A friend in Illinois writes:
I vote in a small, rural, conservative, Republican town in Illinois. There is nothing major for either state or local on the ballot. I waited 20 minutes to vote at 6:30 a.m. and the elderly poll workers said they had never seen an election like this before, even when there was a major local issue on the ballot.
I take some hope from this – I think all those people were there, just as my wife and I were there, to vote against Obama when it won’t make a difference at all, since he’ll easily carry Illinois based on Chicago. As my wife noted, the folks in the Remington caps were unlikely to be Obama voters.
In my little Red corner of Ohio, there were no lines at 11:15, but there was a larger GOP than Democratic volunteer presence outside. The only reason this might be significant is that some popular local Democratic officials are running for higher office (e.g. state rep), and I would have thought they’d have had more foot soldiers working the polls.