Election Day Recap

I, for one, am glad that election day is over.  Boy, am I ever tired and sore?

Election day started at 6:00pm on Monday.  That was when all of the election judges had to meet at the school and set up the polling place and get our assignments for Tuesday.  It took about three hours to get all the polling machines and pollbooks set up, run the zero count printout, post all of the signs and put the tape arrows on the floor.

On Tuesday I had to be at the poll at 6am to take the final steps before the polls opened.  Then I just had to stay at the polling place until the polls closed and the polling equipment was all closed and packed and the ballot data was transmitted to the Board of Elections.  Oh, and during that time I helped about 2200 people cast their ballots.  Actually, I took two breaks, so I didn’t help all 2200.

I’m quite stiff and sore from sitting on a metal folding chair while checking voters in–"can I have your last name, first name and month/day of birth?"–and then standing/walking voters to the polling machines and explaining how the touchscreens worked.  We had a lot of voters in my precinct.  When you factor in the number of early voters, we probably had 65-70% turnout.  Very impressive.  **I just checked the unofficial turnout numbers for Montgomery County–66.13%.

I think there were two big, and a couple of smaller reasons for the big turnout.  Maryland had a ballot question about expanding gambling from a few slots parlors to casinos with table games.  Another question was to permit same sex marriage.  My state, Maryland, was the first in the nation to approve same sex marriage by popular vote.  Maine approved a similar measure, but because Maryland’s polls closed earlier than Maine’s, we were technically first.

Maryland also approved a state Dream Act which allows certain undocumented immigrants, who were brought to the U.S. by their parents, to attend Maryland state Universities and pay in-state tuition.

Oh, and Maryland voted 61% for Obama.  I live in a very blue state.  Yea!

Other than that, I got nothing.

Ender is out.