A reader writes:

I live in Lincoln, Nebraska, the heart of one of the reddest states in the country.  I have voted in the same polling location for the last 8 years.  Every election, my wife and I are the first two people at the poll when it opens (we like to vote immediately).  Today, when we arrived a half-hour before the polling place opened, there were already fourteen people in line.  The poll workers were astonished, my wife and I were shocked – and the line kept growing.  When we left, after voting, the line was longer than it was when we got there.  This has never happened before.

Ahead of us in line was three-generations of an African American family.  It was the first time voting for all three of them.  The youngest, who graduated high school last year, was calling his friends and getting them out of bed while we waited in line.  He was describing the polling place and giving directions for getting there. After he voted, he had probably the biggest grin I’ve ever seen.

(PHOTO: Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty.)