I'm off to drop off my ballot. I filled it out yesterday but need to drop it off at a polling place today.
Don't know what kind of lines I'll find when I get there.
Feel free to use the combox to register the fact if you voted, talk about your experiences at the polling station, note any important elections or initiatives in your state, or even talk about (gasp!) who you voted for.
Just try not to tear up the furniture too bad in my absence.
Author: Jimmy Akin
Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."
View all posts by Jimmy Akin
I voted fifteen minutes ago. It was the middle of the afternoon. I was in and out in a few minutes. Suzanne went this morning and had a fifteen-minute wait, which isn’t bad.
Fourteen-year-old Sarah was wearing a McCain–Palin T-shirt. Someone told her she wasn’t supposed to be wearing that in the voting area, which Sarah, having no idea of the context, laughed off. I know there’s no electioneering but that seems excessive — Suz saw a voter wearing an Obama button in there.
I live in a solidly blue state, in a fairly urban and therefore blue neighborhood. There are, like, fifty Obama signs for every McCain sign you see.
Our local voter registry has apparently not quite arrived in the 21st century yet. Sigh. This is Silicon Valley.
Shortly after our voter pamphlets (not ballots!) arrived in the mail last month, the 2yo spilled his milk and cereal all over Daddy’s pamphlet. So I called the registry to ask for a replacement pamphlet. A few weeks later I learned that my circumstances might not allow me to get to the polls on Nov. 4, so I faxed in a vote-by-mail request just to be safe. My vote-by-mail ballot arrived as requested, but not my husband’s replacement pamphlet.
Husband goes out to vote today, only to learn that HE is on the vote-by-mail list, and I am not (even though my ballot arrived last week, with MY NAME printed on it.) Husband had to cast a provisional ballot.
This is not the first time weird things have happened, either– prior to the 2004 election, I called the registry to ask us to be marked down as English speakers, to cut down on the additional Spanish and Vietnamese pamphlets we were receiving in the mail. Mine was updated with no problem. My husband– had disappeared off the registry. Had to re-register…
Our ballot includes a proposition –
“…repealing article 3, section 5 of the Arkansas Constitution providing that no idiot or insane person shall be entitled to the privileges of an elector…”
So, idiots and insane people weren’t supposed to vote before? Let me tell you, this was never enforced, that I could tell.
😉
I voted by mail two weeks ago, along with my husband. I’ve never actually voted on Election Day, always by mail (I’m in my 20s). I appreciate the ability in CA to vote by mail without any particular reason, other than you don’t want your vote to depend on your ability to get to the polls that day. I suppose I’m missing the experience of voting in person, and no sticker. Oh, well.
We have a few really stupid initiatives on the ballot in Arizona.
One would allow *potential* homebuyers to sue the homebuilder. It would also make the homebuilder responsible for court fees if it loses and prevents the homebuilder from winning court fees if it wins.
One would require all initiatives on the ballot to receive a majority vote of *registered voters* rather than registered voters who actually vote. I wonder what percentage of registered voters actually vote in Arizona.
And one would extend the licenses of payday loan businesses indefinitely (otherwise they all expire in 2010 with no option for renewal) and caps the legal screw-you interest rate at a low, low 400%. This would have the effect of lowering a loan from $17.50 per $100 over 2 weeks to $15 per $100 over 2 weeks. The actual APR is 391% or higher. Yeah, way to hit the payday loan industry where it hurts.
There are positives that would come out of an Obama win – inculding worldwide admiration of the US for being the first major western country to elect a leader of african extraction. We can also hope for an improvement in race relations in the US and greater optimism among african americans. Still, I could not get past the fact that Obama seems the most extremely pro-abortion nominee ever to have come along. I wrote in Alan Keyes. I figured that my vote could not be contrued as anti-black. I expect Obama will win my state handily. God save us all.
Today is a day to put on ash and sackcloth.
May Our Lady of Victory pray for us.
I went to my little township polling place here in the exurbs of the Twin Cities at about 11 am. It is a heavily GOP area which seemingly has remained just as strong for the GOP as ever. I probably see 10 McCain/Palin signs for every Obama sign around here. The local races have more signs for Dem candidates, but they are still doomed. I wish the whole country was like this.
As far as the voting itself, there was very little excitement. The small parking lot was full, which meant that there were about a dozen or so voters there. I was the 659th person to vote, and counted myself lucky that I wasn’t the 666th. 😉
I happily cast my vote for McCain/Palin. It made me feel good that I had done everything I could to stop the nightmare candidate, Barack Obama. If McCain wins, (and let me tell you a little secret, I think he will) I’ll start pounding them on ESCR immediately.
Here’s a great article to read if you’ve lost hope:
http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/toast/
It’s probably the best analysis of the election and polling that I’ve read.
I went to my little township polling place here in the exurbs of the Twin Cities at about 11 am. It is a heavily GOP area which seemingly has remained just as strong for the GOP as ever. I probably see 10 McCain/Palin signs for every Obama sign around here. The local races have more signs for Dem candidates, but they are still doomed. I wish the whole country was like this.
As far as the voting itself, there was very little excitement. The small parking lot was full, which meant that there were about a dozen or so voters there. I was the 659th person to vote, and counted myself lucky that I wasn’t the 666th. 😉
I happily cast my vote for McCain/Palin. It made me feel good that I had done everything I could to stop the nightmare candidate, Barack Obama. If McCain wins, (and let me tell you a little secret, I think he will) I’ll start pounding them on ESCR immediately.
Here’s a great article to read if you’ve lost hope:
http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/toast/
It’s probably the best analysis of the election and polling that I’ve read.
We’re in Central CA and turnout seems to be very high locally. My hubby and I both voted already.
He had to stand in line when they opened to wait for a “secrecy shield” that covers less than half the ballot (!) — anyone can see who you chose for president, but then again, they can just look at our yard sign or cars to see that. 🙂
I didn’t have to wait, but they did make me get my jacket from the car to cover my “NObama” shirt with pro-life button, and remove the McCain/Palin button from my purse. (The jacket buttoned easier before I was pregnant four times in four years!) Like SDG, I find this rule ridiculous (no free speech in the voting booth?!), but it’s not worth fighting for me; it’s the vote that matters most, after all.
I did make sure to claim my free cup of Starbuck’s coffee and walk around a local park after drinking it for a while so that everyone could see my shirt and the stickers on my car, though. 🙂
Most of the country already knows what’s at stake here in CA, so I won’t bother saying much about that. Just, in charity, please pray that we don’t get still more death forced on us, and that Prop 4 (parental notification on abortion) and Prop 8 (marriage amendment) pass!
Washington State here.
We have a sort of modified vote-by-mail thing; my husband is out of state with the AF, so he voted early and I dropped both of ours off this morning. Based off the cars that came through while I was there, I’d guess it was about ten cars a minute– the only lady I saw close up was also dropping off two packets. *grin*
I’m hoping that the pro-suicide thing doesn’t pass….
Out in the burbs of Philly, I was the 101st person to vote this morning at our local firehouse. I’m not a huge McCain fan (to say the least), but felt no twinges of conscience in voting for him. It was neat to see so many people from our neighborhood out. I ended up in line just before my neighbor, so we chatted for a while. The wait was about 30 minutes, about 20 minutes after the polls opened. I remain less than hopeful of a McCain victory, but the link Dave Mueller provided above did boost me a little bit (what a fascinating post).
My wife and I voted this morning in North Carolina.
Almost everywhere you go you see Mcain, Palin signs.
Some Obama signs[I have torn down about 5 of them] but most people, I’d say 90%, are voting for Mcain.
We voted to block Obama from election, which I believe will happen.
God bless President Mcain!!!
Just voted in Ohio. My wife was working the polls. Outside of the workers & one other voter, it was just me.
Here’s prayers to the success of John McCain & Sarah Palin.
We had some out of state campaigners, driving an Illonois minivan. who were taking pictures of our McCain signs and our “No Osama Binladin” home-made sign, this past Sunday. I pray this isn’t a harbinger of things to come in a Nobama administration.
Here in MIssouri we had a proposition to remove all loss-limits on casinos, but as the tax revenue goes to the schools, it got wide support. The State, I am sure, will also provide foster-care for all those children whose mommies will be in jail due to gambling debts!
The board of elections screwed everything up for me, but I ended up voting just the same. I applied for an absentee ballot but they registered me to vote in Syracuse instead. I actually didn’t mind this since Syracuse is really where I live and I had come to regret not changing my registration to here anyway.
But the place they told me was my polling place turnd out to be a nursing home were it seemed only the residents voted. I got some strange looks walking in there, and it turned out they didn’t have my name in that book thing you’re supposed to sign. I showed them what I’d been mailed and they couldn’t explain it and had me call someone, who told me to go to the Syracuse University library (where it would have made much more sense to be my polling place anyway) and ask for an affidavit ballot.
When I got there though it turned out I was in their book. Apparently the library was my polling place after all (like the rest of the students at the University Hill colleges) but I’d been sent the wrong address. I just went with it, signed the thing, and voted.
It was kind of fun pulling the levers and such on the old voting machines for the first time. I’ve always voted by absentee ballot since I first voted in 2004, and had been hoping I would get a chance to use the old fashioned machines before they’re replaced by more modern equipment (New York apparently is the last state to use the old dinosaurs, ha ha).
I voted against Obama, which unfortunately meant voting for McCain. Not that McCain has any hope in Onondaga County or New York State, if indeed he has any in the country. We can still pray for a miracle, although then again I hate to think what might happen if McCain did pull off an upset. There’d be a lot of rioting in the cities and accusations of fraud, no doubt.
I’m trying to stay positive about the election by looking at several things though. There’s the presidential election, the California homosexual marriage ban, the Washington attempt to legalize assisted suicide, and the Connecticut vote whether to hold a state constitutional convention, which could possibly reverse their recent court-imposed marriage redefinition. Each might be an uphill battle, but I figure there is a good chance of at least one of them going right.
Just to clarify, I’m against the Washington assisted suicide thing. Hopefully the measure will loose.
Or lose. That’d be good too. Ok, I think I’m gonna go now…
I got to use my shiny new voter registration card, having moved to Texas on the last day to register for this election. I guess that means the process worked. It was refreshing to do research on candidates without being seriously disappointed in them, as contrasted with much of the ballot in my previous place of residence, California (sorry, Jimmy!). I even got to vote for a candidate from my parish for judge, and I didn’t have to worry about whether gay “marriage” was going to remain legal after the election.
Dan– don’t tear down other peoples’ signs. We should really be better than that.
I voted for the first time for President of the United States. So did my sister. Where I am, I voted in the morning in order to get to Mass in my parish.
It took about ten minutes, and the actually voting took about 4. I felt proud to support candidates whose commitment to life were strong-though the most important race did not have such a candidate.
P.S. For some reason, a elderly gent there was giving candy to voters-Halloween candy. I don’t know if he bought it for this purpose or if he had leftovers. I’ll let you know if it has expired 😀
I have noticed in the Sacramento, CA, region lots of “Yes on 8” signs either kicked/punched through or with swastikas penned on them and almost no candidate signs except BO/JB.
Our polling place is just a few doors down, and the street is full of parked cars, which is unusual, so turnout must be high. Braveheart and I will vote after he’s returned home and we’ve enjoyed afternoon tea.
As with many of you, we completed our novena this morning, and with you, we say: Our Lady of Victory, please pray for us.
Oh, and I vote in Kansas, since we’re keeping a tally here.
I went to vote and was told I would not be given a ballot because I was wearing a shirt that says “totally Catholic pro-life” on the front and “unconditionally pro-life” and this quotation:
I asked to speak to whoever was in charge. I asked to see what rule or law I was violating by wearing my shirt. I was only told that unless I took off my shirt or wore a jacket I would not be given a ballot because my shirt was considered electioneering.
I explained that I was a Catholic wearing a shirt that identified me as Catholic and I was being denied my ballot.
I made it clear that I was not leaving until they let me vote and I would not change my shirt. The man in charge was doing his best to find a compromise, he said he was a retired police officer and was not going to call the police.
Finally, I agreed to walk a hundred feet from the polling place and fill out my ballot outside with the No on 8 people giving me looks that could kill. The retired police officer filled out a vote by car envelope for me to put my ballot in and I hope actually placed it in the ballot box.
It was unbelievable! Our Lady of Victory Pray for Us!
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
Voted for Baldwin and feeling great about it.
I’m sure Obama is feeling great about it too, Don.
I voted by mail. Seems so long ago.
For president, I voted for the major candidate who has a last name with the first syllable being the same as a major fast-food hamburger/french-fry chain (one that has for mascots a clown and a burglar who steals hamburgers — “Mc-something” and that’s all I’m gonna say), has a woman from Alaska for a running-mate, and who was not the most pro-abortion one having a logo that’s a zero or donut in front of a slice of bacon. Just in case any 501-3c organizations link to this blog, ok?
In Colorado, I went against the advice of the highly-respected Colorado bishops and voted FOR Amendment 48 which defines “person” as any human being from the moment of fertilization. Considering the gravity of this amendment, I was disappointed the bishops did not provide more analysis and reasoning than they did for not getting behind the amendment. According to the polls it looked fairly certain to be defeated though.
I’m hopeful at this point, but ready to accept the fact that we as a nation and a Church may soon be going through an increased period of trials.
Got to the polls this morning at 6:15 a.m. here in Arizona to vote for McCain/Palin and ‘Yes on Prop 102’ (which is similar to California’s Prop 8).
The polling place was at a mega-church and the line was completely around the building. I decided to come back at lunch and when I did I waited about 45 minutes (my wife and two sons were unexpectedly already in line when I got there. I tried to take cuts, but my wife sent to to the back of the line).
I saw a lot of ‘Yes on Prop 102’ and McCain/Palin signs around town defaced or crumpled up. So much for the party of tolerance.
I voted this afternoon. It took almost 2 1/2 hours. With a 6yo, 8yo, and 2yo in tow. All of this while I’m 7 months pregnant. *whew*
I proudly cast my vote for McCain/Palin. My oldest son is aware of some of the issues that are at stake and he’s fervently praying for McCain to win. It’s precious to see. We’re watching some of the returns and he’s chanting, “John McCain, John McCain.” It’s almost like when he was watching the olympics this summer and rooting for Phelps.
One of the more disturbing amendments on the ballot here in SC was a motion to do away with 14 as the age of sexual consent, and then allow the legislature to set another age as the age of consent. First of all, why do away with it? Are people lobbying to lower the age of consent?? I about fell on the floor.
I am hopeful that McCain will prevail, but I am concerned about the future if Obama wins. As a nation, I think he would further hurt the economy by imposing stringent regulations and mandatory healthcare on business owners. Will they be able to afford it? For my military family, I have concerns that Obama would order a draw down of troop numbers, in addition to military budget cuts that would probably leave our troops without needed supplies or equipment. And on top of all of that, there’s the big issue: abortion. We’re the closest we’ve ever been to being able to overturn the evil decision. If Obama takes office, we can count on being setback 20 years in efforts to repeal the results of Roe v. Wade.
When I voted at 6:30 this morning, there had been a line since the polls opened at 6, seemed a bit more than usual. I’m off to do something totally unrelated until the first polls close.
I’m off to drop off my ballot. I filled it out yesterday but need to drop it off at a polling place today.
You mean you got to have the ballot at home with you?!!! I find that incredible.
The opportunities for fraud or mafia-like intimidation is some “communities” would be endless.
How on earth do you American’s put up with such an electoral system?
Surely a better, more secure, way could be implemented.
Voted around 9:30 this morning. Our 4yo got to press the BIG Cast Ballot Now button. A long line but it went pretty fast. Only got hairy one time when a man tried to butt ahead of me.
Voted around 9:30 this morning. Our 4yo got to press the BIG Cast Ballot Now button. A long line but it went pretty fast. Only got hairy one time when a man tried to butt ahead of me.
If Obama is pleased with my Baldwin vote, that is of marginal concern to me. I do not take actions because I perceive they will have desirable consequences but because of their intrinsic value. That’s why I’m Catholic.
The problems are significant. The obstacles to fixing it are (a) fifty different systems in fifty different states, (b) no one best system that everyone can agree on, and (c) no political will to fix the problem.
I voted this afternoon here in KY. I’m glad to see Fox News has projected KY to go for McCain/Palin, and Sen. McConnell to hold his seat against the anti-life Democrat. WV has also gone for McCain – hopefully KY and WV can rub off on OH and PA.
St. Thomas More, pray for us.
I took advantage of early voting in California (Orange County).
Alan Keyes for president; republican the rest of the way down ticket; Yes on 4, 8, & 11.
This marks the fifth straight presidential election voting a third party. (Plus John Anderson in 1980)
Don –
Whether you like to hear it or not, and whether you like to admit it or not, the ‘intrinsic value’ of your vote is that it gave direct assistance to a candidate who supports and endorses infanticide.
FOX just said that McCain won the white vote in PA. Boy, immigration is doing wonders for the moral fiber of our country. All those foreigners with their great family values.
We can also hope for an improvement in race relations in the US
Yes, but we can also fear a drastic worsening of race relations in the US.
God spare us from a failure for Life tonight. To those who can, VOTE!
Don Q: You seem to be confusing being a Catholic with being a deontologist.
Off topic to Bob:
You said(to Don):
“Whether you like to hear it or not, and whether you like to admit it or not, the ‘intrinsic value’ of your vote is that it gave direct assistance to a candidate who supports and endorses infanticide.”
1. Not true. You have no proof, mathmatical or moral, that Don’s vote (or any 3rd party vote) does any such thing.
2. This discussion of yours is not the purpose of this thread. The 3rd party option has been discussed thoroughly elsewhere. Go there.
3. I find your criticism, as it certainly comes too late, to be flippant, irritating, ungentlemanly, and unbecoming of a Christian. Do you expect Don to rush back to his polling place, arms waving, and demand to be allowed to re-cast his ballot? Do you expect him to issue a mea culpa and promise, in the future, to check with you before he votes? Do you really expect that he, and others like him, have not wrestled with the issues and their duties as citizens and Christians before casting their ballots?
I beg you to consider your words before you add to the burdens your fellow citizens carry this night. God bless you.
Oh, and on-topic: I voted early this morning. Fairly crowded, extra booths and machines. Took about 30 minutes. Voted for Baldwin. In Ohio. Yeah, Bob, I know — don’t blame Obama, don’t blame McCain. Blame me.
Can I change my response? I like what freddy said. Let’s kill the bickering in this thread, even though it gives me the last word. 🙂 Don Q, can you live with that?
Incidentally, Don Q Son of Zorro is an excellent silent film.
It was never my intention to bicker with anyone.
No fingers pointed your way.
As of right now, CNN is projecting that Obama has secured 297 electoral votes – more than enough to win the Presidency.
We’ve now just elected someone who makes Bill Clinton look like a moderate. Great.
Maybe one of these years the conservative movement might have a candidate who can articulate a message and make an argument.
I really don’t see any hope for America.
Be thankful for the challenge, and start praying for the health of the Supreme Court.
I voted last week at the county courthouse to avoid lines with four homeschooled children in tow. We didn’t have to wait at all; we just walked in and used an electronic machine that was keeping a printed record. The nice ladies there had the tiny office looking all festive with crepe paper bunting in red, white and blue hanging everywhere.
The children loved it; watching me touch the screen kept them out of the old leather-bound volumes of marriage records from the past hundred years, and they all got stickers saying “I voted” afterward, and got to see a huge county map showing the names of all the property owners in the area. The two year old crawled out, panting and barking like a dog, to the amusement of all onlookers. I don’t know what inspired him.
It was nice to use this simple, quick touch screen computer system after nine years of using a chunky, smeary pencil to color in circles on a piece of paper to vote. There’s no erasing those if you skip a line or something and color the wrong circle! And you only get so many do-overs, too. I think the limit was three. Yes, I found out the hard way last time in some local election.
I remember punch cards in Texas when I was in college, and non-electronic machines with actual levers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That was the only place I could have voted straight ticket by pulling the one big lever that would flip them all to D or R, instead of flipping all the little ones individually back in my Quixotic days.
I preferred the ease of use of the computer last week, definitely, even though I miss the big, clunky old lever machine and its satisfying, solid ka-chu-uu–unk sound after pulling the final lever and having all the little levers flip one way to register the selection and then flip back to neutral. Ahh, too bad it didn’t start spewing quarters like that nice machine in Deadwood, South Dakota….
No supermajority it seems, and two years is not long in coming.
I was very sad to see my state turn blue for the first time in 45 years. When I moved to Virginia from NY, I had hoped that my conservative views would be shared, and they were for a while there, but the pendulum seems to be swinging the other way now.
Went down to the polling place shortly after 9 AM. I figured I would get there after the before-work voters, and still be there early enough to miss the lines. My wife and I got our paper ballots, filled them out, and turned them in while herding toddlers. Everyone was friendly, but there were huge warning signs everywhere that there was to be no campaigning within 100 feet of the polling place.
I cast my vote for Alan Keyes (who was actually on the ballot in Colorado) and Amendment 48. Colorado had some downright stupid amendments on the ballot, but I guess that’s always the case. Unfortunately, it seems the least stupid of these has gone down in flames; 48 did not pass.
I have some thoughts on the election results, but I’ll post them elsewhere so as to avoid bickering.
I hope that the GOP sees that it is time to get back to our conservative principals, and quite acting like liberals. Hopefully the pendulum of political power has reached its end of travel, and will begin swinging back to the right.
The gameplan is there for any Republicans who want to win: Reagan in 1980 and 1984; Bush41 followed the gameplan in 1988 and won big (then abandoned the gameplan in 1992 and lost); the House Republicans in 1994. Unfortunately, the Republicans usually try to “play nice” and “get along”. The Democrats always play to win. The Republicans are Charlie Brown, while the Democrats are Lucy with a football.
bill912,
You know, I grew up in a typical liberal family in San Francisco, and I can assure you that libs feel exactly the same way about the Democratic-Republican dynamic that you feel about the Republican-Democratic dynamic. Both groups feel consistently betrayed by “their” party: libs by the Democrats and conservatives by the Republicans, but most stick to the party anyway, feeling that they have no other recourse. (I remember hearing debates about third-party voting as well, in which Democratic voters howled at Naderites for throwing the election to Bush 43.)
I remember growing up hearing about how much power the Republicans had, and how if only the Democrats would stop bending over and taking it from them, perhaps they could do our country some good. Do you know that they even see a conservative bias in the media? I haven’t heard the Charlie Brown/Lucy analogy before, but I’ll bet it fits the way a lot of Democrats feel as well.
I voted on election day, even though we have mail-in ballots. I had to bring it to a ballot drop of place–a public school, only blocks from the house. There were no lines, only two 70-80 something year old volunteers who smiled and laughed at the fact that I had my 3 year old son put the ballot in the box for me. In response, both Aidan and I received an “I voted sticker”, which came in handy: Krispy Creme was giving out free doughnuts and Starbucks was giving out free coffee.
I voted for McCain, though I was seriously considering voting for a third-party candidate. I didn’t like McCain’s views on a lot of issues, beyond just the life issues. But, in the end, it was Obama’s radical views on the latter which moved me to vote for McCain. And… again… as a Catholic I voted feeling sad that here I was again: left to a feeling of tension, disenfranchisement, voting for the “lesser” of two evils.
What fun. I am pretty much sick of it, though I will continue to dutifully vote in accord with the Church’s teaching. I have to do it; I don’t have to do it enthusiastically.
Now that the election is over, and I didn’t vote for Obama, I can be optimistic about other things and what I liked about him. I am not going to dwell on the fact that we have a President who is radically pro-abortion, but, rather, I am going to choose to be frustrated with the fact that so many Catholic lay people have failed to be Christ to the World and to their Country during this election. I do not blame the bishops, which is a rediculous and tiresome cliche. It is the lay people. I wrote some prayers here (I am the first commenter) http://insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2008/11/president-obama.html#comments
Being optimistic, I think that this Country has made a historic move in electing a black man to the highest secular office… in the world. I am proud of that fact, and I am proud of the fact that we did it before Europe. I look forward to seeing what Obama does with Health Care, the environment, the economy, the war(s), and with our many fragmented relations with other countries.
As far as the abortion issue and other life issues go: I can only pray, and continue doing what I have been doing for many years now.
jn