I wanted to get this post out while it's still early enough for enough people to read it. We're getting down to the wire, kids. Tomorrow's the big day to vote, to have your say. Here's a site to get information about voting, and to set things straight.
To ensure that you don't have to vote provisional, make sure you bring ID (even if it's a state that doesn't require it) or an official document that has your address on it, and make sure that you're at the right polling place. Even if you've voted there in other elections before, they might've changed the location. Check today to make sure where to go.
If a poll worker asks you to vote provisionally, double check to make sure you're in the correct polling place. Then respectfully ask the basis for asking you to vote provisionally. Then challenge it. Provisional ballots are put aside and counted only in the event that a race is close, and that's in the best of circumstances. Get a polling official to make a decision in your case, and if they don't let you vote, then call the Board Of Elections if you have to.
Make up an index card with numbers to call to report your voter suppression. Call Election Protection at 1-866-OUR-VOTE (1-866-687-8683) and Obama's voter protection hotline at 1-877-US-4-OBAMA (1-877-874-6226) and report it here when you get home. Write down both, even if you're voting for the other guy. If Gov. Crist of Florida believes in all Americans' right to vote, so it is with Obama. Think of it as a back up, if nothing else. Look up and write down the phone numbers of the local papers and television stations. Even if it's very likely you won't need it, there might be someone else who does. Stand up for others if need be. As I said, it's likely it won't come to that, but as I say it's better to have a thing and not need it than to need a thing and not have it. Plus, it's a chance for us comic book fans to be able to be a hero in real life. And you'll feel good that you can stand up to a bully, who's usually a coward and likely to step down once you show you're ready to fight. And feel good that you can be the hero if necessary.
And that's what it comes down to, as Mark Gibson says. The pundits can talk until they're blue in the face ("and they will. At great length. Whether you want them to or not" as Alan Rickman said in Dogma) and you see the polls and the trends and everybody telling you how it's going to turn out, but the only thing that matters is you, in the voting booth, making a selection. It isn't special interest groups or trends or predictions that decide this election, it isn't Democrat or Republican or Green or Independent, it's you that casts that vote.
If you think the past 8 years have been good and want to continue, vote McCain. If you think we need to change the direction this country is going in, vote Obama. That's how I've been putting it to keep it simple, but Geoffrey D. Wessel puts it so much better.
And for those who long for a return to the good old days when elections and balloting were easier and not so dirty, here's an article for you.