Knowing that the voting lines are long, I decided to vote on my day off. I’m pretty happy with my accomplishment- I spent a lot of time researching before I filled in all those bubbles! Though nation wide we’re obsessed with the presidential election, it’s really the local election that influences your own life most.
That’s why I read up on all the propositions- state and city. In trying to find info on both sides, you can really see how money changes what the average voter will be exposed to. For example, it’s pretty easy to find Obama’s platform, or a senator’s… then there’s the local stuff. I hardly found more than one-liners describing each of the propositions, or good backgrounds on the San Diego candidates.
It was nice, however, that when I showed up to wait in the serpentine line at my polling location that those around me were also educated. We didn’t really discuss the issues, but tons of information was being handed out concerning each of the state propositions and lots of people were reading it pretty thoroughly. I mean, what else are you going to do in 4 hours? Have a loud, obnoxious 4 hour conversation on your cell phone? Gladly, I wasn’t exposed to that…
All in all, everyone seemed relaxed and the atmosphere was really positive. I overheard someone saying how they wanted their kids to see what voting was about, how this was a historic occasion, etc. Personally, I was really happy to see so many people enthused about the political process, exercising their right to vote, and reflected about how much our country has gone through historically for all of us (women and minorities!) to be standing in that line today.
I’ll be wearing my oval-shaped sticker with pride 
