We voted!
My partner and I are on the permanent vote-by-mail list in Pima County, Arizona. We'd received our ballots in the mail late last week, carefully researched the few non-partisan candidates so as to make good decisions, filled out our ballots last night, put them in the inner envelope, signed it, put those in the outer envelope, and turned them in today. For years, we've voted by mail and mailed the filled-out ballots to the county recorder (no stamp needed!) with never a problem, But this year I didn't want ANYTHING weird to happen to our ballots in the mail, so we drove to an early voting site in east Tucson to drop them off in person.
In mid-afternoon at the voting site, there were many cars coming and going from the parking lot outside the building. In a breezeway next to the office, about 20 people were in line waiting for their first face-to-face contact with the staff (looking them up on the voter rolls?), and they were being processed quickly. To the side of the line, up at the front desk with the staff, was a big plastic bin with a cover and a slot in the cover, for people arriving with filled-out ballots in their double envelopes to deposit them. The bin was almost full, and people with colored ballot envelopes in hand were pouring in to put them into the bin. One of the staff was coming over to swap it out with an empty one. Everyone looked very happy and very engaged. I didn't get to see inside the building where the on-site voting was taking place, but there must have been quite a few voting stations to handle the quickly-moving line. One lone policeman dressed in black stood a ways away outside the breezeway, keeping an eye on the comings and goings in the parking lot, on the lookout, I presumed, for any shenanigans by the cray-crays. Almost everyone had masks on--I only saw one person without a mask. It was a very reassuring scene.
I'm so sorry that in some places in this messed-up country of ours, people need to stand in line for 8 or 12 hours to vote. I know my partner and I are privileged to have it so easy. And I'm so excited to have cast my vote for sanity, both up and down ballot!
= new reply since forum marked as read
I did today as well & mailed a ballot for another person. (In TN, voters are not allowed to return ballots in person.)
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=14293983
