It's just after 11 a.m. on day one of early voting at the Tate's Creek Library Voting Center. Cars are parked far down the winding road leading up to the building, and the line stretches out the door and all the way back to the street.
As it becomes clear it's not going to be an in-and-out affair, voters strike up conversations — everything from idle chit-chat to discussions about gerrymandering and the difference between TV and internet debates and standing in line alongside neighbors.
"You get in line, and you talk to real people, and it just completely changes your perspective on everything," one voter said.
Secretary of State Michael Adams told WKYT he expects the three days of early voting to proceed without any major backups.
"I think it'll be smooth simply because we have the same footprint for voting locations that we had two years ago. Two years ago we had a massive turnout for a presidential election. This year we won't have nearly the same turnout," the top election official said. "It'll be really modest compared to that, but we have the same facilities, the same number of poll workers. So that suggests to me that we shouldn't have any lines to speak of."
But at Tate's Creek, there is certainly a line, but it's inching along at a regular pace.
Still, the size of the crowd prompts one library worker to jokingly announce that "Taylor Swift is on schedule and will arrive soon." All told, the wait is about an hour and 15 minutes to check in.
"It's a double-sided ballot. You've got to flip it over. There's going to be things in the back," a poll worker explains. She says it's been this steady since the doors opened at 8:30 Thursday morning.
Early voting runs through Friday and Saturday at all six Lexington Public Library locations from 8:30 to 4:30.
The locations are:
- Central Library (140 East Main Street)
- Beaumont Branch Library (3080 Fieldstone Way)
- Eastside Branch Library (3000 Blake James Drive)
- Marksbury Family Branch Library (2197 Versailles Road)
- Northside Branch Library (1733 Russell Cave Road)
- Tates Creek Branch Library (3628 Walden Drive)