I voted yesterday…and waited 2.5 hours. 

I was pretty excited for my first time voting in a Presidential election as a resident of Ohio. Coming from NY, it wasn’t that I felt my vote didn’t count, but really, we all know what is going to happen there. I should have known I was up for a doomed experience when out of the blue (literally out of the blue skies) came a surge of unexpected thunder and lightning and rain storm. Have I ever told you I hate lightning? I do. A lot. It gives me chills. I’m petrified of it. But that’s another story.

So I met up with the boy and took the new Health Line (Very nice!) to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, where the line was wrapped around the side of the building. No big deal, I thought. The line was moving pretty fast, and I figured that once we got in the building we could vote.

My rendering of my wait to vote

I was wrong. Once we got in the building, there was a line wrapped around a large room. Once we were done with this line, they took us downstairs to the BASEMENT where there were two rooms with looong lines wrapped around the room (please see the visual to your right for further detail).

Finally, 2.5 hours of standing in line later, I had my ballot and I was able to vote, but the booth I walked to had no working pen. The next booth, the same thing. Booth #3, no working pen. Finally I found a booth with a pen that worked and was able to fill in the bubbles (old school scantron style, minus the #2 pencils), and drop my ballot in the infamous ballot box. 

Feet tired from standing (and legs tired from my 9 mile run the day before), I was exhausted but very happy to finally sit down to wait for the Health Line. Which didn’t come for more than 30 minutes. Then I had to wait for the rapid (15 minutes), and ride the rapid back next to a guy puking his brains out (15 more minutes).

Still damp from waiting to vote in the rain and still sore from standing, I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to get into my car.

Next year I’m voting on election day. Or voting REALLY early. Hopefully I don’t have to remind you, but if you haven’t voted yet — GET OUT AND VOTE TODAY!!