My wife Jane & I voted absentee in the primary election earlier this year and are eligible to vote absentee in the general election but decided to early vote instead.  It’s hard to explain why.  Maybe it is the shared experience of being there, in person, with other people in your community, gathering to experience democracy.

We decided not to try voting the very first day, but the second day instead.  We live a bit closer to the Hamilton County Fairgrounds, as opposed to the downtown Noblesville location, so we chose the Fairgrounds.

We arrived at the location 30 minutes before the scheduled opening time for the polls.  Parking is easy at the Fairgrounds.  There were about 25 people lined-up in front of us as we took our place in the queue.

The weather was pleasant and that made waiting outside a much nicer experience.  Everyone in line that I could were wearing masks.  All the poll workers were wearing masks.  There was a sign as you walked into the building saying mask-wearing is mandatory.

It was good to see that as you verify your identification, there was plexiglass to separate the voter and the poll worker.  You are given a card with data on it and a small paper printout.

Once that was done, I was headed to a voting machine.  One glitch that was impacting many voters (including myself) was the discovery that many of the data cards had been cleaned with hand sanitizer, and it appears the sanitizer wipes the data from the card.

The poll worker, a very nice lady, had to seek some help and finally had to enter a code printed out on the piece of paper I was given at check-in in order to setup my voting machine.  Once that was done, I cast my ballot and was on my way.

Even with the short delay, I was out of the building at 9:30am.  I had arrived to get in line at 8:30, the doors opened on time at 9:00am, and I was in my car by 9:30.

Hats-off to the workers staffing the polling site at the Hamilton County Fairgrounds.  They were doing their best to get voters through efficiently, while also ensuring all the equipment was working for the voters.

As I left the fairgrounds, the voting line was very long.  It is good to see people living in my local community love democracy.