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By 9 a.m., the morning rush had subsided at Lee-Davis High School, which saw 600 voters pass through the polling place in a two-hour period.

Vehicles were said to have been lined around the building waiting to park and head to the precinct on Mechanicsville Turnpike.
Cadets with the school’s JROTC program stood ready to offer an umbrella, as well as a cup of coffee and a donut to those coming to the polls.

Senior Daniel Cox chatted with his grandfather, John Cox, and Joe Green, the president of the program, as a light rain fell.
Voters were entering and exiting at a steady pace.

John Cox said he and his grandson were “out here when they opened up.”

With Daniel Cox attired in his dress uniform, the talk turned from politics to the JRTOC program. John Cox nodded toward Green, saying, “He’s doing a whale of a job.” Green responded that there are 90 cadets in the corps, but they need more. Daniel Cox chimed in with “He doesn’t raise benchwarmers.”

Cadet Ryan Leach joined the conversation as the four looked at the parking lot as vehicles filled the spaces and voters continued to make their way to the polling place.

At the precinct at Veterans of Foreign Wars Battlefield Post 9808, Gaynelle Morris called this election “the most important of my lifetime. Every vote counts.”

She had just cast her ballot and said, “This is a privilege for us to have and we need to get out and exercise that.”
Morris said a friend working inside the polling place told her they had been “extremely busy” from 6 to 6:30 a.m. and expected the turnout to pick up at lunchtime and the early evening hours.

This election, Morris said “is so very, very important.”

Bill Todd, who votes at the Battlefield Elementary School precinct, was handing out sample ballots at the East Hanover Volunteer Fire Department. “The lines have been short,” he said around 9:30 a.m., “but this morning they were out there standing in the rain at 6 a.m.” He said the turnout would “pick up around noon.”

Floyd Maxey, the chief election officer at the East Hanover VFD precinct, said 550 voters had cast their ballots by 9:45 a.m.
He said the day had been going “smooth” and the only problem had been “a jammed machine” that was easily repaired.

Hanover County Voter Registrar Robert M. Ostergren said “some voting machines had been giving us a little bit of trouble” about seven hours into the balloting period. 

He said a few machines had been jamming, attributing some of that problem to damp hands from being out in the rain.
To ensure no major problems would occur, Ostergren’s office had “swapped out some machines to make sure we don’t.”

When it came to estimating the number of voters visiting precincts, the voter registrar said, “They’re coming from everywhere.” A couple of weeks ago, he predicted 95 percent of Hanover County’s registered voters would cast their ballots.