SCRIBE'S ELECTION DAY COVERAGE:

For some reason, the woman once known as EFB wants me to wait until she gets out of class to go voting with her. I decide to drive past the VFW Hall and see if it too is experiencing record voter turn out like the rest of my state and the country.

It looks pretty crowded but not obscenely so. Of course, we will be going at noon, one of the times anticipated to be the busiest.

The parking lot has quite a few empty spaces when we arrive and I start wondering what is going on. We don’t live in a huge district but I expected more…much more. As we get out of the car, people are passing out flyers for judges (which I refuse to ever vote for) and a few other candidates. Behind them is a sign telling them not to step any further forward. I’m not crazy about their proximity to the entrance but I let it do. This is a historic day: Scribe is voting in his fifth presidential election!!!

Oh, and some other stuff, too I guess.

As we walk in there’s just one row of tables, which is odd because this location serves two precincts. As she walks up to the row where the election worker will look up her last name, I start filling out my form. A moment later I hear the slightly panicked tone in her voice as she says, “I checked it last night online before I came.” The worker can’t locate her last name.

How ironic, I think. A white Republican might finally be a disenfranchised voter! But it turns out we went into the wrong entrance. This year the two precincts are split into two separate rooms.

Once inside the correct room, I ask the election worker lady how the turn out has been since it’s virtually empty right now. She tells me that when the polls opened there were 400 people in line, waiting. Our names are present and accounted for and so we walk to our individual booths with our ballots. They’re not really booths, they look more like little stand-up cubicles. Ever since the hanging chads incident, we now use a Scantron format to vote and slip it into a machine.

I guess I’ll share my votes with you. Obviously Obama gets my vote for president. Most of the congressman and senators up for reelection who are Democrats get it as well. Sadly I can’t vote against Joe Knollenberg, a corporate w***e conservative I’ve despised for years. I skip most of the Board of Education votes because I simply don’t care, with the exception of the college she works for. Due to all the BS certain members of that board gave her and her co-workers during their push for unionization, I vote against any familiar name on the ballot. I skip the judges completely. I have nothing but contempt for them and don’t believe they should be people we vote for.

Among the proposals on the Michigan ballot are one to approve medical marijuana and one to okay stem cell research. I vote yes for both of them. I vote no on the millage because there’s already no tax cap in my city and I don’t have kids.

As I complete my contribution to democracy and no doubt the one ballot that will make all the difference, I look over and see she is still voting. That’s not like her. She usually votes straight ticket and is waiting for me in the hallway within a split second. I turn in my ballot and get my “I Voted” sticker for the purposes of free crappy Starbucks coffee and wait in the entranceway. And wait. And wait. And wait some mo’. I even wind up helping a woman who does the same thing we did and enters the wrong precinct.

Finally the former-EFB emerges from the hall wearing an expression that makes me think she just escaped that hole in the ground from Silence of the Lambs. I ask her what’s wrong and she is unable to respond, tears filling her eyes as she sniffles back to the car. I eventually get it out of her that she voted for Obama and feels like she betrayed a war hero by doing so.

I want to be proud of her but her reaction makes me a little nauseous at first. Then she tells me why and I understand: She doesn’t feel McCain would have been a terrible president and that’s ok. We don’t have to agree there. Her main concern is that Sara Palin is a dangerous lunatic. Now, you might be laughing right now, but she’s right. Those Pentecostal bring on the Armageddon types have been poised to infiltrate the upper echelons of the government for years and if we allow them to…oh, sorry, I time traveled back to 1999 for a moment when I wrote that last part. What I should’ve said was, we have an opportunity to get rid of the fire ‘n brimstone policies of the current fanatic-in-chief.

We are living in a time when even a die hard Republican recognizes the need for caution in the face of fanaticism. So much for the stupid and uninspired words of that guy who commented on my Myspace blog that it doesn’t matter who we vote for because he’s in his fifties and knows all.

That night as she is working on a paper for her other class due the next morning, I glance up at the muted TV screen at around 10:50 and say, “Oh, my God. They’re writing ‘president-elect Obama” on the screen.” She looks up, in shock, and starts to cry. She tells me how she feels bad for McCain but she just doesn’t think he would have been the right choice at this period in history. She calls her mom to tell her and the hilarity ensues.

It seems old Mom is in denial. I don’t hear her side of the conversation, but former-EFB’s insistence that the election has already been called and the electoral votes Obama needed are in is proof enough. When their phone calls ends, I laugh and say, “Looks like somebody’s watching Fox.”

The speeches are emotional. McCain’s is filled with grace and humility and actually brings a tear to my eye. Obama even makes reference to his “extraordinarily gracious” concession call. The president-elect’s speech is emotional as well but I can’t seem to react. I am stunned, in shock, and a little sleepy. But I will stay awake! The last time I fell asleep on an election, George W Bush was declared winner.

People in the audience of all colors are crying but nothing comes from me. She asks me if I’m excited and I frown and say, “I don’t know.”

In the background, the hood rats are shooting guns off like maniacs. Every few seconds the sky is split open by man-made thunder that makes the windows rattle. I receive a forwarded text message from my former and again current supervisor that says: "I am so very proud to be an American today. I thank god that our sisters and brothers of all colors were able to see behind color! Now for the love of God black people don't embarrass me with your nonsense."



"Nonsense." Quite the little euphemism. I write back, "Amen. Not off to a good start with all the gunfire going off."



Her reply the next day is decidedly hostile and frankly rather stupid, therefore unworthy of reprinting. I don't handle self-righteous bitterness well when it has no point to it.



So I am still absorbing what has happened and hoping it changes things internally as well. Time for everybody to wake up now~



In the meantime, an word or two of hope from president-elect Barrack Obama: