Some notes on voting this morning, but first a couple follow-ups to my last post:

1. I read my post again, and I notice it seems naive, almost precious. What can I say, the guy does that to you. I do not rescind anything.
2. I would be seriously remiss to mention my Obama-vote without placing it in the context of my life with Sara. She is as intense a supporter of her home state/home city-man as any I've encountered. She's such a staunch liberal/Democrat that she gets physically upset when watching anyone from the Bush administration speak. Democrats could nominate Karl Marx and she might question his moderacy.
Anyway, when I said I was researching the candidates last night, I was doing this (at least initially) while sitting on the couch next to her. She asked me what I was up to, and I said I was deciding who I was going to vote for. She said "For President?" and I said "Yeah." The utter disappointment/horror across her face as she said "You're not voting for Obama?" was striking. I followed with my standard reminder of my no D/R position, but even though she has heard this screed before, it did not serve to placate her much. Shortly after she left and went to bed I resumed my skull session in earnest. I think had it not been for her bluntly honest reaction to my intents I might not have come to my relative epiphany regarding what I see as the true and transcendent nature of Obama's candidacy. I mean, I've known all along from a historical standpoint that this is really a big deal, but it hadn't much trickled down to me personally.
I don't think that we will always vote for the same people--far from it--but in certain special cases, I think it's important to note the inevitability, spawned by our closeness, of our one mind.

3. Voter turnout, particularly among blacks and youths, has been a point of discussion throughout this campaign. But I'd like to state from eyewitness report (albeit a pathetically small sample sized-report) of my experiences voting this morning, the turnout this year could be spectacularly large, so much to cause potentially big problems in some states. I've never taken more than 3-5 minutes total to vote in any NYC election, including for governor and for mayor. Of course these are far less attended than a presidential election, but a respectable 30% of the electorate voted in the 2005 mayoral election, which is roughly half of what's expected to be something near 60% turnout nationally in this year's contest. Anyhow, it took me almost 90 minutes to get through the line this morning, and I arrived at 7:50AM. The line was distinctly longer when I left. Also, in NY this year there is only one ballot proposal, and no other race above the US Congress-level. Of the perhaps 8 races in NYC this year, plus the proposal, it couldn't take even a complete dunce more than 30 seconds to finish voting (an assumption I can confirm from my time standing in the long but fast-moving line).
So I'm going to predict that turnout for this election blows away the expectations, which is clearly a good thing in general but a bad one specifically:
4. There are going to be big problems in some swing states, problems that will invariably end up in courts, something that will do huge damage to what would otherwise surely turn into an easy and triumphant night for Obama. I'm not suggesting something like 2000 where it's December before we can confirm a winner, but turnout will overwhelm polling places to the point that perhaps we will finally get some reform on the matter. How there is not some tiny temporary % tax increase initiated to upgrade voting systems on a comprehensive scale is borderline criminal. The machines we at least still use in NYC, with their pathetic punchcard results, would barely be suitable in a third-world country.
5. It's really just about time we declared Election Day a national holiday and got the day off work. I say this not lazily, but more as a way of reforming the polling place voting experience. Of perhaps 20 people working my location this morning, maybe 6 were remotely competent. This is unsurpising because who would take time off to volunteer to work the polls? A memory from my childhood is tagging along with my parents when they voted and spending maybe 30 minutes there with my grandmother, who worked the polls every year. That's right, a 4 year old was playing inside the polling place while his aggressively and menacingly Republican (75 year old) grandmother acted as gatekeeper to democracy. Today there was a man with one eye (one bad eye, he was in charge of reading people's cards to ensure they were where they should be. I saw he squint and lean in to try to read a card given to him. He struggled for 4 seconds before realizing he was reading the back--blank--side of the card.), two women too obese to stand up, and several people unable to direct as many as ten people into two lines.
If everyone had the day off, you would get intelligent and competent people volunteering. I would even make it mandatory of poll workers to attend two rehearsal sessions: one to organize the team and space, and another to do a full walk-through. This stuff need not be difficult. Lord knows it's important enough to devote some energy to trying to get right.