At 6:41 p.m. last night, get-out-the-vote volunteers at Montgomery County's largest voting precinct, St. Michael's Lutheran Church, were getting nervous. Merrimac Road -- a tranquil two-lane sidestreet through farmland -- was choked with cars from both directions, trying to make it to the polls before they closed at 7 p.m. Virginia Rock the Vote coordinator Amanda Eckerson ran up to a group of volunteers.Pointing toward the road, Eckerson had a simple command."Tell them to run."
But as almost every moment of Election Day in Blacksburg, it was a moment of largely false drama.
Election officials at St. Michael's shepherded all of the roughly 300 remaining voters into the church and no prospective voters were obviously turned away at the close of the polls. Voting finished at St. Michael's at approximately 9 p.m. 3,812 of the 5,698 registered voters at St. Michael's showed up to vote for president on Election Day.
Beyond St. Michael's, however, three other local polling places -- Gilbert Linkous Elementary on Tom's Creek Road; Blacksburg Middle School and Luther Memorial Lutheran Church on Prices Fork Road -- were thronged with voters in the morning hours but tapered off to almost nothing after lunchtime. At the close of polls at each location, campaign volunteers outnumbered voters at ratios up to 4 to 1.
Lelia Mayton, chief election officer at Blacksburg Middle School, said that only two provisional ballots had been cast at her polling location and students had come prepared to vote.
"Most people had studied, they had the correct IDs. I didn't have to do any affirmations of identity, folks were in good humor and they did what they needed to do," Mayton said.
Chief election officer at Gilbert Linkous Elementary School -- Precinct G-2 -- Hugh van Landingham said that an extra voting booth did not come as expected, and that the line was going slower than usual during the afternoon. He noted an influx of Tech students hitting the booths at his precinct this year, and predicted a steadier flow of voters than in the past.
"Sometimes we can go to sleep between customers but not today," van Landingham laughed.
Lines reached almost 300 voters on Tuesday morning. Very few seemed to mind.
"I was telling my buddy that I was feeling that this is like the Super Bowl, that I needed to get some beers and grill out because we were going to be watching television all night long. I'm excited," said Jared Heffron, a graduate student in biology who voted at 6 a.m. at St. Michael's.
Many students expressed dismay at having to vote at St. Michael's church while more spacious (Blacksburg Middle School) and closer (Luther Memorial) polling places were left empty.
"I'm pretty disappointed about the location," said Angie de Soto, a senior environmental policy major and Rock the Vote volunteer. "I'm a fifth year here and I had no idea where this was, and I actually kind of had trouble finding it today. The only reason I found it was because there was Rock the Vote sign so if that sign wasn't there, then I would not have been able to find it. It's just kind of disappointing that there wasn't more accommodations for college students (or) a voting location much closer to campus."
Blacksburg resident Laura Szyikowski said she was "discouraged" by the pain of standing in long lines at St. Michael's.
One Obama volunteer said that voting on campus made sense for students who had their polling places split between at least three different locations.
"They weren't prepared. I think the students should have voted on campus, that's the key issue here. Students shouldn't have to run themselves all the way out here," said Blacksburg resident Cary Hopper. "I'm not sure if that's a reflection that they feel that the proportion of students who have historically voted has been so abysmal that they've just shuttled them over and gerrymandered them but I think with this type of election with all the excitement and all the facilities on campus they should have been able to handle the students voting on campus."
Several students did, however, run into significant polling problems. A sophomore human, nutrition, foods and exercise major, who gave her name but did not want to be identified, said she was rejected at the polls after a tortuous registration process. After registering in Virginia at her on-campus address, she became nervous that her registration would affect her tax status as a dependent of her parents' residence in Pennsylvania.
After speaking with the registrar's office to cancel her Virginia registration, she requested a Pennsylvania absentee ballot. Last week, her Pennsylvania ballot and her Virginia voter identification card both arrived at her residence hall address. She said that she then called the Montgomery County Registrar's office and was informed that if she received a voter card, then she was registered to vote. She did not check that information online and showed up to St. Michael's to vote at 5:30 p.m. At approximately 8:10 p.m., she emerged from the polling place visibly upset, forced to cast a provisional ballot because her name did not appear on the election rolls.
While students who cast provisional ballots can contest their case tomorrow at the Christiansburg Government Center beginning at noon, she said that classes between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. prevent her from getting her vote counted.
Theresa Jones, a senior biology major, underwent similar difficulties.
"I moved here from Fairfax County, I changed my registration. I gave them the right address and then I got a rejection letter saying my address was invalid. I didn't even get to keep a copy of the original to check against," Jones said. "I know I did this right, I had assistance from experts on campus, I feel like I was wronged."
Overall, Montgomery County had very few registered voting complaints. Only 12 voting issues arose countywide according to OurVoteLive.org. Fairfax County had the greatest number of voting complaints and problems at 156.
With Virginia voting for a Democrat for the first time since 1964, many students expressed both their pleasure with Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Mark Warner and their excitement at voting.
Freshman Ashley Dalton said she was an excited first-time voter and she'd be punching her ballot for Barack Obama.
"I'm worried about abortion, I'm pro-choice," Dalton said, "I like Obama's change message."
Freshman Kevin Mak said he was voting for Obama as well, though he was less than enthusiastic.
"I think I've really had to choose the less-worse candidate," Mak said, "A couple of my friends are straight-up Nader people, but I really think there needs to be a middle-of-the road choice."
Whatever their choice, voters often cited their preference for voting in person despite the lines.
"You can actually go and vote on Election Day, to actually walk in," to the polling place, said Will Fry, a sophomore psychology and physics double major. "It's actually Election Day. It's a little strange of hearing about for two years on the news, it's insane that tomorrow there won't be an election."
While Fry was drawn in by symbolic goods, freshman human nutrition, foods and exercise major Laura Tyeryar said she was surprised and pleased at finally being able to cast her first ballot.
"This is the most exciting election I've seen," Tyeryar said, "We finally count, our opinion matters."
Dennis Hartman, a Blacksburg resident for the past 30 years, didn't have ideological or emotional reasons for getting into line at 5:50 a.m. at St. Michael's.
"I thought I would be ahead of the line ... I wanted to beat the crowd so I can go fishing," Hartman said.