A line grows in Virginia-Highland.
Tuesday, November 2nd, 2004
On an overcast but warm Tuesday morning, we strolled from the house toward the library, noticing more folks than usual on the streets—families with strollers, iPodded and cellphoned twentysomethings, and a sizeable crowd from the soup kitchen/homeless ministry around the corner on Ponce.
It’s election day, of course.
We vote at our local library, and are used to short-to-nonexistent lines, and we figured that voting at 9:30 or so would get us past the initial rush of folks who have actual jobs. That may have been the case, but we were greeted with a very long line that grew much longer by the time we left.
The line was convivial, and we made it through in 20 minutes or so, and our local pollworkers did absolutely everything they could to facilitate getting us in and getting us out. Once inside, of course, we had to face those annoying Diebold voting machines (I kept thinking ‘wouldn’t antialiased type make this a lot easier on folks?’) but Sam and I had both done our homework and it took seconds to poke the screen a couple of dozen times.
I’m proudly wearing my sticker. I feel empowered. Of course, in the greater scheme, I’m holding my breath. And the first stop sign we came to walking away from the polling place reminded us that change is possible.
