Election Day Impressions

Election Day, November 4, 2008, I was on my feet for 13.5 hours at Riverview City Hall, in north St. Louis County. I stood in a tiny polling room, behind the seated election judges in a two-foot deep space between their tables and the wall, observing the voting for the Democratic Party voter protection project.

My feet hurt. My back hurt. Two days later, my calves are still sore.

But I will never forget:

The sight of hundreds of folks already in line in the dark at 5:30 AM when I arrived, with more streaming down the street from parked cars.

The working people voting in all manner of uniforms, from nurses to bus drivers to truck drivers to postmen to auto mechanics to nicely dressed white-collar workers.

The children in line with their parents, none of them at all whiny, as if they fully understood the importance of what they were doing.

The blonde GOP poll co-supervisor who spent hours on the phone with election authorities verifying the eligibility of voters, mostly African-Americans, and more often than not doing so successfully so they could vote although their names were not in the printed roll books due to late registrations, address changes, and the like.

The petite young lady I had seen voting earlier in what I’m sure was her first major election who returned hours later escorting a feeble, elderly man in suspenders who might have been her grandfather or even great-grandfather.

The people in wheelchairs and using canes and walkers who waited in line with everyone else, and the disabled woman who did “curbside voting” from her van in the parking lot.