casting it
November 4th, 2008At its best, voting is a surreal experience. In New York, even more so. Everyone in the enormous lines chatting to each other, everyone seeming to know each other, asking about the other’s kids, husband, soccer team. The huge old metal voting machines with the giant red levers at the bottom and complicated instructions (complicated if you don’t see some of them). The physical turning of a knob to make an "x" appear.
The buzz around this election is buzzier than ever, and from getting up at 5:50am, getting in line in the dark and hearing everyone chatter, I felt a legitimate head-rush as I stepped into the booth. Voting felt so good!
I wonder where the phrase "cast a vote" comes from? I did some googling but couldn’t find anything. Why "cast"? What is being thrown? What physically was cast to get this phrrase? Something as simple as a piece of paper in a hat? But that doesn’t really seem like casting…
Love it. I was up and voting at 6 AM as well. The line grew quick. Air is electric in NYC as I’m sure in most other places in the nation as well. Definitely a memorable experience for a historic vote!
Lines in DC were staggering…I was in line by 6:30 (polls opened at 7) and finished up by 7:30. In that hour the line grew from several hundred people to a few thousand. To see a line of people stretch around one corner of a block and then curl again out of sight around the next corner was nearly tear-inducing.
what an amazing xp…tho they’re now saying the turnout in NYC wasn’t record-breaking, it certainly felt like something was happening…
so cool – Lila and I waited in line for an hour and a half. I always get choked up when I vote, but Tuesday was something entirely different – you really did feel like you were a part of history, part of a movement.
At one point it got a little windy and people, while still in good spirits, were commenting on it being chilly and one guy said, “that’s OK it is just change blowing in the wind.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.
wow, that sounds pretty great…did Lila start rocking out the Bob Dylan on her tiny acoustic guitar?
Also, when I was voting, the mom in front of me took her 7 (?) year-old kid into the booth with her to show him how it was all done and I was kind of surprised…I thought it was supposed to be just the person voting, but I guess kids are ok…pretty cool actually…
Kids 12 and under are OK. Lila was right up in there with me and the touch screen. I can’t believe you had to crank your vote in – not even a punch card, that is pretty hard core.