So my voting experience this year was unlike any I've ever had in the past. On Monday I received a phone call, wanting to know what time I planned on voting. They wanted to make sure I was still going to vote, because every vote counts. The district I'm in is one of the largest areas, it includes the students at James Madison University. She informed me she planned on getting there a little before 6:00a.m. I thought, how crazy to get up that early to vote. As I was watching the news, there were several comments about people waited in line for 3 hours for early voting and how they expected there to be a high voter turn-out this year. I thought well, maybe 6:00 a.m. is not so crazy.
So I set my alarm for 6:00 a.m. I didn't want to be the only one standing out there waiting if I went any earlier and I definitely didn't want to spend 3 hours waiting in line. I arrived at 6:18 a.m. I could not believe my eyes. The parking lot at the school was packed. Not only was the parking lot packed there was a line. A huge line, it was 6:18 a.m. There were at least 200 people waiting in line. The people that were leaving were commenting that they arrived at 5:45 a.m. and still had to wait in line. I waited in line for roughly 45 minutes. They started bumping up people with the last name L-Z, otherwise I would have been in line for at least an hour.
When I left at 7:06 a.m. the line was longer than when I first arrived. There were 100 more people standing in line. So if you can do the math, there were actually 300 people standing in line to vote. Maybe this is why all the schools were closed. Which by the way, they don't get Columbus Day off but they're closed on Election Day, you've gotta love the East.
Very different experience for me. I've never even had to wait more than 5 minutes, if that, to vote in Utah, ever. There was even a police officer to help with traffic, if you can believe that. So even though it was very early, it was kind of exciting to see so many people voting. I felt very proud and honored to live in a country where people value being able to vote and have their voices heard.
