Election Day in Las Vegas!

Melissa and I woke up this morning ready to participate in the 2008 Presidential Election!  With reports of 2-3 hour lines, we were ready for a long wait.  Over the past couple of days, we’ve seen long lines for early voters and expected the same.

Luckily, that wasn’t the case.

We arrived at about 6:50AM.  At 7:00AM they started letting folks in.  And by 7:25AM, we each had our “I VOTED” stickers.

The whole process was well organized.  First, we got into one of several lines, depending on our voting precinct.  We signed in and received a paper receipt/tracking card that we then presented to a gal (at the end of another line) who scanned it to program a magnetic card (like a credit card or a hotel room card key).  Then, we waited a few minutes to get to one of the 20 or so voting machines that were all lined up single file at the back of the room.  There was a couple helper-bees floating around the voting machines providing instructions and answering questions.  The machine worked well–simply insert the magnetic card and use the touch screen-based machine, using your fingers.   Our ballot had about 20 screens worth of votes.  The whole process, start to finish, was 35 minutes.