Polls have been open in Virginia for just over four hours now, and voting has been brisk, although there haven’t been the extraordinary queues seen last time.  This has a lot to do with the very strong early voting showing – more than 500,000 Virginians voted before Saturday’s close of absentee ballots.

I’ll be updating the blog as and when I can during the day, although don’t expect any miracles.  It’ll be when there’s a gap in the data stream coming in from polling stations across the city.

There’s a good Get Out the Vote (GOTV) operation being run not only by the political parties, but also by quite a few businesses.  Each polling station issues a sticker to those who’ve voted as they leave.  Among the freebies on offer to those who’ve voted are:

• free ice cream at Ben & Jerry’s
• a free star shaped Krispy Kreme donut
• free coffee at Starbucks
• 20% off all online Pizza Hut orders
• from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m., a free appetizer at Daily Grill

For those who’ve early voted, Ross has even done up a nice alternative sticker!

Absentee Voter (by Ross)

It’d be great to see some Irish companies do the same for our Local & European elections next year.  How about a free pint from the breweries?

Update

Ross has more.

Update 2

It’s actually Day 11.  Blame lack of sleep.