I started out this morning as a poll greeter runner with Lois Murphy's campaign, based out of Exton, PA. It was my job to run from site to site in Chester County to make sure that the people that the State Dem party had arranged to have stand outside the poll had sufficient campaign lit and bottled water. I'm not sure if it was in my job description but I also took it upon myself to keep an eye on the voting situation at each site. At poll to poll to poll, the word was that turnout was robust -- almost as high, some poll watchers said, as presidential years of the past.

In visiting about a dozen poll sites, I saw problems with two tied to faulty voting machines. At one in East Caln Township, the ballot scanner was reportedly malfunctioning and at about 2:30 pm, there was a line of more than 50 voters long outside on what was a fairly chilly day. The voters were appropriately ticked. I might have more on that later.

The handful of election/primary days that I've been involved in -- Dean in Iowa, Brad Miller in North Carolina, Tony Knolwes in Alaska, Chris Van Hollen in Maryland -- have shared a sense of joyfull chaos. People stepping over each other, grabbing cells phones to coordinate GOTV efforts on the fly, from all different backgrounds and of all different ages working together for a very simple common goal. Today in Pennsylvania's Sixth District was certainly no different.

But in addition, sometimes election day can be just plain strange. At one of the polls, a man I did not know handed me a receipt for $85 worth of pre-paid 2-foot heroes from the Wawa down the road. A woman I didn't know named "Ann" had prepaid them but had to tend to some sort of personal emergency, so I was charged with managing the sandwich situation. Not sure what else to do and not wanting to let giant sandwiches to go to waste, we picked them up and just began handing out pieces of them to any Democrat (and one Republican when I mistook a State Representative candidate for someone else) we could find.

As we were just about make a second pass to the polls in the afternoon, we were pulled into service to do some canvassing in a certain part of the district that has been overlooked. We made a mad dash up to Phoenixville to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 380 building there. We were given lit and turf maps and set out, doing GOTV for about three hours until just before the polls closed. Most folks were not home but there was one memorable and unkindly older man who growled at me "haven't we had enough of this damn voting!" I smiled and thought, "nope, not even close" and moved on to the next door.

(Predictions: I generally don't make 'em. But I will risk one tonight -- winning will be a whole heck of a lot more fun than losing.)

Nancy's "Election 2006 Pennsylvania Tour" is brought to you by the AFL-CIO's Labor 2006 Program.