The only reason I early-voted at Homestead in the first place is
that for some strange reason a 3:30 pm UNC football game meant there
could be no 9 am - 1 pm early voting at Morehead Planetarium. That's
another story though.
So I had to go to Homestead instead. It was so crowded for a minute I
thought I was at Woodstock 1969. People everywhere, cars everywhere. I
think I saw Country Joe and the Fish waiting in line. The woman
directing traffic said the wait to vote was 25 minutes. So I found a
parking space for my VW Van with the peace sign on the side, turned off
my Strawberry Alarm Clock eight track and got into line.
I waited ONE HOUR. (That's UNO HORA for our Spanish speaking
friends.) If I knew it was going to be one hour I might have just
turned around and left. Some people probably turned around and left
when they heard it was 25 minutes.
Pardon the commercial at the beginning, here's my run down of the results in David Price's return to Congress and the 1/4-cent sales tax referendum's narrow loss. I meant for it to be short, but it's 13 minutes long. Sorry! I need an editor. ;-)
Did you vote early, did you vote today, what did you see? Any candidates at the poll sites? Any rude campaign workers?
And most importantly, where are the candidates' parties tonight?
I won't be attending any of them as I'll be glued to the computer watching results, phoning it in to WCHL occasionally, and then recording my customary election wrap up video. (Should I use Ustream again? http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/6682869 It's so full of ads.)
UPDATE: The polls just closed, and I'm adding this widget to show tweets about the election results:
I was surprised to read on the OrangeChat blog this week that Democrat Earl McKee, running for an open County Commissioner seat in District 2 (northern and western Orange) has raised and spent well over $10,000. He already won the primary in May, in which he narrowly beat Renee Price, and promises to be the kind of (relatively) conservative voice that the not-so-new-anymore county commission districts were designed to elicit.
McKee is running against a Republican who has raised less than $3,000, most of which is a loan to his campaign. Oh, and did I mention he's a Republican? He is not going to win a county-wide seat around these parts. Like that fact or or not, it hasn't happened in decades, and even if Karl Rove's PAC starts buying ads on WCHL, it's not going to start now. (I'm not saying never, though.)
I was looking for some information on the Town of Chapel Hill web site about Halloween logistics yesterday, and I came across some interesting data. It seems that since the town instituted the new "Homegrown Halloween" rules in 2008 to keep the the downtown party more manageable, they have greatly reduced the size of the party, but the cost to the Town is about the same!
I don't doubt that the evening is a much safer and probably healthier one for most of Chapel Hill, but I worry that the clamp down may also put a damper on the fun.
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