Turnout is very high.  We have about 2500 registered in our precinct, which has been trending Dem and went about 60-40 for Kerry.  700 voted prior to today, either absentee or early voting. 

At 6 am the line extended another 100 feet beyond the 100+ feet line inside the elementary school polling place.  An opscan vote tabulator broke down and the line barely moved during the 45 minutes or so it took to get a tech in to fix it.  I was outside more than I was inside during that time and did not see anyone leave the line.  Once the problem was fixed the line moved well and by late AM folks were smiling as they left, pleasantly surprised at how short the wait was at that point. 

By 10 am roughly 1600 votes had been cast, total, about 65% turnout already.  The word from our poll watcher was that we were doing very well with our folks turning out.  Someone speculated we could see 90% turnout.  There is ongoing targeted, well organized activity to try to get as many as possible of the rest of our folks out.

Levels of incivility towards those of us offering sample ballots were low, consisting entirely of semi-obnoxious body language from a minority of Republican voters.  I'd estimate 90% of it came from white men ages 35 and up.

I try to make a point of engaging Republican counterparts when I do this work.  Two years ago, during a lightly trafficked shift, I met a 55-ish Republican attorney from Kansas whose brother lives in the precinct.  He was peddling the anti-evolution line to me.  Very civil, pleasant gentleman.

Two of our counterparts for part of my shift were 18 and 15 year old boys.  Out of curiosity I asked them if they had some serious concern re whether Obama was really patriotic or not.  The 18 year old said no, he didn't buy into that rhetoric.  The 15 year old answered by saying he was not going to answer because his experience has taught him that if he answers truthfully he will be called a racist.  I chose not to further engage the 15 year old on the matter. If I honestly believed that someone with a chance to win a presidential election might have terrorist inclinations I'd be seriously alarmed.     

An elderly white woman with limited mobility declined to have her ballot brought to her outside the polling place for casting and witnessing by an election official.  She said she was afraid her vote would not be counted if that happened and insisted on making her way inside instead.  She said she just wasn't going to let anything get in the way of her casting a vote that counted on this historic day which she said she never thought she would live to see.   

Only slept about 3 hours last night as a result of being much too wound up.  At least the SNL 2-hour special last night helped me let go of the worry a little and do some laughing. 

I had a minor "incident" while doing doorhangers today in suburban northern Virginia.

A mid-40s male was doing yardwork out front as I approached the driveway in the early evening darkness.  The mid-40s female listed as also living at the address--previously identified as at least a "gettable" voter--was the person to whom the doorhanger was addressed.  She was nowhere in sight.

Upon his recognizing the Obama/Biden sticker on my chest we had the following exchange:

Him, very non-jocularly, tight-lipped, no trace of a smile: So are you going to reimburse me for the $20,000 tax increase I'm going to have?

Me: (not thinking clearly): Not gonna happen.

Him (seeing the doorhanger I was walking up his driveway to deliver, again very non-jocularly): Don't deliver trash on my property.

Me (opting to forego trying to deliver the doorhanger): Do you speak for your wife, sir?

Suffice it to say we were not enamored of one another as we parted ways. 

I hadn't known either the guy or his (presumably) SO.  They live half a mile away from us.  We didn't get far enough for me to inform him that I am a neighbor. 

He was dressed casually as one would expect someone doing yardwork would be.  With my unthinking reply to his tax comment I was being presumptuous, for indeed he might have earned enough money to have a $20K tax hike looking at him if Obama does win and succeeds in getting through Congress the tax policy he's been saying he'll push.

I would have done far better had I responded to his question simply: "No."  (someone feeling as strongly as he appeared to is not someone it was going to be productive for me to try to engage in a discussion.)

When I got back to our precinct captain's home to drop off the sheets recording the houses I'd done, I let the coordinator know that it was an uneventful shift, except for this one incident.  I explained what had happened, verbally reinforcing the notation I'd made on my sheet for the next person this time around not to engage the male of the house.  I also vented that I hate it when men speak for their SO female partners.

There were three middle-aged and over women taking this in.  One of them, her face lit up, said "We need more men who think like you!"  One of the other women, also smiling, said, "Yeah, well, it's getting tense."  (Obama leads narrowly as Dems seek to win Virginia in the presidential race for the first time since 1964.) Indeed I did feel royally cheesed off at the guy for denying me permission to deliver the doorhanger intended for his SO.  But my hasty, careless reply on the tax comment may have (inadvertently--I was just stupid and careless, not intentionally mean-spirited) insulted or irritated him.

I am wondering for those denizens still reading this who went door-to-door for Kerry and/or Gore as well: how does your experience this time compare with the earlier ones in terms of the level of civility of exchanges with members of the public with whom you've interacted FTF or on the phone?