that is a very good thing.

I was in line almost -hour before opening; left 70 mins later. We usually have four electronic booths; this morning had those four plus 6 cubbies for write-on ballots.

Our polling place is in a high school, so there's no really fascinating reading (unless you like to study all those banners for state winners of past years), but of interest was a sign posted advising that those 65 and older could request curb-side voting. Drive up, request an assistant to bring ballot, prove age/residence, vote, go.

LOL, but I wanna know too: what was underneath the toilet seat?

We had lunch with a couple from Brazil several weeks ago, and I found out something I did not know and that is that in some countries, voting isn't an right, it's an obligation. And many countries who do have obligatory voting have penalties for those who do not comply.

I think about those elections when we hear about 20% or 40% turn out at the polls, and how lightly it's taken.

I voted last week. There were ten of us at Village Hall doing the same thing, and the women behind the counter said it was the quietest it'd been all week. I'm glad I don't need to stand in line today... even though the voting in our village runs like a well-oiled machine.

Our boss told us all we could take three hours off at our convenience to vote today. I told him I'd already taken care of it, but asked if I could go "dick around" for three hours anyway. He shook his head, laughed, and told me he didn't care...

(I wonder if it's OK for the President to look under the toilet seat.)

My co-workers and I watched a group of first graders walk by today. One of us commented that he didn't remember ever being that small. I told him I vividly recall being a first grader during the 1976 election. Our teacher was asking us each who we thought should be President and why. I felt strongly that it should be Jimmy Carter, because Ford had already "had a turn" and it was important to take turns. My teacher pointed out that Ford didn't get a "whole" turn, and did I think that was fair? I remember being adamant that there weren't enough turns for everybody, so Ford should be happy that he got one at all and pass the office over to Carter. I'd like to believe my political thought process has matured a bit over the years! I wonder what today's first graders will remember...

Um, they drew a picture of what is under the seat. Want a picture?

Saw a sign today--A hint, because of the long lines at the polls, we suggest that you come back tomorrow if you are voting for------, will save a lot of time.

we vote in a Middle School, but in the gym so there was nothing on the walls to read. Did not take long at all, only about 15 people in line so it went fast.

We had a new polling place. Our county is removing them from all the schools, probably a safety concern. It would go a lot smoother if the poor poll workers had been properly trained. They were really trying. I did a paper ballot because the line was very short. So short I had time to stop in the local diner for breakfast before work. I had brought the paper with me anticipating a long wait in line. I just had to be a smug little brat and call the dh (who was still in line, because he decided to vote electronically) and tell him where I was and how good the French toast was.

We managed to be lucky. Usually in a presidential election, our precinct has a big turnout with a longish wait. Georgia had early voting and about 45% of all registered voters had already cast their vote.

So, to shorten this brag, we must have missed the early crowd, and the lunch crowd hadn't shown up yet, we zipped in and zipped right out again. No standing in line at all.

Polls closed at 7:00, but according to our local news, people are still standing in line at some places at 8:00. The final count should be interesting.

We voted absentee several weeks ago.
It was nice to be able to get it all taken care of
without any trouble. I did drop the ballots off rather than take a chance of lost mail.

WV has early voting, so DH and I voted over two weeks' ago. We were so glad to get it done, partly b/c we could then, more or less, close our eyes to the final onslaught of political ads, phone calls, talking heads, etc. We knew our votes were out of our hands.

I can't believe--at 9:52 p.m. Eastern Time--the TV just played a very negative ad against a local candidate! Somebody at the TV station should check the clock; the polls closed almost three hours ago!

Most everyone voted early. I was working the polls today and we had some points where there was one person in 20 minutes. It was a high voter turnout. believe it or not. I had a fiddler for Obama come down and entertain us till someone told her to get 100 ft away. KILLJOYS!! she had zipped up her jacket so her logos were covered and she wasn't campaigning, just fiddling.

I was fifth in line until the Secret Service ushered a woman in a wheelchair to the front.

I live in the 22nd Precinct of the 4th Ward; Barak Obama lives in the 23rd, but we both (along with folks from the 32nd) vote at Shoesmith School.

I got in line at 5:15.

The polls are supposed to open at 6:00, but a member of the Fruit of Islam and the Secret Service worked it out that Louis Farrakahn, a fellow resident of the 22nd Precinct and his wife would vote first and then be gone before anyone else was let in.

The FOI guy said that Farrakahn would also be accompanied by two aides, and the S.S. man said, "They can't be carrying weapons, right?" and the FOI man said they wouldn't be.

As we waited, the S.S. went down the line checking our names against a computer printout they had of the combined three precincts.
At about 5:45 the poll workers started in through security, opening their bags and getting wanded. A policeman with a smallish black lab had come out of the school before they opened the doors, most likely a bomb-sniffer. The line went from the school to the street and down to the end of the block by then.

The end of the block would have been right in front of Farrakhan's seldom-used Chicago home, which looks sort of like an Arabian Holiday Inn. But for him to vote, his three-car motorcade must have gone around the block -- North on Woodlawn, East on 49th, back South on Dorchester, back West on 50th to unload about 200 feet from where they started.

Voting takes place in a gym that's also an auditorium. There's a stage along one side, and about eight video camera were set up there, all pointing toward the door.

There were two young women -- one with pink streaks dyed into her brown hair and one with navy-blue streaks over black -- in addition to the usual middle-aged African American poll workers at the long tables set up for the 22nd Precinct. Everything went smoothly.

Roberta was behind me in the line and afterwards we met outside, on the other side of the block, where we'd parked our vehicles. She had loads of time to make it into work and thought she'd stick around. She later saw the Obamas arrive, from a distance.

I saw some pictures of the Obamas voting later on and noticed that the student-type with the pink streaks got up from her table to take a call-phone picture.

Last night, our son came by to pick something up and stayed to watch the returns. Around 7:30, we walked over toward the Obama's house, but the cops said we couldn't stand closer than two blocks away so we went back home.

A little after 8:30, though, we noticed a lot of traffic on our leafy little 48th St. Cops were at end of the block, the intersection with Woodlawn, turning back cars approaching from each direction on 48th. We walked down and eventually formed a small crowd -- our African American neighbor, the family from China who bought the end townhouse on 48th a few years ago, a man who said he was Vietnamese, stopped a block from his house on his way back from his Tae Kwan Do session, a man I'd never seen before in his bathrobe.

Just after 9:00, Obama's motorcade drove past -- motorcycle cops, SUVs, some smallish busses, a Chicago Fire Department EMT truck. We waved at all the cars, not being sure which one held the Obamas. The Vietnamese guy said that earlier in the day, when Obama came back home from his traditional pickup basketball game, he'd had his window rolled down and waved to people he saw on the street.

So that was our little brush with history. Early and late we heard our African American neighbors say that they wish their parents or grandparents had lived to see the day. It's strange having all the security deployed -- everything from the sniffer dog to helicopters -- but all the cops and Secret Service types were very soft-spoken and calm. I suppose we'll get used to it.

80% turnout here.

Deduct all those registered voters that couldn't make it to the polls for one reason or other, and it is a really amazing number.

Thanks, Neil, for the Hyde Park report. A few miles north, no obvious VIPs at our polling place, but the votes were probably pretty similar. Our precinct has really high turnout even in comparatively dull years, so I would have been surprised had I had to wait long, especially since I go in the middle of the day. And I was right. I wouldn't have had to wait at all had I not opted for an electronic ballot over paper. Then I went down the street, uncharacteristically gave a panhandler a buck for her long, over-rehearsed story and got a free coffee at Starbucks.

If I were still working downtown, I would have been awfully tempted to dip a toe into the Grant Park area.

Per those elementary-school "elections." I remember being in first grade and our teacher asking us to cast our ballots for either Nixon or Humphrey. With little enthusiasm but a lot of confusion, I picked Nixon entirely because his name started with one of the two letters in my first name (I don't think we Nixon voters won, perhaps because Humphrey shared a first name with the Harris Bank stuffed lion--and had any candidate had the name of "Sinclair" I know I would have cast my lot with them in a heartbeat). I guess it's why we don't give five-year-olds the vote.

OK, I'll chime in too with my Chicago election-day (& night) experience.

I only waited 45 minutes in line to cast my vote. Small price to pay for such a huge pay-off.

I couldn't help but go outside after the election was called...in my city with my people...to share the experience.

I'm j-u-s-t far enough away from Grant Park that I could hear a low rumble of joyous noise as I walked along the Chicago River Walk. It's a landscaped pathway by the river one block south of my building, stretching from Lake Michigan west to Michigan Avenue. It was startlingly quiet and mostly deserted, yet there was a calm happiness in the air, which I swear I could feel. I walked to Michigan Avenue, up the 52 stairs to street level and turned an immediate right onto the NBC-5 Plaza. A small group of folks had stopped to watch election coverage on the outside TV screens. I joined them for a while. But you know how there's always "one" in every group? One of the older black men had obviously had too much to drink. It was also apparent that he had a chip on his shoulder. He wouldn't stop talking trash. He was distracting. I also wasn't sure he could be trusted to not become dangerous.

I decided I'd had enough of the whole sharing thing. lol So I walked back home past the Sheraton, down the stairs and back inside. Got back just in time to watch Obama's speech.

You know, I don't think the enormity and the significance have fully hit me yet. I feel as if I'm in a state of suspended emotion. I guess it's like any really profound emotion good or bad: sometimes your psyche needs time to process everything because it's just SO BIG.

Which is to say, right now I'm pretty darn happy although I feel I should be skipping from rooftop to rooftop because of how significant this is, and how very much I wanted this outcome. Maybe the skipping will happen this weekend. :o)

Karen