I voted this afternoon in Franklin County, Ohio, which is the county in central Ohio containing the city of Columbus. The county contains approximately 1.1 million residents, and 74% were white, 20% black and 4% Asian as of 2006.

For some reason, early voting takes place at one central location, Veterans Memorial, downtown near the business district. There were literally hundreds of people in line today. The line snaked up the steps to the second floor and was lined by red, white and blue drapery partitions for the first two back-and-forth passes through the second floor lobby. I'm sure the partitions were there to discourage people from bailing out once they saw how long the lines were. Once I got to the end of the partitions, I was about 30 minutes into my wait and saw I was maybe 1/3 of the way to the front of the line.  Eventually, I made it into the auditorium, where I was sent to one of about 15 check-in stations. Because people from all precincts were voting together, polling clerks had to enter each voter's data and print off the correct paper ballot. That was the bottleneck, so after getting a ballot, there were plenty of black plastic cubbies and tables to sit and fill out the ballot. Once I filled it out, sealed and signed the envelope, another polling clerk checked the outside of it to verify I had filled in the proper identification information. I put it in the metal ballot box myself.  All in all, it was a two hour process.

That's the dull stuff. The exciting part was talking to the people in line, who are very excited voters. No one complained about the line. People were honored to have a vote. There were multiple generations from the same family voting together. Many people said they had never voted before or rarely voted. A few brought their small children to witness it. About half of all people in line were black people of all ages. Some were Somali-Americans, of which we have a large community in Columbus. There were plenty of people in their 20s and 30s of all races. Some people told me about racial discrimination they faced long ago and how amazed they are to see a black Presidential candidate with a viable chance of winning the election during their lifetimes. Based on conversations with people around me and the number of people holding the Democratic Party candidate brochure (which was being handed out in the parking lot to interested people), Franklin County will have an Obama landslide as expected this year.

There is HUGE turnout here in central Ohio. It's exciting to see so many people engaged in the democratic process rather than being jaded by recent events in politics.

Note: because I went to vote from work, and because my cell phone is not allowed to have a camera component at work, I don't have any personal photos from today.