Have never seen lines so long to vote in all my 20+ years of voting. Line moved fast, though, and we only had to wait about an hour.
You could see a definite disparity in GOTV efforts. At my polling place (on the fringes of the city, where urban turns into free market Republican suburbs) there was a Democratic volunteer handing out recommended ballot choices, but no Republican. There were signs out front for every candidate, major and minor- but no sign for Trump outside the polling place. Pretty unusual.
A fair amount of anxiety, though more about people being late for work than about the outcome of the election. Or at least if people were worried they tried not to talk about that. One lady started fretting about "attacks", which a lot of the other people in line sort of more quietly dismissed without actually talking to the lady.
Conversation did briefly turn to geopolitics, when talking about the Burmese population in the area. I mentioned that that place used to be terrible, the second worst country in the world, behind North Korea. North Korea is the one political issue it's still safe to talk about without starting a fight. Everybody agrees that North Korea is the worst country in the world.
We pretty quickly moved on and I started having a conversation with an older man about Peter Sellers movies. We both agreed Peter Sellers was a really funny guy.
I looked around to try and get a feel for what the voting population was like, but I couldn't tell. I didn't feel comfortable stereotyping. Mostly white people. Well, that's the makeup of the neighborhood. A lot of younger people, I thought, but I'm getting to that age where everybody looks like a whippersnapper to me.
There were some people who looked Asian. They might have been Burmese, I don't know. They were younger. I wondered to myself how the Burmese community feels about Hillary Clinton- they tend to mostly keep to themselves. I think her detente with Burma was one of the highlights of her political career, but you know, there are a lot of Cuban exiles who aren't really happy about relations being normalized with Cuba. Cuba hasn't held any reasonably free elections lately either, though.
At one point one of the poll workers announced that there was a first-time voter, and everybody applauded. The line moved fast, and by the time we were there to vote it was significantly shorter. My wife commented that the voting machines looked like recycling bins. I told her not to say that, she'd start a rumor, but she said "This isn't 4chan".
Hard to tell from the cars. On the way out I saw a Flying Spaghetti Monster decal and a Confederate battle flag plate. One of the neighbors in our apartment complex has one of those flags- it wasn't him. I know there are racists around here, but I don't know how many of them there are. There are more Doctor Who bumper stickers than Confederate plates, though.
Still not sure whether I should be encouraged or worried by the turnout. I worry about some great wave of disillusioned racists who haven't come to the polls in decades. I guess I'll have some feelings about it tomorrow.
