7am at the UA Student Rec Center

This morning, I pulled up to the Student Recreation Center on campus at 6:55. The parking lot was not yet full, but the inside was full of voters. I found my place at the end of the line at 7:00 on the dot. The atmosphere was failry calm. There was light chatter between friends and on cell phones.

I counted approximately 250 people in line before me. Of that 250, about 48 were African American and about 10 were of different races. There were people of all ages - some babies with their parents, a few middle aged people, about 25 elderly, but mostly college students. I only saw two people with Obama T-Shirts and three people with McCain stickers.

The line at the rec center snaked around the lobby and down the hallway. When I first got in line, there was no separation of the people in line; however, at about 7:25, the poll volunteer said, "Everyone with a last name O-Z, move over here. She moved us out of the large line to help the poll volunteers find last names on their list with more ease. After we dispersed ourselves, I had about 25 people in front of me and I was voting in no time.

In all, I waited 32 minutes from the time I got in line to the time I received my 'I Voted' sticker. People with last names beginning with A-M that walked in at the same time as I did waited 45 minutes to vote.

One University of Alabama student, Ashley McIntosh, said, "I arrived at 6:45. I was suprised that there were not that many people present. I expected more. It was a big unorganized, but overall I was pleased."Another University of Alabama student, Brittni Robertson, said, "I got there at 6:45 and by 7:00 a lot more people started showing up. I think voter turn out will be extremely high this year."In my opinion, voter turn out when the polls opened at 7:00 this morning was as I expected them to be.