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November 4, 2008
Posted: 2022 GMT
FAIRFAX, Virginia – Wet weather and working hours dampened late voting in northern Virginia but an unprecedented early morning surge and absentee ballots cast ahead of election day looked to have set the key state on course for a record turnout in a U.S. presidential vote. 
Isabella Johnson, 96, votes in Franklin, Virginia. Her grandson drove her 70 miles to vote for Obama.
 At West Springfield High School, students were struggling to sell mountains of cookies, muffins and bagels they had baked to raise money towards their end-of-year prom as voters slowed to a trickle and morning drizzle became an afternoon downpour that never stopped. In northern Virginia - seen as key to the result in the state because of the region's supposed Democratic leanings - polling officials and campaign volunteers in many precincts were already tidying up when polls closed at 7 p.m. as fears of chaotic queues and a late rush to vote proved unfounded. "Everybody got off their butts and voted early," said a campaign volunteer, surveying an empty car park outside the Douglas MacArthur School in Alexandria just 10 minutes after polls closed. "It's been a long day... A long year and a half." It was a different story earlier in the day as workers sought to beat the crowds by voting before heading for the office. Around 40 percent of expected votes had been cast by 10 a.m., according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch newspaper. But by midday, the queues outside most polling locations had vanished with voters spending just a few minutes inside casting their ballots. Sabrina Root, a 27-year-old accountant who voted at the Fairfax Elk Lodge, described casting her vote as "painless and quick" but said she'd been lucky to get the day off work. A regular voter in local, state and national elections, Root said she had noticed a groundswell of interest in the presidential contest. "I just get the sense that more people are actually paying attention and caring," she said. "More people are obviously coming out to vote." Root said she expected election night to be tight. "We're only on the east coast and there's a huge country out there that's still to vote." Stay at home father Hank Strother, 50, said he hadn't decided who to vote for until he'd got inside the voting booth. "A lot of people made up their minds a month ago but a lot has happened in the last week," he said. Strother added that he was disappointed that the four other presidential candidates on the Virginia ballot - independent Ralph Nader, Libertarian Party nominee Bob Barr, the Green Party's Cynthia McKinney and the Constitution Party's Chuck Baldwin - had not received more coverage. "It's going to be an interesting evening," he added. "It could still go either way." There were voting problems reported elsewhere in Virginia. In Richmond, optical-scan readers failed after voters sodden after waiting in line in morning rain accidentally got their ballot papers wet. Also in the state capital, voters in one precinct were kept waiting until after 7 a.m. because an election official overslept. But most voters were satisfied with the way the day had gone. "It's not going to be an easy night but hopefully we'll get a result," said Kathy, a paediatrician. "I know it's going to be very close but it seems pretty well organized so hopefully it won't get too messy. This isn't Florida." Posted by: CNN digital news producer, Simon Hooper |
 
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