Vote!

Dragged Darrell to Heeia Elementary School tonight to vote in the Democratic Caucus. As everyone who tried to vote tonight in Hawaii experienced, there were long lines and general chaos. The news reported that a huge turnout was expected because of the close race between "local boy" Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton...too bad no one told the Democratic Party so they could prepare properly! We got there about 6:15 pm, and the line snaked around the circle in front of the school. We finally got in around 7:30 pm, after we heard that they had run out of Democratic Party registration forms AND ballots (someone was on their way to Kinko's to make more copies). Luckily I had downloaded the reg form earlier so we had that filled out. Inside the cafeteria, we had to go to our precinct tables (state representative district 48, precinct 4) and they informed us that because of the lack of ballots, they changed the rules: if all of us around the table agreed, we could take a hand-vote. Yes, raise our hands and vote, rather than fill out a ballot! So we all agreed (everyone wanted to get out of there already). Everyone for Hillary, raise your hand. She got 17 votes, with the moderator counting and getting verification from everyone. Everyone for Obama, raise your hand. He got 34 votes, including mine and Darrell's! So by that time, the count was Obama 68, Clinton 33, for our precinct/district. Maybe I was just delirious after standing in line for so long, but I thought that the whole thing was hilarious! So used to "official" voting, checking ID, secret ballot and all that, so this honor system "raise your hand" voting was so funny. One thing about the Obama campaign though...very grassroots but organized. Over the last five days, I've gotten several calls reminding me about the caucus from volunteers. Obama volunteers were there updating the crowds as to what was going on inside the cafeteria. They even gave us food in line! There were several professional Obama campaign posters up. Not to be left out, a Clinton supporter got a marker and wrote "Vote Clinton" on yellow pad paper and taped those up...pretty lame. So we did our duty as American citizens and participated in the democratic process! Hopefully Obama is victorious!

UPDATE 2/20/08: Per the Honolulu Advertiser, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, who was born and raised in Hawai'i, won the state's Democratic presidential caucus in a landslide yesterday. Obama had 28,347 votes, or 76 percent, to U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton's 8,835 votes, or 24 percent, with 100 percent of the precincts reporting.