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We've got three from Chicago so far. Seitz is first:
I live in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. Got to my polling place on Halsted and Dickens around 8:40. No line. Optical scan voting (on what seemed like a really big-ass ballot). Done in 10 minutes or so. On the train to work by 9:00.I don't know if a ton of people voted early, or if I just hit a soft period. The lady I talked to said they had a full lobby and line out the door when the polls opened at 6:00 am, so a lot of people probably expected a long wait and got out early.Nothing interesting ever happens to me. On the plus side, they're closing our office two hours early so people can vote, so that's nice.Withrow:
I live in Hyde Park about a mile from Sen. Obama and I want to report that the City of Chicago has this voting thing down. I was greeted cheerfully by a doorman at my polling station (The Cloisters) and then ushered in. They handed us ballots already filled out the way we were supposed to vote, so it was just a matter of marking off my name so the precinct captain knows I voted. And it's important to vote; the last time I forgot to vote, my brother-in-law who works in the Parks Dep't got written up.(And, yes, I'm kidding. 15 minutes to vote and the only hassle was the number of judges we have to mark up or down.)Jamois:
It's funny how many Chicagoans are writing in, but here's one more. I'm the Dem pollwatcher for my precinct in the Uptown neighborhood. My precinct is pretty small, although most Chicago precincts are - we have tons of them for the size of the city.Anyway, by 6 a.m. we had a line of about 100 people waiting to vote, which is unprecedented for our precinct. Just now, I went down to get the count to call into Dem headquarters and there had been 227 voters in the first four hours. By way of comparison, in 2006 we had a total of 198 voters for the entire day.I had suspected that turnout in the Chicago area might actually be low since we're such a safe state and city for Obama, but my neighbors are proving me wrong. There's still a steady stream coming, and every machine is in constant use....
