Voted and Caucused

This afternoon I went to the polls with valkyrie_kitten to vote in the Texas Democratic primary. We stood in line for almost two hours to cast our ballots. The poll watchers gave Willow an "I Voted" sticker to wear on her service dog vest. Then we went home for a brief rest before the caucuses started.

We returned to find the parking lot and street parking badly overflowed, but won the lottery when a car pulled out of a good place just in front of us. Then we went to the back of a block-long line of people waiting to get in to the caucus location. A few minutes later mongo42 and spinsono joined us. Without them I think the wait would have been intolerable.

It took us half an hour to get into the caucus location, a school lunch room, which was already packed. An hour later the Fire Marshall intervened and our district (one of two in the same room) was split off and walked down to the gym. There was plenty of room there, but no seating. (Fortunately we brought a folding stool for valkyrie_kitten.)

We then had to wait for the regular voting to be completed before we could start the caucus. No one was allowed to join the voting line after 7pm, but by that time the line was huge. It took more than three hours to get everyone through. At least we got to know a lot of the folks around us. It was a friendly crowd, despite the frustratingly long wait.

Finally the official paperwork from the polling place arrived so we could begin. Our district went roughly two-thirds for Obama. spinsono, valkyrie_kitten, and I left after registering our caucus votes, but mongo42 stayed around for the actual selection of delegates. He and I both signed on as alternates, just in case there weren't enough.

Since the three of us left early we managed to get home before midnight...