2008 Letters from All Over
posted by on November 4 at 6:00 AM
It started with an unsolicited letter from Saudi Arabia. Now, less than a day later, we have letters from American citizens all over the world, and all across the United States, telling us about what it was like to finally cast their ballots in this endless, epochal race for the presidency.
Scroll back on Slog and you’ll find them, in all their hopeful, idiosyncratic glory, written from places such as British Columbia, Colorado, Paris, Amsterdam, Switzerland, Atlanta, Massachusetts, Glasgow, Australia, Missouri, Argentina, Montreal, Amherst, Japan, New Delhi, Los Angeles, Malawi, and, of course, Washington State.
So far these letters have all been tales of votes cast via absentee ballot. But now that it’s Election Day, I’m hoping to get tales of votes cast at polling places as well. So if you’ve had, or end up having, a compelling voting experience that you want to share, please send it to me.
I can’t post all of the letters here on Slog due to the volume, but I’ll post the best of them throughout the day as we wait for tonight’s results.
Whatever the outcome, and I do so hope it's Obama, these letters make me proud to be American.
Voter#106 at 7:23am Madison, Wisconsin
While filling out my ballot, I was caught between feeling lightheaded and wanting to scream for pure fucking joy
OMGOMGOMG
Voted @ 7 a.m. in upstate NY. Crowded, with first time voters, some appear to need assistance understanding the ballot. The volunteers were patient and pleasant. We still use an election booth with the pull curtain & metal levers.
We voted for That One.
I was voter 59 at 6:50 am (our precinct was sloooow).
In our county, you're given a choice between electronic voting machines and paper ballots. Absolutely no one was choosing the electronic machines. The one guy I saw using it while I was there was having problems because it had incorrectly recorded his vote as provisional.
Ugh I am already SO emotional today!!
Democracy *cries*
"Democracy *cries*"
Or, one big reality show, transferred to the supposed realm of politics *cries even harder*
Why is the province that borders Washington State the only place name that is misspelled? Did you never see it in print before? It's "British Columbia."
this is getting a bit cheesy. we get it.
@6
OK so as an academic of Political Science, IT'S MY PARTY AND I'LL CRY IF I WANT TO
If you don't GET why this is all moving after 8 years of the arctic cold of a Bush Democracy, that's your ignorance speaking and not mine.
@5 OMG, I know. These letters have me in tears.
Please, please, please let this day go the way it's supposed to. . . please. . .
@9 - I get intelligence, which it looks like we might finally see, which is great. But if you don't GET the fact that the vast majority of the crap we have to slog through (pun intended) to get there has been, and is, utterly mind-numbing, unimportant BULLSHIT, virtually indistinguishable from any "entertainment" story to which you can apply those same adjectives, then you might as well be a character in one of those continuing soap operas - and, in fact, have clearly identified yourself as such.
So drink up, sweetie. Have all you want. They'll make more. And you'll chug it until you pop, I have no doubt.
@11. You act like you're the only one in the history of the world to think that the modern day campaign process (and associated media coverage) in our country is ridiculous. Yes it sucks, bet we're finally here and people are excited. Get over yourself.
@12 - Read those final three words of yours. Apply to self. Rinse. Lather. Repeat.
Shorter version of #13: "I know you are but what am I."
Actually, dear, chronologically speaking, 14 would be a shorter version of your 12.