I voted while sitting on the couch Sunday night with my 7 year old son chanting "Go Obama! Go Obama!" It was great fun to explain to him the ballot, the process and have him help me seal the envelops after wards. Dropped him off at school this morning then promptly stopped by the county election office and turned it in. It feels so good to vote this time around.

In my favorite chair watching College Football. Sent it in the mail this morning. Felt really good with all those NOs on it. I just wish the envelope was pre-paid, though...

I'm displaced to Canada. I got my ballot a few weeks ago, and took it on a trip to the states Oct. 1 and filled it out at my brother's house. I meant to mail it from down there, for free, but found it among my stuff when I got home. I mailed it last Tuesday (the same day as the Canadian election) but with Canada Post it cost me $1.01! Democracy costs.

Today's the day. I need the catharsis. Once I've done all I can do of my part in the process, I will block out all further political punditry except my own while manning an Obama phone bank this Thursday. Then it's good riddance to campaign rhetoric.

In the 80's when I worked weekends and had Tuesday off, I would vote in the morning and drive to Mt. hood to kill time beore the results came on the news. (These were the old days when you mostly had to vote in person.)

Today I will drop of my ballot at the library and then do something fun, like ride the downtown trolly to the Portland Aerial Tram.

On a beautiful Sunday afternoon I sat at the dining room table and happily filled out my ballot with votes for Barack Obama and Jeff Merkley and against Bill Sizemore. I will drop it off today at the library.

My ballot arrived on Saturday, and that evening I filled it out at my home office desk. When I drove into town on Sunday, I placed it in the official drop box at the Wasco County Courthouse.

I even voted for a Republican! There were two races on my ballot in which there was no Democrat running. One was State Senate District 30. I couldn't bring myself to fill in the bubble by his name, so I wrote in the name of our county party chair. I know -- entrely symbolic, but much more gratifying than throwing away my vote on a candidate who seeks to undo all of the progress we made in the last legislative session.

The other was Wasco County Commissioner Sherry Holliday. She and I differ on a lot of issues, including where to draw the line between private property rights and the greater public interest in land use planning. Thankfully, these differences seldom come into play in the matters before the Wasco County Court (Commission). She was targeted by the religious right in a mean-spirited and deceptive recall effort for her vote in favor of a strong county anti-discrimination ordinance, during which her personal integrity was unfairly impugned. So, I feel she earned this dyed-in-the-wool progressive Democrat's vote.

Having gone on too long already, I won't bore y'all with my ballot measure decisions. Suffice it to say I didn't buy into the characterization of 65 as an "open primary" issue any more than the courts did.

I voted yesterday from the computer desk at my house. Democrat across the board. In favor of the bond measures in my area. Yes on all the leg referrals and no on everything else. I dropped it off at the box in front of the Juvenile Detention and Youth Services Campus on my way to the grocery store. I received my ballot before everyone else in my family. Every election we have a light hearted "first to vote" contest and this is the first year I have won!

Last week my plan was to fill out my ballot on Sunday while leisurely sipping my morning latte. I felt it would be an appropriate ritual. My only worry was if the ballot would actually arrive in Saturday's mail.

Well my ballot DID arrive on Saturday about 3:00 PM. Like a 10-year-old at 6:00 AM on Christmas morning, I found I just couldn't wait. I voted about 10 minutes after the ballot arrived, sealed it, signed it and marched it down to the drop box three blocks away. By 4:00 PM, I was done. So much for my self-control!

Got a call on Sunday urging me to support 26-94. I told her I had already voted for it.

Now the only thing I have to look forward to are the progressive victories on November 4. Anticipation.

My wife was eager to vote, and she had already gone through most of the measures volume of the voters pamphlet before we received our ballots on Saturday. Sunday morning, after breakfast, she started filling out her ballot. I opened mine up and began to fill it out.

We had to reference the candidates volume of the voter's pamphlet for the Commissioner of BLI (it was enlightening, and obvious choice based on the info furnished by the candidates). Otherwise, we didn't have any head-scratchers. I was excited to vote for Obama and Merkley. My wife was too, but said she was most excited to have done her part to end this endless election season.

After she voted, my wife modified her signature graphic that she uses at her usual message board hangout (babyzone) to include an "I Voted" sticker.

Later that day we took the kids to the library and dropped off our ballots.

I love vote by mail (and pretty much everything else about Oregon).

I got mine from my mailbox at 10 PM Saturday night and filled it out yesterday afternoon. I had planned on dropping it off at the closest library drop box, but got a few phone calls and ended up staying in. Put a stamp on it today and dropped it in the mail at work.

Received my ballot on Saturday around 1 PM. Went to my office desk and had the ballot complete in about 5 minutes. All of those annexation measures in Salem drive me nuts. Had the usual assortment of R's & D's this year. Really felt good to vote FOR a candidate for President this year rather than AGAINST someone.

Go OBAMA!!!

I voted Sunday night and turned my ballot in at the Pioneer Square ballot drop box about 11:30 a.m. I hope my early return means a Merkley volunteer won't have to spend 2 minutes calling me to get me to return my ballot.

My wife and I voted this morning at the dining room table. We plan to hand deliver our ballots this afternoon to the Marion County building located in our neighborhood. We have done our part to paint Marion County blue this November.

We'll spend the next 15 days working to get other Dems and Dem leaning independents to turn in their ballots.

Vote early! -- and bug your friends to do the same!

My wife and I sat at the dining room table yesterday morning and filled out our ballots. We had some spirited discussion, but in the end tend to vote the same. ne thing that we both agree on is questioning why the legislature doesn't just pass things instead of sending them to a vote of the public.

I live in Hermiston, Umatilla County and dropped my ballot off the same day I received it. I am pulling for Obama and Merkley. I have had a number of knocks on my door and phone calls from them and none from McCain and Smith. I have been impressed with their operations and side with them more when it comes to issues. GO BARACK AND JEFF!

I'm a 25 year old east-coast Portland transplant, and I received my ballot on Saturday. I swear it felt like Christmas morning... I'd been on edge all Friday trying to guess when my ballot would show up. Arrive it did, while I was out running errands; I practically fell up the stairs to my room and carefully opened the envelope, like Charlie looking for the golden ticket. I filled it out, took a picture of it (can't say why, other than that it was a dual fetishization of the act of voting and the act of voting for somebody I really liked), and stuck it in my pocket. I didn't dash right out to drop it off (meant to, but did that today instead) but I wasn't going to let it out of my sight, and held it close all weekend.

Oh, I'm so jealous of you already-voted people! My ballot hasn't yet come to my home. I'm soooooo ready to fill in the little bubbles for my candidates.

I received a flier reminding me to vote "down the ballot" on Saturday. I've been reminding my friends to do that for months. If you've got a pencil and your ballot in front of you, it seems to me that it would take more effort NOT to vote for more than just the presidential candidate.

Paul - I have no idea where you stand on vote-by-mail itself, but I think the people answering this provide object lessons just why we Oregonians are not good role models for the nation. Relatively high turnouts here being not much more than an indicator of bovine herd-like behavior.

If you walk by any courthouse starting Saturday, you will see signs posted that it is a felony to politick within X yards of the courthouse. That is because we have demeaned our election system to the point that the only semblance of a polling place is the courthouse where many people drop their ballots unless through some screwup they didn't receive a ballot in the mail (or spoiled the one they received). The elected representatives who wrote our state election laws, as well as those who wrote the laws of other states, recognized the genuine dangers to representative democracy and the private ballot in allowing others to politick voters when they have a "live" ballot in their hand.

Clearly that hasn't penetrated the chaotic thought processes of those who support vote-by-mail here, as your first person testimonials demonstrates. Most of these people are in places where they can be surrounded by politicking. Even worse they may lose their ballot. Arguments about how people can choose where they vote are only half-valid. Why would anybody feel the process of casting a vote is an activity that they should do in places where the very environment encourages what are felonies against our electoral system if they were within X feet of the courthouse? (Now if they want to petition our legislature to change our laws, but ignoring laws just in favor of "convenience" ... but that is the issue, isn't it?)

By the way, I also don't buy the "family teaching moment" argument with skepticism either. One or the other of my parents took me to the polling place every election, either before they went to work or after they got off work, and I'll wager I learned a VERY different lesson about the importance of voting and about choosing candidates than many of these people who condition voting on how convenient it is for them, based solely on the arguments I hear many people give for their votes. (I also am not talking here about people who genuinely face obstacles voting in a polling place or who have to legitimately be absentee.)

In direct answer to your question Paul, I'll be voting as near to Nov. 4 as I can and personally dropping my ballot at the courthouse because I don't trust people in the entire chain from my mailbox to the county by virtue of the fact they are participants in this kind of slacker, haphazard system. I consider my vote important enough that I have to presume they are as much slackers as the system because I can't know if they are doing what they can to change it. And I have several stories of utter screwups I've personally experienced with vote-by-mail to justify that. Of course, there is no acceptable reason to believe they are anymore competent at running the tabulators either, but I have no control over that so I can't worry about it.

At least virtually every electoral jurisdiction in Oregon is so relatively homogeneous (Portland districts being at the top of the list in both cases) in itself that we ever see genuine "swing" conditions so a slacker system and marginal competence from top to bottom seldom can tip a race.

Drat! I'm still waiting for our ballots. I called the Marion Co. Elections office and they said it should get there by Wed. I usually vote at the kitchen table with the voters guide in front of me. Nice and leisurely.

OK, tired, you convinced me. I am going to lobby my reps to require that in the next election we all have to ride horseback and cast our ballots in Salem next election!

Seriously though, if you think you are not "surrounded by politicking" up to the time you would get in line at a polling place you really don't have a clue. The last time I voted at a polling place, there were numerous political activists just beyond yards from the place, not to mention all of the lawn signs, radio ads, etc.

The responses here actually belie your contention that the vote-by-mail system is bad. Look at the enthusiasm expressed here. I doubt very much that the effect of any voter intimidation in the privacy of one's home is a factor in the elction outcome. mI would even contend that with voter pamplets in hand, people probably make a more informed decision, taking as much time as they want, without feeling rushed to vote.

The other thing is that while other states wrestle with validity of voter registrations our system is relatively stable and concise.

Paul, I hope you'll study the certainly well-intended reaction of someone like RichW to comments made here for what we might learn about the nature of support for VBM and what that might mean for our representative democracy. I know I don't have the expertise to tell you anything you don't already know about the qualities (aside from being white male landowners) the founders knew voters would have to have to prevent representative democracy from mirroring the worst of aristocratic rule or devolving into repressive mob rule. We only need to look at the last 8 years to have some understanding of their concerns both ways, as well as why Oregonians who think quite highly of themselves haven't quite lived up to that knowledge and best hopes either.

Also, Paul, maybe you could also study the argument most make here that the Voter's Pamphlet in which partisans pay (I think $500 a pop) to make their best sales pitch, without any type of fact-checking that is so in vogue right now and the right to lie constitutionally protected, is a particularly informative way to learn the reality of a candidate's positions or the real impacts of ballot measures. We can argue whether the journalistic ethic is dead, or even if existed at all, but I don't think anyone can argue with a straight face that it is to be found in the voter's pamphlet. Except for the actually ballot measure text, I actually just look at the endorsers and ignore the statements to double check if those endorsers correspond to what I supposed or had heard during the campaign. Hope those $500 spots at least pay for printing and distributing the pamphlet. Let us know when you publish your book.

I voted late last night, in my living room, in front of my computer. The nice thing about having access to the Internet when voting is you can research the candidates and issues as you fill out your ballot. This afternoon, on my way home from work, I stopped at one of my county's drop boxes and cast my ballot. It felt great. I wish the best of luck to Kurt Schrader, Jeff Merkely, and Barack Obama.

My girlfriend is coming over for dinner tonight and afterwards we'll be cracking a bottle of wine and filling out our ballots together. Oh. Ba. Ma.

Drop off at Election Central in Bend tomorrow morning.

I'm conflicted.....not about the choices in the election, but whether or not I should drive to the Washington County Elections Division in Hillsboro so that I'm secure that my ballot made it THAT FAR. Or, do I drop it in the mailbox at my local post office and trust that it makes it to be counted?

I don't even smoke pot but I can't shake the paranoia. Is it better to place it in the drop box at City Hall?

This level of paranoia indicates to me how hopeful I am of a powerful Blue Wave!

Haven't received my ballot yet but last November I voted while waiting for my food at an Ethiopian restaurant...

Rulial - When you wrote "The nice thing about having access to the Internet when voting is you can research the candidates and issues as you fill out your ballot", why did you think this was a good argument for vote by mail? If the County sent you a sample ballot with your voter's pamphlet, couldn't you do exactly the same thing and then just take you r final decisions with you into the polling place? Gotta love these examples of people making arguments for VBM that really are just rationalizations. And Paranoid - why would you think you are being unreasonable by being concerned the mail won't get lost when your vote obviously is something of great value to you (as it should be)?

"I don't even smoke pot, but I can't shake the paranoia."

Maybe you should try smoking some pot.

Saturday night, sitting on the living room floor at the coffee table so I could throw my dog's toy while voting.

I also have a ritual I do when voting---I read aloud the names of every person on the ballot and thank them out loud for participating.....yes, even the ones I don't like, even the nutcases. After all, that's what Democracy is about....every and anyone can participate...I'm 43 years old and I still get chills every time I vote.

Let's hear it for the Democracy and the United States of America! Whooohoooo!!!!!

Wylie, if I smoked pot I'd end up walking my ballot to Hillsboro TONIGHT, and waiting until the elections office opened in the morning. I'd also be really hungry.

these are the good old days. wallow.

I have never been so excited to vote. I filled it out literally when I walked in the door. I voted for Obama, Merkley, No on 64 and on all the others. I was tempted to not vote in the judges races, but then decided I could still vote for Steve Novick -- for judge. :) It was nice to vote my conscience for once. I'm still pissed I wasn't able to vote for Dean in 04'. After I filled out my ballot I drove around Portland picking up my families ballots, and now don't have to worry about them not voting.

Someone calling themselves " Tired of the lazy voters" says:

When you wrote "The nice thing about having access to the Internet when voting is you can research the candidates and issues as you fill out your ballot", why did you think this was a good argument for vote by mail? If the County sent you a sample ballot with your voter's pamphlet, couldn't you do exactly the same thing and then just take you r final decisions with you into the polling place? Gotta love these examples of people making arguments for VBM that really are just rationalizations.

When did I say it was an argument (good or otherwise) for vote by mail, TOTLV? I don't even recall saying that I liked vote by mail in my comment. Indeed, given that I can access the Internet from my cell phone, I could conceivably have access to the Internet in a traditional polling-place election.

But since you seem determined to have an argument about the merits of VBM, I gotta say, TOTLV, your arguments aren't terribly persuasive.

You argue that people will be subjected to "politicking" when filling out their ballot. First, if someone is really concerned about being bothered while voting, they can do it in the privacy of their own home, like I did. Or they can tell the person bugging them to go away. Once, when I was filling out my ballot in a public place, someone started criticizing my choices and I said "Excuse me, I have already made my decision. Please leave me alone." It wasn't hard. You make it sound like voters are wimps or something.

Besides, your remedy to not having Internet access in the voting booth, which is that voters should make their decisions beforehand using a sample ballot and bring it to the polling place, would also cause people to be subjected to "politicking" when they make their decision.

Next, TOTLV, you argue that people might lose their ballot. Well, they can get a replacement ballot up until the election deadline. Also, if they report their ballot missing, it becomes invalidated. Has there even been one documented case of a missing ballot being voted? I don't think so.

You argue that voting in polling places provides a better civic lesson to children than VBM, because it shows you'll go the extra mile (literally) to exercise your voice in a democracy. But nobody would seriously suggest we make voting harder just to provide better civic lessons. If that were the case, we'd make everyone travel by horseback to Salem, as one other commentator suggested, to provide an even better civic lesson.

Then, TOTLV, you fret about ballots being lost in the mail or by elections workers. Sure, that is a risk, However, voters can always check with their county elections office to make sure their ballot was received. Or they can use the drop boxes. And again, I have yet to hear of one documented case. Indeed, traditional elections, ballots also have to be transported from precincts to elections offices, and there is also a risk of ballots being lost that way, too. I fail to see how VBM is more risky in this regard.

By the way, even if we buy your argument that VBM is a "slacker, haphazard system", that's no reason to distrust the honesty and competence of elections officials. After all, they are "participants in this kind of slacker, haphazard system", as you put it, because state law requires them to be. But that does not speak to their dedication or competence.

You allude to some problems you've experienced with the VBM system, but you give us no details that we can use to corroborate your story. If you actually believe that there are holes in the VBM system, and you've experienced them firsthand, you need to step forward and tell elections officials, so they can improve the system. I'm sorry, TOTLV, but vague references to problems by an anonymous blog commenter aren't very credible.

Then you make some arguments about mob rule and false statements in the voter's pamphlet which don't seem to have anything to do with VBM.

You know, you call voters "lazy" for preferring the convenience of VBM, but I don't think that's fair. Yes, VBM makes it easy for people for lazy people to vote. But for many people, it's hard to make it to the polls on Election Day, because of work or family commitments. For people who are constantly on the road, or who work multiple jobs to put food on the table, the availability of the VBM option might be the difference between being able to vote or not. Not everyone has the luxury of taking a long lunch to stand in line at the polls on Election Day.

Now that I've demolished your arguments against VBM, you might conclude that I am a complete supporter of VBM. But that would be a bad assumption. As a voter, I love the convenience of VBM. However, I do agree with VBM critics that there was something special (although I am too young to have experienced it myself) in the common experience of going to the polls on Election Day, and that this was an unfortunate loss. Also, I fear that VBM makes it much harder for people in unstable housing situations to vote. I do think that elections officials should offer VBM as an option, but also provide many polling locations as well. A hybrid system would undoubtedly cost more, but I think our democracy is worth it.

Rulial - You don't seem to understand what it means to make an counterargument. What've you've done is throw out red herrings and make appeals to emotion. For instance, your comment: "But nobody would seriously suggest we make voting harder just to provide better civic lessons.". No one suggested your perception going to the polling place is uncomfortably "harder" for the purpose of providing "a better civic lesson". What I said is that it provides a very DIFFERENT civics lesson, one that speaks to concerns the founders had about what kind of electorate it takes to maintain a representative democracy, and I'll bet there might be something to be learned there. There are obviously other things going on with you that you felt you needed to argue as you have in the rest of your comment about points that weren't made and your belief you have some refuted something that can't be refuted, at least on the dimensions you argued.

Also, arguments from ignorance like "If you actually believe that there are holes in the VBM system, and you've experienced them firsthand, you need to step forward and tell elections officials, so they can improve the system." may play well to those looking for excuses like yourself. The only problem is that you don't know if I have, and you are sadly mistaken that this is supposed to convince you or anyone else. The only question to you is why you believed something in the context of Paul G. asking what when and where we were voting (and perhaps why), that's what I told him. It's pretty clear no one can convince you of anything at this point in your experience.

If your confusion, you actually confirmed my point that when people say they like VBM it is because they value the convenience highly. Is that value good for representative democracy? That's the unanswered question. But to play YOUR game of emotional appeal, do you really think you are fooling anyone that your comment "I voted late last night, in my living room, in front of my computer. The nice thing about having access to the Internet when voting is you can research the candidates and issues as you fill out your ballot." was anything less than supportive of VBM? Particularly after the rest of this subsequent comment in which you felt the need to emotionally rail against a critical view of VBM?

Most people don't have such phones and will read your first comment from their experience of not being able to access the internet in the polling place, as you either intended or would have thought about if you didn't mean it to be an positive statement about VBM since you clearly feel you are such a careful thinker. What you have done, of course, is give a sense of your relative privilege (and confirm your youthful lack of experience which is NOT a point against you in anyway), your use of the term "given" clearly being intended to at least convey a reality that would give extra emotional weight to your argument rather than a hypothetical. In general, your indignation gives a insight into your sense of expectation that system for voting naturally will be adapted to your convenience.

I also notice you didn't actual address the question that was at the heart of the argument about laziness: Why couldn't you do your research beforehand and simply take in your choices rather than your high-tech phone? (Of course based on your arguments here you haven't exactly demonstrated that you have the ability to pore through the noise on the internet to discern and assemble an accurate picture of a candidates values or the consequences of a ballot measure.)

In some countries with even more advanced telecom systems than we have, the people cast ballots entirely with pencil and paper and count them by hand in full view of anybody in the public who cares. It's more work and requires many more people per capita to participate in the election process to be sure, but for some reason it matters to them to do it that way. My question from the top really is what values VBM supporters embody in their preference compared to those countries and which values are most important for sustaining a free, fair, pluralistic representative democracy.

The rest of your comments similarly aren't refutations, but this is more than enough. Sorry, but because you are such a poor thinker, you also don't strike me as a very good steward. You do demonstrate a lot about Oregon and perhaps why it's not surprising we have the problems with governance that we do.

Paul G., I'm really interested to know what your book is really about.

One other thing Rulial, if logical argument skills matter to you, and to your credit I think from your comment there is good reason to believe they do, I want you privately to refresh your understanding of the term "sophistry".

Beyond that I'd like to you to consider the following: You obviously place a certain value on the convenience of "VBM" as most supporters do and you do demonstrate a certain amount of support. After all, you argued vigorously against your own inaccurate presentation of a criticism.

If you will, consider what other assumptions you have about the other human and technology components of the system that allow you to place a high enough value on convenience and all the positive consequences in your value structure to tip your support towards VBM.

Now consider if your assumptions are wrong. That is something we can find evidence to determine. Just as an overview of the possibilities: When we introduce people and steps into the delivery chain we increase the chance of failure. Tying (convenient) access to a ballot to a stable home address imperils access by people whose home addresses are unstable for any reason (are you a renter who moved recently?). Even the mainstream media has started to raise serious questions about the integrity and security of the technology being used in our elections. Even if you think that is conspiracy theory stuff, it is still a fact that introducing technology where it is not necessarily needed introduces unnecessary points of failure, and using technology that can't be audited because of claims about proprietary rights decreases the transparency central to our very notion of peaceful transfers of power.

Finally, then, think through if your assumptions are wrong how much negative value you would actually have to place on those problems to overcome the positive value you place on convenience and the other things you like about VBM. That is the real question and one that we know a lot about. For most people It takes a LOT of negative perceived value to overcome small amounts of positive perceived value. Your arguments about how people could overcome some of the problems you falsely present make assumptions about their values they would have to have to overcome those problems and that you don't address in a credible way.

This doesn't even get into your assumptions about what VBM does for the quality of the representation we chose, or the negative value you would place on that if those assumptions were wrong. I am interested here in the true consequences to our representative democracy of the values people hold in support of VBM or any other thing they support. That's what I'm hoping Paul G. is actually going to take up in his book because that is the real research that hasn't been done on VBM.

"Tired of the lazy voters", let me explain this clearly one more time:

1) I am not a supporter of universal vote by mail. I believe it should be an option, but not mandatory. If I'm not doing a good job arguing for universal VBM, it's because I wasn't trying to.

2) My comment about how I voted, where I voted, and why was not meant to be an argument for universal VBM. Maybe someone (like you) might mistake it for such, but I promise if I was making an argument for VBM, I would start with something like "We should have universal vote by mail."

3) If you think I'm a lazy thinker, so be it. But before you come to that conclusion, maybe you should actually understand what I was trying to argue, and what I was not.

4) I understand you don't like VBM, but you don't have to poop in the punchbowl. It's really lame to come into a forum where people are cheerfully sharing their voting experiences--a nice attempt to rekindle some of the feeling of civic togetherness we lost when going to VBM--and start going off about how we're all lazy sheep. That's the main reason I responded angrily.

Rulial: I think all that needs to be said is that I don't seem to see Paul G's headline asking for POSITIVE, big Oregon hug, stories when and where we voted. Perhaps because he's gathering first-person accounts for further study. He got my story, and a few questions about the comments you and others made that I hope he'll consider in any study he does because these things haven't been studied as far as I can determine. That specifically includes arguments why these stories demonstrate a certain value for convenience that do not necessarily square well with what some very smart people once argued is needed in the electorate to maintain a healthy representative democracy.

I was on vacation last week and received my ballot on Friday. I had heard that the ballots were going out on Friday but did not expect to get it so quickly.

I may have waited a whole hour before i sat down with it and my voter's pamphlet (love, love, love our voter's pamphlet). I could not wait. I wish everyone in the country could feel as secure about their vote as i do (Thank you Bill Bradbury). That said, i put a stamp on that puppy and dropped it at the post office the very next morning.

I am such a gooner about politics and voting; it's kind of nice to read the voting stories of other Oregonians, knowing they are a bit gooney like me.

We received our ballots on Monday, was very excited but too tired to fill it out last night. Got home this evening after making calls for Jessica Adamson (HD #26) and filled it out at the dining room table. Voted Democratic all the way. Voted Yes on the first 4 and no more. Wavered a bit on the some, do I want to fund the zoo, or PCC since most of my family belongs in the first and my daughter attends the second I finally decided on Yes. Now my ballot is tucked safely in my purse ready to drop off on my way to Jeff Merkley's office for more GOTV calls. I too normally like to vote on the actual election day and then drive to my local drop-off, it is a thrill (okay I am weird but not alone it would seem)this year though is different and the sooner the better. The sooner you vote, the sooner the phone calls stop.

Speaking of early voting, nice quote by you in this BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/us_elections_2008/7687495.stm