The Voter Experience (Perf)

I set my alarm for 5:35 am so that I would be able to wake up and vote. I had been told by older friends and my parents that it use to take them 15 minutes tops to vote; however, I decided to ignore this information.

I hop out of bed somewhat refreshed because this glorious day had arrived, somewhat sluggish because it was 5:45 am (you know a brother has to hit the snooze button at least twice) and somewhat astonished that even I could wake up that early. The astonishment left me quickly once I realized the task at hand.

I opened my door to see my roommate who had passed out on our recliner in the living room.

"Son, let's do the damn thing!"

It took him a bit to put it together but we were on our way out by 5:53. Public School 138 is only a block from our Crown Heights residence so we were on line by 5:55. And it was nothing short of amazing. Had we gotten there at 6:00 instead, we would have been at the end of the line that went from the middle of the block at the school's entrance to the end of it.

After being on line for about 10 minutes, we started hearing people talk about how great this was; to have this many people care, to have this many people vote but more specifically, to have this many people of color vote. I took every breathe as slow as I could so that the moment would last longer. It sounds pretty corny but I've never felt that way before. And just as I thought that the moment couldn't get any more theatrical, an older black man pulls up in his coupe and begins videotaping the people on line. What a good idea, I thought, I should have carried my camera along for the event.

He then reached in his car and turned on his sound system. Sam Cooke's "A Change Gon Come" blasts out from his car speakers. It was one of the most moving things that I have ever witnessed. Many of the voters started singing, humming, yelling out and agreeing with the song's message. I was on the verge of tears but held back because I wouldn't have been able to stop myself.



We finally get inside and have more lines to wait on. (Make sure you know the Election District you live in because it'll make your voting experience that much easier. You can do so by typing in "Election District [your state's name]" into any search engine.) The actual voting was the easier and least stressful part of the process. You pull the lever, twist your knobs and pull the lever back. We left at about 6:50 and went on with the rest of our mornings.

When I got off of the train for work this morning, I decided to get 6 newspapers: New York Times, New York Post, Daily News, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and of course, the free Metro paper. I figured that it'd be cool to look back on and possibly save for my children (crazy, I know). Tomorrow I plan on buying the same versions of all of those papers to see the before and after of the election; hopefully tomorrow's papers have America's decision.

I'm excited about it all. I hope you are too. Please get out there and vote if you haven't already; it's exhilarating!


two times for Barack Obama.

P.S. Have fun bobbing ya head to Obama's favorite music: Barack Music