“Fortunately, the people waiting with us concurred. At 9am, we were strangers, but by 2pm we were the best of friends. After dispatching Shannon to McDonalds (which was so packed with herds of hungry would-be voters she actually had to wait in line for almost an hour there!) to fuel up for our never-ending voyage, we were swapping stories about our vastly different lives, sharing resources to build a makeshift camp of our chairs and jackets, and filming impromptu videos with our camera phones to upload later on YouTube. We were having such a hoot that an intrigued NBC reporter stopped by to interview us, a motley crew consisting of a dad from Altadena, a mom and son from Inglewood, a couple of sisters from Hawthorne, a dad and his young son still clad in his Halloween Spiderman costume, a recent college grad from Manhattan Beach, and Shannon and I from hipster gentrified Highland Park.”

Ted, Teresa, and I also talk Proposition 8, California’s ban on gay marriage, with Ted’s report from a star-studded fundraiser in Hollywood. What’s the deal with the “No On No. 8″ ads never showing any gay people? How did Ellen suddenly become a political player? What’s the nuanced position of the Obama/Biden ticket on this issue and is it political bravery or cowardliness? We also discuss patriotism and Michelle Bachmann’s “anti-America” comments as well as the bi-partisan viewing habits of America.

Still, I had an interesting series of experiences this week which gave me pause regarding the logistics of election day readiness, particularly how this will play out with the first-time voters who are expected to buoy Obama’s victory.

On Saturday, my friend and I were registering voters at the USC-Ohio St. football game, and a remarkable number of students were confused about whether they are supposed to vote at home with their parents, at the dorm, or via absentee ballot. This was reinforced today when I was guest lecturing at Occidental college for a political science class. The students there also expressed concerns that the frequently-reported student enthusiasm for Obama and voting is somewhat overplayed (from his own alma mater!), and that people really are burned out on this long election process. (Check out Northwestern University’s recent Media Management Center report on this burnout, which I wrote about last week in Editor & Publisher.)

I also spoke with several low-income service employees working at the USC game who said they are concerned that they’ll be able to be away from work long enough to cast their votes. It’s alarming to consider that people will make the effort to participate, but that polling places might not be ready to accommodate them. I heard about so many instances like this during the primary election that I’m considering being a poll worker on election day as a way to help make sure that every vote gets counted. I can still remember staying up all night in November of 2000, feeling like if I just stayed awake long enough the commentators would declare that George Dub had not actually won the election and it was just a vivid nightmare.

If you are also afraid of such a scenario repeating itself during this critical election, I encourage you to get your friends and family registered to vote. My friends at Declare Yourself have a very user-friendly system that explains all you need to know. For the social networking fiends, there is also a great Facebook app called Your Revolution, which makes the process a snap.