It was after sunset in Floyd, and the final stretch driving up to Floyd County High School was an ascent into darkness.  The endless rows of signs emblazoned with candidate names lined the school’s long driveway.  They served as the only indication that, yes, this was the way to the polls.

The lights from one building acted as a beacon in the parking lot. A group of teenagers were standing on the nearby unlit sidewalk, handing out sample ballots. The Democratic candidates were checked off and marked in bold, and “Authorized and Paid for by Floyd Democratic Committee” was stamped across the bottom.

Despite that, 18-year-old Wolf Cherrix of Floyd was quick to inform that these ballots did not favor a side, and merely depicted “exactly what you see” in the voting booth. Fellow ballot distributor Coriander Woodruff, 14, chided Cherrix for failing to register to vote himself.

Inside, down a corridor of lockers, sat three voting machines in the school’s lunch room.  Seated in the lunchroom were volunteers working the voter rolls as well as student pages who were directing voters and handed out the ubiquitous “I voted!” stickers. Leah Dickenson, 15, is a sophomore at Floyd County High School and was working as an election page for the second time. She reported in at 5 a.m. to help out poll workers, volunteering a total of nine hours throughout the day.  “It’s very tiring. There are a few people that are rude, but they’re very rare,” Dickenson said.

Maurice Slusher, 81, was in charge of the polling place. Slusher has been working the polls for eight years and said this was by far the biggest turnout he had even seen. The voter rolls had 2,036 voters, the biggest number yet. Turnout, especially early morning turnout, had beaten previous records in Floyd.  More than 1,300 voters cast a ballot at the high school today; less than 1,000 cast votes in 2004.

Slusher attributed the increased turnout to an influx of younger, first-time voters. Despite the increased turnout and a brief line around 6:30 a.m., Slusher said the addition of a third voting machine made everything go smoothly. “People are pretty tolerant when it comes to a situation like an election,” Slusher said. They’re willing to stand in line for a while.

Around 6:30 p.m., the school grounds suddenly flipped from night to day, revealing a light rain cascading down. Apparently, no one had told the streetlights about daylight savings time or the slow trickle of last minute voters.

William Russell is a senior media studies major at Radford University.