I Voted! Did You Vote Yet?

That was exciting. At 9 am I walked down to my polling place, which had been moved to a large church cafeteria and actually combined two previous polling sites. Outside, a Democratic party worker handed me a postcard with the Oakland Democratic Party slate marked up -- that has never happened before.

There was no line, but more activity than most years. I'm sure the evening will be packed. Got the ballot, proceeded to mark it up and then made a mistake on one of the propositions. Went back, told them I made a mistake and they gave me another ballot. Marked it up and checked it again and again and again. They had me feed it into the Sequoia vote reader box. The display said I was number 74 (and the poll worker pointed it out, saying my vote had been counted). As I walked out I saw the other box read number 97.

Outside, a young woman passed me with tears in her eyes, saying "I got my sticker!" Another woman on a cell phone was dressed in hot pink shoes, jacket and hat, very much an Oakland church lady. I could hear her saying she was enjoying being part of history in the making.

What a day! The sun is shining and there is optimism and unity on the streets of Oakland.