Melissa Roeder is too young to vote, but she had a good reason for sitting on a median in Claiborne Parkway with the letter "O" in black marker on the white side of a Bush/Cheney poster last Tuesday.
"Things are going to affect us even if we're not 18," the 14-year-old said and she sat with three of her similarly aged and politically inclined friends. The backs of their Bush/Cheney placards had the letters "V," "T" and "E," respectively, for maximum partisan and bipartisan encouragement of passing drivers.
"We can't vote, so we're helping out by doing this," said Beverly Sumner, 15. She wore a homemade Bush t-shirt.
The group had their reasons for backing the president.
"We know Bush can perform," Beverly said.
"He's gonna lower taxes. I like his trickle-down economic theory," Melissa added.
"We know he doesn't just, like, do what's popular at the time," Robert Clagett, 15, said. "He's not for stem cell research."
As for whether the results of the election would be available Tuesday, Beverly and Melissa shook their heads.
"It's going to be all these lawsuits and crazy," Melissa said. "But I think Bush will win."
Then Melissa's mom pulled up in a minivan, and it was time to get home for a lunch break.
AT POLLING PLACES across Ashburn, Election Day was a family event. At Ashburn Elementary School, Democrat Phil Lo Presti Jr. politicked for John Kerry while his father and daughters watched. Less than 50 feet away, Deb and Greg Stone and daughter Nicole pushed for President Bush.
Nicole, 11, likes to watch Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes duke it out on Fox News.
"I just like to watch them debate other people," she said.
Lo Presti's daughters are too young to enter into the political process, but he noted how many mothers and children he'd seen since the polls opened that morning. He theorized that an upsweep in concern about the future drove mothers to the polls.
"What kind of legacy are we going to leave our kids?" Lo Presti asked. Women, he added, were also concerned about the future of women's rights if Bush stays in office.
"Not everyone is as ardent about a woman's right to choose," Lo Presti said. "In this area it's not a big issue. I think they look at it from the standpoint of, what down the road is a female going to have as an opportunity with one party or another?"
Tina Pruett was one of the mothers who brought a child along on Election Day. Her son Ryan, 10, meandered the front hall of Ashburn Elementary School after she voted. Pruett hoped she had instilled in him a feeling of pride in the right to vote.
"It is one of the most sacred rights he'll ever have," Pruett said.
Chris Mortweet, 15, passed out sample Democratic ballots in front of Stone Bridge High School, where he is a sophomore.
"I just feel it's your civic duty to get out and help," he said.
BY 10:30 A.M., many Ashburn polling places had voters coming in slowly, belying the earlier mad rush. At Stone Bridge High School, volunteers reported a line that stretched several hundred yards from the front door in the early morning hours. By 12:30 p.m., nearly 2,500 voters had cast a ballot in the Stone Bridge library — so many that they were out of "I Voted" stickers.
"It was wild. People lined up to vote at 5:30 [a.m.]," said Elaine Luther, a captain for the Broad Run district with the Loudoun County Republican Party. By 9 a.m., she said, the Broad Run district already had half as many ballots as the whole day for Election Day in 2000.
The turnout, which many expected to surpass the 72 percent reported for the county in 2000, consisted of all kinds of voters, but there was one thing that many could agree on. Would the country know who was the next president by the end of the night?
"I think we're going to have to wait," said Nicole Stone.
"I think Florida hasn't fixed their problem," said Lo Presti.
"No way," said Terry Naylor, a retired IBM employee. "If we know by Christmas I'll be feeling good about it."