I’m still reeling. Not just from the historic election results, but from working a fifteen-hour day yesterday at the polls. From 5 a.m. until 8:30 p.m. when we certified the last of the election results and got the huge and bulky envelopes ready for the chief to take with him, we worked tirelessly (well, perhaps at the end, tiredly) voting over two thousand people in the small third ward in the gym at Glen Maury Park, in Staunton, Virginia.
When we opened the doors at 6 a.m., after setting up the tables, turning on the machines, putting up the signs, running through the procedures, and getting everything ready, people were lined up at the door. The voters did not stop for even a minute, until it slowed to a trickle around 6 p.m. Still the people continued to come until the polls closed at seven. At the end of the evening, out of 2900 hundred registered voters, nearly 2100 hundred of them had come to the polls. Unprecedented. In the last election, the turnout was 25%.
I knew something was happening when many of them were first time voters, and not all of them were young. Those I congratulated heartily. But a good many were middle aged and some were much older. The voters were black, white, Asian and Hispanic. Middle class, poor, well-to-do. Businessmen, housewives, nurses and hospital workers, teachers and construction workers. Many wore the uniforms of their jobs.
I had to instruct at least one in four in how to use the machines. For six solid hours I was on my feet running back and forth between two machines. People brought three and four children to show them how democracy works. Others carried babies or led very elderly people; there were even several people from a group home. Several people I knew from town showed up. I had no idea that it was their precinct. People stood in the rain for hours. One woman, 92, who had seen 13 presidential elections, asked me to take her photo in front of the voting booth.
They carried their voter registration cards like badges of honor, slipping them out of the envelopes in which they had been mailed as though they were their first credit cards: white, pristine, handling them carefully.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Zedd
Lisa,
Beautiful. I read every morsel and it flowed like butter. I could see every detail. As I citizen, may I express my thanks you for your hard work on election day.
2 - Lisa Solod Warren
Thanks. It was an education, Zedd!!!
3 - jamminsue
Lisa:
Awesome! Good for you; Thanks so much for what you do!
I am pleased with the election results and am hopeful that having a "thinker" in the White House will make some impact. It will not endear him to the Dem's or Repub's, so he will have quite a challenge to getting the stuff done that so desperately needs addressing...
It will be so cool if we actually have a statesman instead of ideologue. I am not sure it's possible, but we could have done worse.
My 21 year old daughter who is a feminist says she is disappointed it's a black man first, and not a woman. I told her Hillary would have been the nominee if Barack had not been so right.
The closeness in the popular vote indicates the continued distrust in minorities, as the country so heartily is so done with the neocon ideologue administration that has their ugly message of intolerance on our backs for the last seven years...If it had been Biden or someone like him it would have been a huge landslide.
Case in point, my 90+ mother-in-law that has ALWAYS voted Democrat and worked the polls every year for more than I have been alive, voted for McCain.
4 - Baronius
Lisa - A friend of mine who lives in Virginia told me how smooth everything went. Congrats.
5 - Lisa Solod Warren
And yet, people still refuse to acknowledge race had anything to do with the negative votes against Obama. Yet I saw the same thing in my canvassing and in the votes FOR Mark Warner as senator but against Obama among Virginia democrats; they simply could not vote for a black man; and it was mostly among much older voters who could not get used to the change. Luckily the younger (under 50 mostly) voters who swung the day. I am proud of that.
6 - Lisa Solod Warren
Baronius, thanks. I have no idea how it went throughout the state so I am glad to hear that anecdote. We were prepared for the worst and got the best and for that I am glad. We were remarking, however, that with our huge voter turnout, we were feeling very sorry for workers in large cities, as we were totally wiped out. I have no idea how big cities do it, but they most rotate workers in shifts of only a few hours. I would love to see how a large city handles the process.
7 - Doug Hunter
"And yet, people still refuse to acknowledge race had anything to do with the negative votes against Obama."
Race is a tool of the left to strike fear and motivation into their voters (worked like a charm on you I see). Virtually everyone else is over it as this election has witnessed to.
As for the article, it was well written and descriptive. I like the fact that you volunteered in a 'red' area to work with people that have different values. Perhaps it will begin to humanize republicans in your mind, and perhaps one day you will realize that their motivations aren't hate, bigotry, and the joy of witnessing minority suffering, but underneath are much the same as yours.
8 - Heloise
Lisa, glad you're here. Have some kool-aid? Just kidding never touch the stuff.
Heloise
9 - Lisa Solod Warren
Dear Doug,
Here, on Planet Earth, we have both race (different races) and therefore racism (people who are prejudiced against and for those of different races). It is not just a liberal conceit set up to separate people so we can win elections. What planet do you hail from? Can I come visit?
BTW, I did not go to some "red" state just to volunteer amongst the unwashed masses who do not think as I do. I actually have lived and worked and raised my children in this gorgeous and hospitable "red" state for 25 years. Is this the first article of mine that you have read? Did you follow any of the links and read the other pieces? Or perhaps you did not read closely? Oh well, anyway, thanks for the compliments; a girls takes them where she gets them.
Oh, and PS, some of my best friends and family are, GASP!, Republicans. I actually find them quite human. They are Earthlings, quite like me.
10 - Ann
Can I make an observation that isn't a koolaid one? What we have actually demonstrated is that our elections can be bought and that you don't have to be qualified for anything in order to be elected. Now if that's considered a personal attack, it will just illustrate to that, like Mr. Schumer, you consider free speech to be pornographic.
11 - Cannonshop
Well...
coming down off of the Election high, I came across an interesting piece of art that imitates life.
While it's fiction, and satire, I've actually run INTO these people at work...
12 - Lisa Solod Warren
You may say whatever you like, Ann.
13 - Lisa Solod Warren
Cannon, you gotta LOVE The Onion. I will pass this one along for sure. Thanks for the heads up.
14 - Cannonshop
You're welcome, Lisa.
15 - Ruvy
Lisa,
I'll tell you what I told Heloise. But I'll add just a bit more. I used to work the polls on election day in the Bronx when I was a Republican so many many years ago. The Republicans were always short people to do that where 9 out o 10 people registered as Democrtats, so I would recruit my friends from all over to join the club I belonged to, giving addresses of relatives in the Bronx, (so they could get paid, as I was) and they would also work the polls in various precincts in the Bronx.
Your depiction of election day was spot on. I saw several such busy days in barber shops in the Bronx, long days either helping voters (or getting pulled off to some secluded alley by a very hot girlfriend....). No wonder I was always tired after the polls closed!
The Obama supporters on this site (not to mention across the United States) got what they wanted. Many blacks who suffered discrimination can hold their heads up with pride; many mixed race Americans can really smile - one of their own got elected to the highest office in the land. For them, it really is morning in America. Heck, even I got what I wanted, though I do not count myself as any kind of supporter of Barack Obama. But once the partying is over, reality, and the issues that the United States must face, always comes back.
There is always the issue of whether he will be allowed to assume office, something which seems automatic now, but which may not be. Then, assuming he does assume office, there are the problems that an American government under his leadership will be expected to solve.
Demonstrations are great highs. I went to enough of them to know. Now, those of you who bought the Obama bottle of snake oil and drank deeply are feeling wonderful. But the highs of demonstrations do not solve systemic crises in the American economy, or deal with the serious mess that the Bush administration has left around the world. And believe me, the mess is bad.
These essential issues will require an article (or two) to look at, and some thought.
But, since I, my neighbors, and my fellow countrymen will be affected directly by this election, and by the promises that Mr. Obama has already apparently made here, even though we live a third of a world away, trust that I'll have something to say.
In the meantime, I did want Obama to be your president. Now, I have to take advantage of the opportunity you have so kindly given me to use his presence. So, my work has begun.
I started on it already, explaining to a young soldier in an internet café yesterday how the American puppets in Jerusalem would bow to the new black god in the White House the way the high priests used to face the setting sun in the Temple to show their contempt to the G-d of Israel. I told him that it was his responsibility to rid us of these American puppets in Jerusalem.
Nice article, Lisa. Your president-elect disgusts me, but so did his main opponent. And your sitting president makes me want to puke. Nevertheless, you turned out a very nice article.
Savor this moment. You'll need to hug the good memories in the bad times coming.
16 - bliffle
Ann,
Huh?
17 - Lisa Solod Warren
Bliffle, I didn't understand it either. But I didn't want to start an argument.
18 - Lisa Solod Warren
I think this guy is the best op ed columnist in the U.S.
19 - Andy
LIsa says - Here, on Planet Earth, we have both race (different races) and therefore racism (people who are prejudiced against and for those of different races). It is not just a liberal conceit set up to separate people so we can win elections. What planet do you hail from? Can I come visit?
The way I understand it is here on planet Earth we have one race, the human race, with various ethnicities of that race. Amazing that a black man had to point that out to me.
Not voting for Obama had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH HIS SKIN COLOR!!! It had everything to do with his left sided agenda. But hey, I'm out of a job, and if what I heard that lady on TV say the other day is true, then now that Barry is president, I won't have to worry about putting gas in my car or paying my mortgage. Life is good!!!
Why is it so hard for "progressives" to understand that voting for Mark Warner, who was supported by both democrats and republicans was a lot easier than voting for the most liberal senator in the US Congress? Even the republican winner of the VB mayorial race got himself in trouble for supporting Mark Warner! Besides, picking Warner over Gilmore was a no-brainer!
And to the commentor that said it was nice of Lisa to work at the polls in a red area I have news for you..northern VA ain't been red in quite a while! But it is cool that you volunteered to work at the polls, for that I applaud you, not that you care.
20 - Clavos
I think this guy is.
I would vote for him for president in a heartbeat.
21 - Lisa Solod Warren
Um, Andy. Staunton, Virginia is nowhere NEAR Northern Virginia, honey. It is in the Shenandoah Valley...
22 - Lisa Solod Warren
Oh and PS Andy...
Tell that to the dozens of people who said to me that they could not vote for Obama because he was black.
23 - Andy
Now you call me honey? I didn't think you liked me at all!
Can't imagine the uproar we'd read if I had called you honey or babe or something like that...I'm surprised you don't make us call you MS. Lisa! Are you missing a hyphen in your name btw?
Anything 200+ miles northwest of me is northern VA!
24 - Lisa Solod Warren
Ok, Clav, I'll bite, Why isn't it a crime to reveal a CIA agent's identity?
25 - Andy
Dozens of people out of how many voters? Definately must be true then!