My polling place is the old New Bedford Hotel, now public housing. At 11:30, I walked past the people waiting to go into the Mo Life Food Pantry in the basement of the building, up the steps of the main entrance, through the door, and down the hall to the usual polling place. No lines. There was one person ahead of me at the table where the poll workers check you in.

“Address?” said the poll worker. The man in front of me gave his address. “Name?” she said. He gave his name. “You’re not on the list,” she said. “I’ve always voted here,” he said. “Have you moved recently?” she asked. “Yes, I moved last March,” he replied. The poll worker passed him on to another poll worker, who determined that the man had moved to another precinct, and thus now voted at another polling place. I waited five minutes while they straightened him out, but I don’t think that counts as waiting in line.

I got my ballot and went into the voting booth. In the next booth over, I could hear a conversation between a younger man and an older man. “That says Obama,” said the younger man. The older man grunted. “Do you like Obama?” said the younger man. The older man said something like, Who are the others? The younger man read through the list of presidential candidates. “Obama,” grunted the older man. “OK, mark it here. U.S. Senator is next,” said the younger man, “so do you like Kerry?” Again, the older man wanted the whole list of names read off, but this time the older man didn’t want to vote for any of them. “Congressman,” said the younger man, “Barney Frank.” “I like Barney Frank,” said the older man. “Then mark it right here,” said the younger man. By this time, I was done voting, so I left the voting booth, being very careful to not look at who was in the booth next to me.

A poll worker checked me out, and I fed my paper ballot into the scanner. The scanner has a digital display showing how many ballots have been cast, and after my ballot went in it read 402. I usually vote in the late morning, and usually there have only been a hundred or so votes cast by that time.