I voted very late. No lines. Biggest challenge was keeping the attention of the workers - they seemed determined to carry on their conversations, and we voters were quite the interruptions.

One lady had a heck of a time getting the worker to realize that her last name (Barry) was NOT her first name. It was a funny "Who's on first" exchange.

We had those newfangled computerized touch screen thingees that were pretty cool. Last time I had to pull levers.

We vote at the middle school, 4 blocks from home. Knew we didn't want to stand in line with the pre-work crowd so waited till after 10. The line was still long - took 58 minutes from the time we stepped in line till we walked out the exit door. Sweetie was ballot #831 and I was #832, at a precinct where it's unusual to have more than 200 people vote at an "important" election. So, this was different.

I forget what mine was, but it was way high. Of course I live in the fastest growing county in the northeast USA so we have quite a dense population here.

Even though PA typically goes dem, my corner of the state is almost always overwhelmingly red.

Took a whole 10 minutes here.

I vote by mail, so my experience was great- filling out the ballot on my couch and then walking the envelope to my mailbox. No waiting in line for me!

Lacey, have you ever wished at the last minute that you could take your vote back and change it? Have you ever been persuaded at some point after voting that maybe you voted for the wrong person?

that's what I'd worry about when voting by mail ahead of time. Or can you post it the same day as election day? (I've never done it by mail so I don't know.)

We make thousands of decisions every day; each one has a minor effect on the future course of our lives. I'd like to go back and change about 1/3 of those decisions I've made . . . . but then I wouldn't be here writing this. I'd probably be way down some other "road that was not taken". But I can't go back to change a vote or anything else. I can only control the Future. So here I am, writing this:

I buttered my bread; and now I have to lie in it !

I coined a phrase many years ago out of a very unfortunate experience. It goes like this: "You go forward from where you are at, not from where you wish you were."

Well, I meant my questoin to be only in the context of sending in a vote early - rather than waiting till the day of the election to vote in a booth. But I appreciate the philosophical reflections.

I too early vote by mail but I won't lay in the butter.

Perky, this is the first time I have voted by mail. I did not really think about what would happen if I changed my mind after I cast my ballot until I was already almost finished with it. So, I put it down and came back to it later so I had some time to reflect. I filled out the ballot relatively early so if I "spoiled" my ballot I had enough time to get a new one. You can hand deliver your vote-by-mail ballot to any polling place on election day though if for some reason you are waffling on your decisions.

It took about one hour to vote. But the most important part of my voting experience was the little man in line with me.

He collapsed to his knees while in line, we were only about 5-6 people away from the voting machines. His wife explained he suffers from extreme back pain and is not supposed to be standing for exteneded amounts of time. I am sure he could have voted absentee but maybe he wanted to feel the pride of knowing he was doing it in person. How many of us would stand for an hour in pain, with beads of sweat running down our foreheads? Proudly weraing our American flag shirt? How many of us had not been registered until this election? How many of us will soon forget politics and not watch the goings on in Washington?

It is time we become dilligent in letting our elected officials know we are aware of the issues facing America and watching how they vote. It is time we forget about this party or that party, Red state or Blue state and focus on a Red White and Blue United States!

Sorry you had such an "interrupting" experience with your workers at the polls where you voted.

I worked as a clerk and my husband was a judge in our precinct, which is one the larger ones in our county. We set up what we legally could on Monday night and arrived at 5:45 am to complete the setup. Unfortunately our voting booths would not communicate with the computer. It only took the official tech crew 10 minutes to arrive, but it took them over 1-1/2 hours to realize we needed a new computer and change it out. Those in that early morning line had to wait about 2 hours, but we able to established a great rhythm so that with continuous lines throughout the day most voters said the most they had to wait in line was 15-20 minutes.

Unfortunately, many of the people at our precinct had moved or were otherwise not showing up on our computer. Our judge was busy all day on the phone with the County to sort out those issues and make sure that everyone who was registered to vote was either sent to the right place or got the correct ballot.

It was inspiring to me to see the large percentage of young people who voted for the first time, and the energy they had. We even had a good percentage of older people who said they were voting for the first time. No matter what candidate you supported, to see the amount of people turn our for this election was definitely heart-warming and energizing for those of who worked so hard and long at the polls - from 5:45 am to 9:00 pm at our precinct). Sorry for the long dialogue, but I am still hyped up by the experience. I've worked elections before when we were bored to tears because no one was showing up to exercise their right of citizenship.

You stated this very well. It is definitely time we realize that we have responsibilities as citizens and to work together on the important issues that we are facing. I personally have much more hope for that now, after seeing the huge voter turn out, than I have had in the past.