My absentee ballot yesterday in D.C. I went downtown (just above the Judiciary Square metro stop) to vote because I plan to be in Philadelphia next Tuesday with Impact 2004. Voting early was easy to do, and as you can see from the picture at right, I was in good company—there was a line long enough that it took at least 20 minutes to get to the point of voting. That's not long, but it was longer than I expected, and people were showing up to join the line as past as people were leaving it. I hope this is a good sign for higher turnout generally this year. Yesterday I heard that Ralph Nader was only polling five points behind Bush, so I thought about voting for Nader, since Kerry will probably win by a 30-40 point margin here in D.C. Wouldn't be great if Bush came in third here? I also thought about voting for the Green Party, which represents my view of most issues better than either of the main parties. Since Kerry's guaranteed to win here, I figured who I voted for didn't really matter. Well, that's what I was thinking, but when I sat down with that ballot, all those thoughts disappeared. Suddenly, the risk that Kerry would not win D.C. seemed real, and I thought about the popular vote, knowing it will make Kerry's win more decisive if he wins both the electoral college and the popular vote. So I knew what I had to do. My eyes searched for Bush's name first to make sure I knew where it was so my pencil wouldn't go anywhere near it, then I carefully filled in the arrow beside Kerry's name. It felt good. You'll note I used a paper ballot. I could have voted on a touch-screen machine but, well, no-thanks. I'd like my vote to count.