Where Are The Long Lines?

Remember those horror movies where the protagonist awakes and finds that there is no one else alive in the universe?

That's the scene in some of the polling locations in Cobb County (NW metro Atlanta). TV showed a scene at Lassiter High School with no one waiting in line outside. Our polling place, Marietta High School (although we voted advance a month ago) had only a smattering of cars in the parking lot. And WSB radio reported half a down polling places in Cobb with lines of 20 minutes or less.

There have been charges of voter suppression, but everyone?

Could it be that everyone who was going to vote worried about the long lines and voted in advance? Some 2 million out of 5.5 million registered Georgia voters used advance voting. (20 percent nationwide). One report showed that 43 percent of black voters had already voted.

This advance voting has to start changing the dynamic for political campaigns. We placed ads for a state House candidate in the week leading up to the vote. During that time we received half a dozen mailed flyers from our candidate and his opponent. But by then some 35 percent of voters had already recorded their decision. Campaign planners will have to get these mailings out earlier – over the 45 days of advance voting -- and that's going to cost more, because you can't leave out the last minute voters.

We took part in a final day GOP rally highlighting Sen. Saxby Chambliss and the rest of the GOP lineup. The Chambliss – Martin race is going to be a nail biter. Because of the presence of a Libertarian candidate there could be a runoff which would bring the entire political universe (and their competing ads) to Georgia for the next three weeks.

Tonight at 7 p.m. the networks will announce definitively which way Georgia voted. But it could be up to 10 days before we have every vote counted because of challenge and provisional ballots. Still those 2 million advance votes have to be counted along with the millions who vote today. So Georgia could still be in play for another 24 hours.

If you have voted, bless you. If you haven't voted, go vote now. It's going to be a long night.