Election Day

By 10.30 am I was done voting; not that it was as simple a task as that sounds. First of all, I've moved in the last year, and so did my voting station! I went back to my old hood in Soho, looking for my polling station on Mulberry and Houston, but Lo And Behold, just like the articles that warn about being wary of signs that try to dissuade you from voting, there was the Board of Elections doing the exact same thing. Basically the sign said Sorry, we've moved your polling station to 400 Broome Street between Mulberry and Baxter. Now anyone who lives downtown knows these streets don't cross on Broome Street. Anyways, I went to 400 Broome Street (between Mulberry and Cleveland Place!) and the entrance was around the corner, on Cleveland Place. Then, after not too long a wait in the line, I got to the man with the list. And my name was not on it! Granted, I had moved in the last year, but last time I checked, which was about 3 weeks before election day, they said it was too late for the new address to register in the system, so just go to my old polling station. Anyway, I filled out a little envelope and filled out the voting sheet, though I could not use the machine to vote. The people working there assured me my vote would be counted. This assurance came around the discussion about the touch screen voting machines which apparently don't allow you to go back if you mess up. I wondered how things went in places (perhaps rural places) that were not so easy to get to by foot, and where people weren't as "fairly educated" as they are in NYC, voting must be a real challenge.
So now, we wait and see, not just us Americans, but the whole world, and the mass of people (documented and undocumented) who live in America, we wait and see what the American people will do. If, in fact, what they want won't be thwarted by the powers that be. (Don't forget the 2000 election debacle - miscounted ballots, hanging chads, voters turned away at polling stations - which is not that far passed in history.) No president coming in, Barack or other, will be able to fix things right now, but at least we'll be moving in the right direction. Any direction will be the right direction after the Bush years!