This was the line at 6:55 a.m. yesterday morning. It was like this until 9:00 a.m. People brought books and newspapers, prepared to wait it out. We had a steady stream with at least 10 people in line until after noon. By 2:00, we realized about 60% had already turned out. I began my day at 6:00. After closing the polls and counting 75(!) absentee ballots, I took everything to the courthouse to be counted and got home at 10 p.m. I was so focused on getting everything done, I have no idea how my precinct voted. I know our township and our county went for Obama. We’re pretty evenly split, so it could have gone either way. Nearly 1000 people voted in our precinct. 916 showed up in person, 75 voted via absentee. There are just over 1100 registered voters in our precinct. That’s a huge turnout.
As some people on Twitter have said, now the real work begins. And that is so true. A woman on CNN said last night, “We are going to hold Obama accountable, and he should hold us accountable.” I think we should stay as engaged in politics now as we were during the election. I’m excited but still anxious about all the problems we will need to face together.
