I remember in 1992, I turned 18 3 weeks after Election Day, so I couldn't vote. Everybody in my college dorm was full of energy and excitement at the prospect of a liberal President (this was, after all, the hippie dorm), and it was great for my fellow freshmen to enjoy their first votes in a Presidential election year. I felt so disconnected by that election, since I was too young to vote, and I kind of avoided the whole thing.
1996, I had just moved to DC, sort of, but I kept my registration in North Carolina specifically because I wanted to try to oust Jesse Helms with my vote.
This year, I'm finally here for a major election year. I voted this morning across the street at Columbia Union College, and they gave me a sticker which I wore all day that read "I Voted." I decided on the way in to work that if anybody asked me if I really voted, I'd tell them that I actually punched out some jerk on Metro and stole his sticker rather than face the moral quandary of voting. Hee hee.
I saw a ton of these stickers all day long around town. One guy I passed while running errands on my lunch break had two of them on his forehead, over his eyebrows.
I intended to go to washingtonpost.com and bring Erin some takeout and hang out soaking up the atmosphere tonight, thinking it would be very exciting and fun to watch the results come in and see how the site published during the crush. However, they issued a memo this past weekend saying that employees could not bring guests tonight. Apparently everybody and their brother had the same idea I did, and post.com figured it was best to keep everybody out rather than risk being overrun.
Everywhere I went all day, people were following the election as closely as they could. TVs blared in offices. Web pages were open to washingtonpost.com and other news sites. The bus from Metro to the house had WTOP news radio blaring. I've never seen such news saturation.
No matter how the election goes, I'm glad I have the chance to enjoy a big election year here in Washington. :)