Got up at 6:22, rather, stumbled out of bed and went to vote in my district which was the Chesapeake Christian Center at 300 Liberty in South Norfolk.  Pulled in the parking lot at around 6:30 and didn’t leave the booths until 8:50, seriously.  When I first went in the line was all the way to the door, when I actually went into what looked to be the sanctuary to vote the line was down by more than half.  There were 3 voting machines inside, and what must have been all that voting precinct must have been in there early in the morning.  Some people had said that they had been there since like 4 a.m. waiting in line.

Overall more people in the region are registered to vote.  The biggest increases were in Suffolk and Norfolk, where as many as 15% more people are registered to vote this year over 2004. South Norfolk is broken up into two areas, South Norfolk (Chesapeake) where I went and South Norfolk Recreation.  Voting patterns are dramatically different in the two areas; for example the majority of Recreation voted for Bush in 2004 while a disproportionate amount of people voted for Kerry in 2004, like 9 to 1.  So South Norfolk is a complex place, looking at it from that aspect.

What impressed me were the huge numbers of people that were out to vote.  It wasn’t like the video CNN had of early voting in Richmond, but the lines were long enough.  Again, I spent my time entirely on the inside of the church having voted like 2 hours and 20 minutes later.  I had to wait like 2 minutes once I was in sight of the voting equipment to actually vote.  If you’re actually planning on going like later on in the day you’re probably in luck.

It’s great to see the people out in full force exercising their power to vote, regardless of whom that may be.  I wonder if anyone voted for the Green party, or the Libertarian party.  Had I not been satisfied with anyone of the two parties I suppose I would have went in that direction.  When I left the place there were some going to work but for the most part the streets were vacant.  It was my first time voting ever, I missed out on the hanging chads, and the old school methods of voting.  They took my voting card, verified my information, entered in data off it on a computer and then gave me this smart card, I slid it into the machine until it clicked, placed my vote, cast my ballot, and was on my way.  Anything worth having is worth waiting for, wait I did, as I’ll be up all night waiting to see the results of this election.  Hopefully I don’t have to wait like 40 days of overtime as I did the last two elections to see who wins …