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Ok, You've Voted. Now What?

November 04, 2008 7:02 PM

ABC News On Campus reporter Chelsey Delaney blogs:

Baylor law student Nicholas Chu woke up this morning and dressed himself in a suit and tie, as planned. Interactions with friends and passersby led him to nervously mention that it was Election Day, in case they had forgotten.

His friends laughed him off. Chu hoped that his suit might make the strangers take him seriously.

Chu isn't working at a polling booth, and he is not a lobbyist. He's just superstitious on Election Day.

"I just get nervous that it will be a close election and there will be one person who didn't realize today was Election Day," Chu said. "I figured on Election Day dressing up would keep my mind sharp and get the returns I want ... It's silly I know, but when you're passionate about elections your superstitions turn into quirky traditions."

ACLU worker Aimee Arrambide, who spoke with me previously about her voting anxiety, had similar worries when it came to casting her ballot.

"It feels rather anticlimactic and to be honest, I was worried, because it didn't feel like I actually voted," Arrambide said. "You don't get a slip saying you voted, or see any sort of recognition that distinguishes your vote from the person in front of you or behind you. I took a picture of all my horizontally turned knobs just in case."

Chu, however, has worked on campaigns, and the anxiety, "the greatest political anxiety of all time," is starting to intermix with a new development: post-election withdrawal.

"I feel glad that this process that took almost two years is finally over," Chu said. "But at the same time I feel like I'm going through campaign withdrawals. For two years I've talked to people about what they think about the candidates, who they are voting for, who they think will win ... No matter where I go I can find something dealing with the election."

Karl Thomas Musselman, UT alumni and founder of the Austin political blog, Burnt Orange Report, shares the relief of its "finally being over."

"[I'm] elated," Musselman said. "I live in a permanent state of elections. I won't miss it."

Musselman says Burnt Orange Report will have plenty to discuss in the post-election world. But while journalists and bloggers might find some solace in reporting something new, poltical junkies might not be able to get as much of a fix.

"I don't know what I'm going to talk about anymore now that the election is over," Chu said. "'Oh did you see what the President proposed to Congress lately.' That just isn't the same as talking about whose up or whose down in a battleground state. Governing just isn't the same as campaigning."

So as anxiety twists and turns into the last trimester of a two-year pregnant America, what will all of us do to pass the time until polls close and, afterward, to fill the conversational void left by the Obamas and McCains of our everyday banter?

Arrambide says she will be at the bar, and cry no matter what happens, out of anger or out of joy. It's a pretty powerful day, she said.

Tomorrow might be all the more powerful.

November 4, 2008 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (2)

User Comments

Posted by: Karl | Nov 4, 2008 8:33:26 PM

Posted by: mrs. fuseini | Nov 4, 2008 10:11:16 PM

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