Long Lines at Polls

I’ve been voting since 1976 and I’ve never missed an election in that time.  I’ve also never experienced lines like I did this morning.  The attached photos are from my cell phone so the quality isn’t that good but you can clearly see the line is long.

My wife and I arrived at the polls around 6:40 this morning.  Already there was maybe 200 people in line and by the time the polls opened the line was up to 300.  We finally finished at 8:10 and by then the line was at least 400 people.  It stretched all the way around the building!

While I was in line I was contemplating what such long lines might mean.  The pundits are pretty much agreed that all the early voting has benefited Barack Obama.  Does heavy turnout on election day help McCain or Obama?  I confess I have no idea!

One thing seems clear.  This looks like the highest voter turnout in my lifetime!  I’ve heard predictions as high as 70% which would be unprecedented.  Many will say this is a good thing.  They reason that the most important thing is that citizens participate.  The more participation the better.

I’m all for participation but I’m concerned about people who vote without having much or any knowledge of the issues or candidates.  Howard Stern’s bit where he sent someone out to talk to Obama supporters is a case in point.  They claimed McCain’s views were Obama’s and these people were fully supportive of every McCain position so long as they believed it was Obama’s positions.  Clearly these people are not voting on issues and appear to have no idea what the issues even are!  Perhaps that is inevitable but that doesn’t make it good.

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Also see: Michelle Malkin - Election Day: America votes

NYU Department of Psychology - Political Attitudes and Voting Behavior - Survey

From the New York University Department of Psychology:

A research team from the Psychology Department at New York University, headed by Professor Yaacov Trope and supported by the National Science Foundation, is investigating the cognitive causes of voting behavior, political preferences, and candidate evaluations throughout the course of the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. This stage of the study focuses on the information people use to inform evaluations during the last few weeks before the election. They seek respondents of all political leanings from all over the country (and from the rest of the world) to complete a 15-minute questionnaire, the responses to which will be completely anonymous.

If you’re interested, click HERE to complete the survey

 

Poll - Who Won the Last Presidential Debate?

 

WWF Web 2.0 Survey (#2) Results (Update)

Thanks to everyone who participated in the WWF Web 2.0 Survey this week. The results are here.

Among those that participated in the survey, the top five courses that respondants were interested in were (in this order):

1. Basic Search Engine Optimization for Bloggers (SEO)
2. What’s a ‘Wiki’ and what do I do with it?
3. Using the Social Networks to Promote your Blog or Project
4. How to survive on Digg
5. Using Facebook more Effectively

We had some wonderful suggestions, which included resources already available on some of these topics, and may be able to share those with you very soon. We also got some great topic suggestions for future e-Newsletter articles, and we’re already beginning to work on those - the first will be in this coming Tuesday’s e-Newsletter.

Thanks, again, for your help, everyone.