Politics; 31 Minutes:

At 7:09 this morning, my wife and I got into line outside Evergreen Precinct's Polling Place at Mountain View Elementary School in Haymarket, Virginia. It is the first election we have voted in where the line at Mountain View extended outside. As usual, there were campaigners from both the Republican and Democratic parties outside the school pushing their own versions of example ballots. Interestingly, the gerrymandering has been so obscene in Virginia since the 2000 Census, that campaign workers don't even seem to be aware of which precincts are able to vote on which U.S. Congressional races, as there were signs for Ken Longmyer outside he school and he's running in a district (11) that no one voting at the precinct can vote in (we are in district 10).

A short distance outside the door to the school (perhaps 20 feet) was a sign saying that beyond this point no campaigning or exchanging of example ballots was allowed.

At 7:16 we stepped inside the school, still in line (7 minutes outside is not so bad).

At 7:30 we stepped into the school's gymnasium, the traditional polling place room. At this poing I could see that Evergreen Precinct had 5 mechanical lever machines and two electronic touch screen machines. The mechanical machines had old fashioned curtains for privacy from the knees up, and the touch screens had view blockers that were effected to the sides and top, but people in the line to give their names could clearly see how the touch screen users were voting over the voter's shoulders.

At 7:34 I gave my voter registration card to the two poll workers working my section of the alphabet, and they asked me to state my full name and address. They gave me a card, and I got into the line for an available machine.

At 7:35 my wife went to vote at the next open machine, which happened to be a touch screen. At 7:36 I voted at the next open machine, which happened to be a mechanical lever machine.

At 7:40 we were back in the car, having only spent 31 minutes actually voting, and without any sort of harassment. Of course, neither of us is sure our votes will be counted correctly, but that has been the case for many, many years.

For the record, we only had four choices:

• Yes or No votes on two Virginia Constitutional amendments (one of which was a deliberate attempt to fear-monger).
  
• Pick the electors for one of four party slates for President (Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, and Constitution).
  
• Pick the U.S. Congressman for the 10th district from James Socas or Frank Wolf.