It’s a crisp, cloudless, fall day in the ‘ville, a “weather breeder,” my sailing teacher would have called it, meaning the day before really nasty weather.
And all over Somerville, lines, lines, lines. (and in trash pick-up neighborhoods, pumpkin seeds all over the sidewalks, too.)
Yup. In an overwhelmingly Democrat city in a mostly-Democrat-except -for-those-what-were-we-thinking-elections-when-we-voted-for-Romney-or-Scott-Brown state, people are standing up to 2 hours to vote.
Makes me teary. For real.
Now, to be honest, part of the reason for these lines is that this year’s ballot has a LOT of questions. So voters have to be readers, first. Yikes.
Close readers of this blog may remember that I collected signatures so that one of these questions would appear on the ballot. Budget 4 All, it’s called. And that, indeed, enough signatures were gathered and, yes, it’s on the ballot. Question 5 in Somerville. Whooppee! [see my August 2 post]
Later, today, just as the sun goes down and people are getting off from work, wearing my “Fund our communities not war” button, high performance long underwear and 2 pairs of socks and boots, I will join supporters of Elizabeth Warren (Yay!) and Question 4 (a local tax to support more Somerville open space; yay) outside my very own polling place to hand out little cards re this initiative.
Ain’t democracy swell?!