pull the lever

Anne and I just got back from voting.
Our polling place was well-staffed by very friendly and helpful people, and there was absolutely no line at all. We were in and out in about ten minutes. The Los Angeles Times was conducting an exit poll at our location, but I didn’t get asked to participate. Darnit.
I was a little unsure about how I’d use our new optical scan ballots, but they are actually identical to the punch-card ballots I’ve used since I was eighteen, with the only difference being we stamp the card rather than punch it.
So as of about 8:15 this morning, John Kerry has two more votes from California. 🙂
My friend Kathleen is a poll worker in Los Angeles, and she wanted me to share the following blogging.la post with Los Angeles voters:

I know, I know. You’ve been told to vote by everyone and their uncle already. However, as your friendly neighborhood election official, I feel an obligation to ask you to vote. If you don’t know where your polling place is, you can go to LA Vote, My Polling Place, or My Polling Site to find out. If you haven’t received confirmation of your registration, just locate your polling place and bring a photo ID. If we can’t find you on the rolls, we can issue you a provisional ballot. If you’ve recently moved, or you have any other reason to think your registration hasn’t been processed, you can at the very least go to your local polling place and find out. It’ll be busy there, but we’ll make sure your vote is counted.

I hear that people in Florida and Ohio are waiting for several hours to vote, and I hear that there are already massive instances of voter intimidation in Ohio and attempts in South Dakota, so I consider myself very fortunate that I cast my ballot so easily.
Today is our day, America. Get out there and make your voice heard, and be sure to thank the people who have volunteered to work the polls. They’re probably going to have a long and difficult day.

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213 thoughts on “pull the lever”

  1. Sigh.
    I can’t believe it’s looking like another four years of this. This Canadian is concerned about how another term of Bush’s politics will affect the world.

  2. So much for the NFL’s Washington Redskins prediction theory.
    And for that computer simulation that picked Bush winning by pretty much a landslide.
    Ahhh… statistics… you can find all kinds of correlations with numbers if you look for them… doesn’t make ’em a rule.

  3. Isn’t it the same for much of the world, regardless of who is our President???
    It’s a rare Presidency that actually significantly changes the course of America and American policy. And Bush, Clinton, Bush, and I suspect would’ve been the same with Kerry, do not have nor had those kinds of Presidency. Most Presidents continue the same path as their predecessor, they just flavor it a bit with their own tastes.
    The significant ones…
    Washington – set the ball rolling. [it’s all downhill from there, depending on your POV, lol.]
    Lincoln – Civil War to preserve the Union; dealt with slavery
    FDR – the New Deal [Am I making my history prof. proud or am I embarrassing my brain???]
    Kennedy – Civil Rights
    Reagan – supply side economics; cold war ended
    These guys did some things that were SIGNIFICANTLY different than their predecessors.

  4. [OK… last comment from me on this night]
    Wow… I was really expecting Kerry to do better, what with all the calls to action that the Democrats, media, infinitely wise Hollywood celebrities [that’s sarcasm. and does NOT incl. Wil. He IS intelligent & informed.], and the truly educated and concerned Americans [that IS sincere] have been striving for.
    Bush actually seems to have won this election without needing the Supreme Court [again] nor the House of Representatives to declare him the winner.
    We REALLY need a third party… a Centrist party to balance out the Left wing Dems [we’re not a socialist country.] and the Right wing GOP [quit telling me I have to live my life like yours.]

  5. I voted here in San Francisco around 2pm, no line no wait. I didn’t study ANY of the propositions or initiatives (to my great shame) so I left that part of the ballot unmarked–better to not vote than vote the wrong way. Imagine my embarrassment when the electronic ballot box repeatedly rejected my blank middle page. Ouch! Next time I’ll study, I swear! Still, I had to cast my vote against Bush.

  6. Thanks, Tim, you were right. I did recall the stat wrong, although there wasn’t the numbers of young voters people had hoped for.
    It does look, however, like we’ll reach (or come close to reaching) the highest percentage of registered voters since ’60. So that’s good.
    I should probably go home now.

  7. I voted around 11:30 this morning, and I expected there to be no one, because I live in a very small town in Washington State. Yeah.. still took me almost an hour. Haven’t figured out if this was because of the spirit of civic duty kicking everyone in the ass, or because it was near lunchtime. Either way, I voted for the first time, and I’m happy I did. That, and my recruiter wouldn’t let me leave the office till I registered. *grin*

  8. Hi Wil,
    I just found your site a couple of days ago and I’ve been reading around a bit. I like it! 🙂
    I was lucky with a quick vote, too. I had one person in front of me and I was in and out of the polling place in about ten minutes. I also voted for John Kerry.
    I’m glad I had the opportunity to vote. By the time I’m writing this though it doesn’t look so good for Kerry, sadly. I’m not looking forward to four more years of Bush. In fact, the prospect is terrifying to me.
    Mostly I just wanted to say how much I like your site. An instant favorite!

  11. OH YEA!!!
    4 more years of George Bush!!!!! As a bonus an increased lead in both houses!!!!
    Time for Kerry and Personal Injury Lawyerboy to concede but they will probably fly their Florida lawyers in and say there were “irregularities”
    So, what do you think in 2008, President Cheney? I can only hope!

  12. Wil said that if Bush wins, he will sit with his kids and cry, for fear of thier safety. I’m afraid that’s a little short-sighted. We may attacked again regardless of who’s in office. I, today, will hug my child with the peace of mind that we will be better off with Bush in office. He won’t run away from Iraq, and won’t leave us out in the cold at home. America made the right choice.

  13. No one jump the gun on who’s going to be president. By the time the lawyers get into this it may be time for another election in ’08. Hopefully in the meantime, we won’t have terrorists flooding in while we’re preoccupied with this crap and blow us all up. I feel safer with Bush in the White House, but either way we’re still in danger.

  14. Sharon: at least you get to wait this nightmare out in Canada. We have to live with these powerful, treasonous jerks calling the shots for the next four years. We’re about to slip into the Dark Ages.

  15. I voted this morning @ 7:30am and there was a LONG line and a wait of half an hour. I’ve been voting here for years and years and it has never been like this. The sight made me really optimistic that we were finally going to get rid of Herr Moron. It’s 10:00pm and I’m getting more depressed by the hour! I cannot believe this! If he wins, we have a lot of ill informed uneducated people in this country.
    I worry for our future! I’ll accept it when it’s “official.”

  16. I voted this morning @ 7:30am and there was a LONG line and a wait of half an hour. I’ve been voting here for years and years and it has never been like this. The sight made me really optimistic that we were finally going to get rid of Herr Moron. It’s 10:00pm and I’m getting more depressed by the hour! I cannot believe this! If he wins, we have a lot of ill informed uneducated people in this country.
    I worry for our future! I’ll accept it when it’s “official.”

  17. I voted this morning @ 7:30am and there was a LONG line and a wait of half an hour. I’ve been voting here for years and years and it has never been like this. The sight made me really optimistic that we were finally going to get rid of Herr Moron. It’s 10:00pm and I’m getting more depressed by the hour! I cannot believe this! If he wins, we have a lot of ill informed uneducated people in this country.
    I worry for our future! I’ll accept it when it’s “official.”

  18. Reporting from Columbus, Ohio…
    I know this is a late post, but I was one of the voters who got to wait 3 hours in line to vote. I was hoping it would have been a lot shorter seeing as how I’m in the burbs, but that didn’t make a difference. I guess the problem is that people decided to vote this time. I’ve heard stats that say voting was up 70% in Ohio. That’s a frickin huge increase.
    The people there were very nice and I got to meet some neighbors from my development so I wouldn’t say it was a total loss. Although some issues and candidates that I voted for didn’t win, issues that I didn’t get to vote for (because I don’t live IN Columbus) did win and that’s a plus.
    I guess we can just hope that… oh I don’t even know what to hope for anymore. Anything that can get my brother out of Kosovo would be good though.

  19. You know… This might be a radical thought.. but since all the states that picked Kerry to win, (and in this humble Canadian’s point of view picked sanity) are either adjoining Canada or linked through other Democratic States you should all secede from the Union and join Canada! We’d love to have you join our team! This way you can be a nice polite Canadian and not have to move!
    Just a thought.. 😉

  21. “a Centrist party to balance out the Left wing Dems [we’re not a socialist country.] and the Right wing GOP [quit telling me I have to live my life like yours.]”
    I realize how different the US is when I read comments like this one. The Dems are pretty far right compared to our Liberal party (they are in power) and especially our NDP (who are sided with the Liberals to form the current government, since the Liberals didn’t have enough seats to govern.) I wouldn’t vote for Kerry or the Democratic party in Canada because they are VERY right for the direction our country is going. I’m not saying there’s a problem with this – you’re right, your country is not anywhere near socialist thinking.
    cosmiquemuffin: You’re right. I’m very thankful I’m in Canada so I can watch from the outside. But I really fear the effect Bush has on the globe. The environment, the war, trade, the thought of having the Bush government trying to tell the Canadian government what policies they should or should not pass. Besides, I fear for my American friends – many of whom are far enough left and outspoken enough that Ashcroft would have a field day with them.
    America, Canada and the rest of the world all have things to fear from another four years with Bush.

  24. Sorry it looks to have gone all wrong.
    I totally understand you though… I cannot comprehend how it can have turned out this way. I live in the UK, but even I am close to tears – frustration that this lying, underhanded idiot can be granted another 4 years of control over the most powerful country in the world, that somehow more than half of the voting people of America can trust him despite the lies he has perpetrated and the state of the economy.
    I know that Blair is going to continue to walk hand in hand with Bush, as he sees no other choice. I just wish he could look at France and Germany and understand that he doesn’t need to pander to Bush and Cheney.
    I am scared of what might now happen in the next term. I am appalled that decent healthcare, gay rights and women’s rights to choose what they do to their own bodies are going to be taken away. And more than anything, I feel sorry for all my close friends who live in America, the last thing they wanted having just happened.
    How anyone can look at Bush, or Cheney, and trust their lives, and those of their children with them, is honestly just beyond me. Maybe Kerry wasn’t a great guy, we may now never know, but I know for sure I would be happy to sit down and discuss things with him, as opposed to Bush, who just wouldn’t understand what I was saying.
    ‘There ought to be limits to freedom.’ Since when?
    Anyway, thanks for being one of the people I have admired so much, for standing up and making a case, Wil. You, Mike Moore, Bill Gibson…
    Bill Hicks will be rolling over in his grave today, moreso than the last four years!

  25. Taking issue with the blogging post from the LA friend. Voted here in Ohio yesterday. Took only 15 minutes and I had a toddler with me. No one harrassed me or otherwise tried to intimidate me. Stories from my coworkers who live all around the area tell the same, short lines, no intimidation.
    So, I think this is yet another case of the media pouncing on the few stories of places that were packed and ignoring the vast majority of places where the voting went as smoothly as it always does.
    Go Ohio!
    Melissa

  26. “I think if there is a God, He takes a lot of long lunches” – Kenneth Branagh in “Peter’s Friends”

  28. “I, today, will hug my child with the peace of mind that we will be better off with Bush in office. He won’t run away from Iraq, and won’t leave us out in the cold at home. America made the right choice.”
    Wayne, he’s not only going to stay in Iraq, but will also invade even more countries.
    *sigh* The people have spoken. Those dumbasses.
    At least I made a side bet on Bush so I’m not totally disappointed.

  29. Kerry calls it quites…..but hey think of it this way
    in 4 years i doubt the Rep. will be able to stop Hillary Clinton

  33. I just hope that Kerry has enough honor to conceed the election instead of dragging another election through the courts. I would expect the same out of Bush if the situation was reversed. This country does not need to get into the habit of allowing it’s leaders to be decided by lawyers and judges. It should be decided by the people. I think a 130,000+ lead by Bush in Ohio is going to be too great for Kerry. Only an uneducated (or a spoiled child) person would go to court over Ohio.
    For the good of the nation, Kerry should conceed if the projected outcome for Bush goes over 270.

  34. ok, While I was writing my post….Kerry conceeded I guess. So my post was a bit late on current news.
    Good job Kerry. It was the honorable thing to do.

  37. I can not believe this country, is fear and ignorance so prevelant that you would allow this man to cause 4 more years worth of damage and defecit?

  39. Bush won, Republicans increase senate majority, and keep house majority, what a GREAT day. Take out your tissues liberals, Bush won. As for the world, I don’t care what the world thinks. What is best for the United State should come first and the rest of the world will just have to live with that.

  40. Well it makes you wonder doesnt it?
    If you look at the map Dems got new england, west coast and some great lake states….but everything else is Rep.
    makes you wonder if the Dems really understand the majority of what America wants they have been losing ground every year

  41. Sorry about the above comments, just venting. I am glad the election is over. Now we need to go forward together and create a strong (economic and military) United States. Thanks and sorry, just got caught in the moment.

  42. I am glad the election is over. Now we need to go forward together and create a strong (economic and military) United States.
    Oh, and at the expense of the rest of the world. Yeah, that’s sweet and exactly what the rest of the world expects and believes the majority of Americans believe (and I guess they’re right). An American by example of its foreign policy will take what they want, when they want it, and if they’re ever called on it, they’ll look you in the face and say, “What are you gonna do about it?” and then beat the bloody pulp out of you in the parking lot.
    Good moral values.. Yup. I think I must be living in Bizzaro World, none of this makes much sense.

  43. Obviously, not a majority of Americans want what the Dem’s offer.
    Why would they?
    A weaker nation, more taxes, government dependance, socialized medicine, a military under UN control at times, a “world consensus” in making decisions.
    I would rather have more money in my pocket that I earned rather than more social programs as I can choose to give it to those who need help and the government is not involved.
    The US is stronger under Republicans, though less liked – but being right does not always mean being popular.
    Credit goes to Kerry for being a realist and knowing when to say when, unlike the Lawyerboy he chose as a running mate. That was his biggest blunder.
    Here’s to 4 more years of a strong governemtn and a President that is willing to be unpopular and make the right decisions.
    Cheney in 08.

  45. Hmmm, there are quite a few Bush supporters here. I guess Wil does really appeal to everyone. Well, Kerry lost and the republicans hold senate and house majority. I’m kinda scared. I really like my civil rights, support a women’s right to choose, and, being gay, would like to get married someday. So for me this does not look at all promising. Oh well, life goes on.

  46. I am amazed at all the name calling and hateful comments on this board. Bush won. Kerry lost. If it were the other way around, I would not be calling the Democrats ignorant, stupid, uninformed or any of the other childish names being bantered around here. My guy won, I am happy. But you know what? I am more happy that we do have these differences of opinions and that so many people voted. I think so many people are missing the point. They talk about how we are a nation divided. But that is a good thing because it shows that we have the freedom to DISAGREE. That we are not all sheep. We have so many freedoms that we take for granted. America going down the drain? I don’t think so. Am I better off than I was 4 years ago? Immensely. And that is why I voted for Bush. Disagree with me, that is your right, and I will fight for that right. But don’t be a sore loser.

  47. Im not attacking anyone here im just saying maybe as Dems, the majority of you out there might want to look at your leadership.
    that is where you are losing every time, your leaders have gone so left that they dont even try to pretend to be moderate.
    America will never vote for the extreamists not on the right, not on the left because there are so many of us we are all looking for the best out there and if you cut yourself off from half the population thats going to end your carrier
    just look at Daschle
    he was is power for so long but in the last 8 years he begain to simply ignore the middle and support only the far left and boom, He was the first Senate leader to be defeated since 1952 when Democrat Ernest McFarland of Arizona was unseated by Republican Barry Goldwater

  48. I agree, although I am, like Keith, gay, which means that I am the Kerry supporter. I’m sorry that Kerry lost, but lets not be sore loosers. I can see that Bush won, and there must be a reason. Kerry conceded, which slightly alters my own opinion of him, but that’s life, so as the french would state: c’est la vie. Good luck Bush!

  49. I live in Ohio.
    I waited for almost 2 hours to vote for Kerry.
    Unlike Chris, I see a country wounded. In my home all of us have been laid off during the past 4 years. I’ve been laid off three times myself- two small bussiness and a multi-state chain.
    My best friend is doing her proud duty in a war we should not be in.
    I am deeply dissapointed that a majority of Americans can not see past the lies and manipulations of this adminstration.
    Still given the current situation I’m still willing to fight for the rights my state voted away yesterday, for the children that will be left behind, for the jobs that should be ours and not in India or elsewhere, and to punish the CEOs (and the Adminstration) that prosper while millions suffer crushing poverty.
    Also if you all would be so kind- please direct good mojo and prayers towards Joliet IL where my Aunt Mary Kay is awaiting news on if her Cancer is Hodgekins or not.
    Thanks,
    MKF

  50. Earl the Squirrel, I don’t care what Europe or anyone else thinks. Do you think that the people in Germany, France, etc. care what we think of them. They put themselves first just like we do. America comes first and foremost. Now that does not mean take anything we want, etc. But if we went along with what the world thought and it hurts us because we just want to be “good neigbors” then that is just plain dumb. America’s safety and best interest should be first priority. If the world wants to come along let them, if not oh well.

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