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Student Shares First Time Voting

My experience with voting was ignorant and understated. I knew as the weeks approached closer to Election Day that the butterflies would expand in my stomach and that the experience would be daunted with large lines filled with people seeking to toss a die on a bet for the American Presidency. I arrived early in the morning at a small rural church acting as my designated voting center.

It was 7 A.M and my father, brothers and I arrived at a small Presbyterian church along local indian creek. I had expected a line, but my imagination had underestimated the situation greatly. Nearly a mile up the road cars paralleled the road to deal with the overcrowded parking lot of the under-equipped church in a daunting display that did little for my nervousness.

People of all ethnic and social backgrounds came onto the scene, lined up in loose file circling the parking lot twice. You could hear the distant chatter of the massively diverse group long before entering the line. Once in the line, I focused on collecting my thoughts and keeping to myself, writing in a small leather-bound journal to try and solidify my nerves and decision to come.

As I waited, passing slowly through the loop of people in line. Inch-by-inch to the door leading to me voting station, I began to calm my nerves enough to listen in on the chatter around me. Surprisingly, you didn’t have much talk about politics. For a brief moment in the voting line, it seemed that America’s melting-pot had congealed into one area. You had a mesh of vastly different and diverse people speaking about their jobs, families and participating in cordial small-talk, as if the election had been suspended to common courtesy in the voting line.

After, what seemed like hours of waiting, we finally made it into the organized chaos that was the voting center. The room was full of volunteers to rush you through the step-by-step process of taking your ID and pushing you through the roster in a timely manner. I was then told to take my ballot to a table and fill out my choices.

After 10 minutes, my family and I had placed our ballots in the voting machine and went outside the back of the small building. We elected not to speak too much about our votes and took a picture as a family before going back up the road to find our parked car on the side of the road. I noticed most oddly as I walked past the diverse crowds and lines of cars, that I saw no stickers on cars or shirts on people supporting candidates.

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