Wednesday, November 05, 2008
First-time voters revel in democratic process
The Roanoke area's newest constituents said they were excited to cast their first votes in such a historic election.
Eric Brady | The Roanoke Times
Ashley Stritesky, 18, votes for the first time Tuesday at Greenfield Elementary School in Botetourt County. Election official Gail Kennedy (background) works the voting booths.
Marcus Yam | The Roanoke Times
Robert Cromwell of Roanoke gives his registration and identification card to a ballot worker as his mother Kathleen Nolan (far right) looks on while waiting in line.
Marcus Yam | The Roanoke Times
Robert Cromwell sports his "I Voted" sticker after casting his ballot Tuesday at the voting booths at Wasena Elementary School in Roanoke. Cromwell turned 18 on Monday, just making the cutoff for registering for this election.
Related
roanoke.com/politics
Multimedia
Voters
- Virginia takes another step leftward
- Throughout Election Day, voters streamed to the polls
- First-time voters revel in democratic process
- Shuttles help get Tech students to polls
- Voters report sporadic problems
Individual races
- Presidential race: Jim Crow to Obama in one lifetime
- 5th District, U.S. House: 5th District race remains too close to call
- 6th District, U.S. House: Goodlatte cruises to win in contested House bid
- U.S. Senate: Warner enjoys overwhelming win
In the same cafeteria where she watched her little boy graduate from the fifth grade, Kathleen Nolan stood by ebulliently as her son, Robert Cromwell, cast his first-ever vote at Roanoke's Wasena Elementary.
He'd beaten the age cutoff by a day, celebrating his 18th birthday Monday. For the enthusiastic Barack Obama supporter and campaign volunteer, Election Day was momentous.
"It's nice that for my first time voting, my vote's going to really be important," he said, referring to Virginia's predicted swing state status.
Indeed, first-time voters such as Cromwell were key to the high voter turnout in Roanoke, where 5,580 -- or 9.03 percent of all those registered in the city -- were new voters.
Botetourt County registered 1,049 new voters, including the equally enthusiastic brother-sister team of Ashley and Jeffrey Stritesky, 18 and 20, respectively.
Ashley said she inherited her conservative views from her brother, who follows Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity religiously. "I'm nervous," she said before casting her vote at Greenfield Elementary. "I'd really like McCain to win because I really like Sarah Palin."
Emily Seamon of Southwest Roanoke County, another first-time voter, was also backing the McCain-Palin ticket. The 24-year-old moved back to Roanoke after graduate school last summer and has been unable to find paid work, though she's interning at United Way of Roanoke Valley.
"I'm struggling to find a job, and my first student loan payment is due soon," Seamon said. "I feel like putting somebody in the presidency that doesn't know what they're doing isn't going to help me."
She described herself as a minority Republican in her Obama-leaning peer group -- including a boyfriend who chastised her for her McCain support. They're no longer dating.
Though the line at Woodrow Wilson Middle School had shrunk considerably by midmorning, it still made 18-year-old Amy Jones an hour late for her shift at the Salem Wal-Mart. Two weeks earlier, she'd learned about a voter registration mix-up and called U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, who intervened on her behalf.
But when Jones arrived to vote Tuesday, her name was still not on the correct list. After some back-and-forth with election workers and showing her letter of support from Goodlatte, Jones was able to cast her first-time vote.
"Mr. Goodlatte was nice to help me, but I'm voting for the Democrats because I think they have the best chance of giving us tax cuts and lowering the costs of college," she said.
At Fairview Elementary, 40-year-old Anthony West voted for the first time after petitioning Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine for restoration of his voting rights. Incarcerated twice in the mid-'90s for drug-related convictions, West is now the state's program director of Virginia CARES, a re-entry program for ex-offenders.
"I want to experience this so much; I don't care if I have to wait in line till midnight," West said Monday. But at the polling station Tuesday, he was able to vote during his lunch hour -- in between shaking hands with former teachers, coaches and old friends he spotted at the school. "It's my first time voting," he told everyone he saw. "I got my rights restored."
"You're going to make me cry," a former teacher told him, proudly.
"You should run for mayor," another friend said.
West left the school with a bounce in his step -- but not before stopping to scold a pair of teenagers riding double on a moped through the parking lot.
"I like your Obama sticker, but it'd be even better if you had a helmet on to go with it," he said.
