They didn't have the little stickers, but they did have brownies and fudge

[xiphias]

My polling place is in an apartment building for the elderly -- folks who are living on their own, but prefer to live in an elder community. They hold a bake sale every general election. They don't do it for the primaries, just the general ones. And it's not a fundraiser for anything -- they just like baking, so they pretty much charge for ingredients.

Buck twenty-five for a giant homemade cream puff. It was fantastic. It was slightly bigger than a McDonald's hamburger (y'know, not the quarter-pounder or anything -- the one on the dollar menu), and the filling tasted a bit like eggnog -- I think I detected a little brandy in there, and it was yellowish like it was made with real butter.

I was voter #382, according to the little counter on the ballot box, and I asked the poll worker how many voters there are in Ward 1, Precinct 2. There are something like 1060 or so, so, by noon, we had a third of the eligible voters turn out already. And the highest turnout is usually after work. She was expecting at least 65% or so, for a midterm election.

Comments

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

I was voter number 23, and that's in a room with two precincts voting in it. I voted around 10am.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

How many people in the precincts? Lis was #101 at 7:45 AM. . .

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

Not sure. Our precinct is quite small, though. Two small neighborhoods and a business district. And as our lovely experiences with the Birdsong family made clear, there are a lot of people on the other side of 5th street who are ineligible because they're felons. :P

[ron_newman]

I think I'm missing the joke, but just for the record, convicted felons are allowed to vote in Massachusetts unless they are currently incarcerated.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

Felons cannot vote here until they've served the terms of their sentence (probation, parole, whatever) and re-registered. We (the neighborhood) recently had serious problems with a family up the street who were all convicted felons, whose kids were all in and out of juvie on a weekly basis, every male family member and known associate had multiple bench warrants, etc.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

And the grandmother currently has a bench warrant for failure to appear after assaulting and battering one of our neighbors. The cops call her "Love Knuckles" because she has "LOVE" and "HATE" tattooed on her fists.

[ron_newman]

What, like in this movie ? Is she a known Netflix customer?

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

...I'm sorry. Did I come off as though I were kidding or something?

[cheshyre]

Um, closer to 8am actually...

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

I voted on Thursday. Didn't get a sticker, then, either. I don't know what number I was but the early voting had been going on for a couple weeks at that point and there was an hour wait at 6:45 pm. Wife votes tonight so will be interesting to see how busy it is then.

[msdaisy.livejournal.com]

We voted in a local school and they were also having a bake sale. Nothing looked nearly as good as the cream puff you just described, unfortunately.

I don't know what number I was, but it was pretty darn busy for 7:20 AM. :)

[redbird]

We get neither stickers nor bake sales, but instead of being voter 21 at around 9 a.m. (as usual), I was voter 82.

[cheshyre]

Just for comparison, in the primary I cast my ballot about a half hour before closing time. And at that time I was #368...

http://www.osmond-riba.org/lis/journal/2006_09_17_j_archive.htm#115871059325869069

[felis-sidus.livejournal.com]

I cast my absentee ballot by mail, so I don't know what number I was. I'm really glad to hear about the turnout. It's about time!

Just a shout out to a doctor I know. He feels strongly that it's important to get the best turnout possible, especially in close elections, so he left work shortly after noon to drive to New Hampshire and drive people to the polls. He chose NH because he felt the election was closer there, and therefore, turnout could make a greater difference. I think it's great that someone will go to that kind of trouble without making it a partisan effort.

[bercilakslady.livejournal.com]

I went to vote around 10:30 this morning, literally right across the street from my house, and used a paper ballot for the first time in my life when I wasn't doing absentee. I also voted as an independant for the first time ever. It was quite a good time.

I got a small loaf of pumpkin bread at the bakesale at the school where I vote, and it came in a really cute little loaf pan with a penguin on it.