The View from Your Election: Oklahoma

04 Nov 2008 05:52 am

A reader writes:

I live and work in Claremore, Oklahoma, a town that is about half fringe suburb to Tulsa and half rural county seat. Claremore is famous for giving the world Will Rogers and Lynn Riggs (the author of the play, set in Claremore, that eventually became Oklahoma!). We're a safe county and a safe state for Senator McCain. I heard last week that we would be having early voting in OK, so I headed over to the county election board over my lunch break on Friday to try early voting for the first time.

The line stretched down most of the block--about 50 people, give or take.

The demographics looked remarkably like our county--mostly white retirees and stay at home moms (many with kids in tow), but a notable contingent of students from the small university up the street, and a smattering of Native Americans and Hispanics.

One of the merits of living in smaller town America is that government service is (usually) friendly and lines are (almost always) short, and we were at the door in under 15 minutes. The poll worker standing at the door said that this was the shortest the line had been all day, and if the pace kept up, they were looking at breaking the county's turnout record before the polls even opened on Tuesday.

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