Day Three in New Mexico

I can't stop weeping, I'm so proud of what happened today in my country.

I'm also exhausted. I left Melinda's at about 4:50 a.m. to go to San Filipe Pueblo, located about 50 miles from where I am staying. It was pitch black when I left, and so dark when I got to the reservation that I wasn't sure I was going in the right direction. I found the building I was told to go to, but there was no indication that was the polling place. A car stopped and the driver rolled down the window. She let me know the location had been moved to another building and asked me to follow her.

The gate to the building wasn't opened until well after 6, so my first call into the voter protection war room was at 6:15 a.m. The second call was when the place finally did open. The third was when the voting scanner machine stopped working after only a few votes. It took about an hour and a half, but the scanner did get repaired and the 75 or so votes which were cast in the interim were scanned at the end of the day. The turn-out was far in excess of any prior election at the pueblo and it was quite clear that Barack Obama was the candidate of choice for most of the voters.

I'm too tired now to write about my fellow voter protection volunteer for the thirteen hours we stood outside the polling place and about the warm and friendly people I met. And now I'm going to wrap myself in the thought that intelligence and competence is no longer a crime in this country and that elections can be won on the issues and I am going to sleep.