I live in Garden Grove, a small city in Orange County, California. It had rained over night and the sun has already presented itself fully. Everything in the city in this morning of November 4th looked clean and smells fresh.

While driving my son to school at around 7:45 a.m., I turned on the radio. The Los Angeles-based KPCC-FM radio, an affiliated National Public Radio station, was giving a live update: “In certain precincts in San Fernando Valley, the waiting is so far about 30 to 40 minutes. As in the past, the lines tend to get longer later in the day when people get out from work.” The field reporter added: “Do stay tune for the full national coverage by NPR, which will start at 7 p.m. tonight.”

Changed the frequency to the Vietnamese-language Little Saigon Radio Little Saigon Radio on KVNR 1480 AM based in Westminster, Orange County, I caught the election discussion between the two morning talk show hosts: “The rain has stopped but everyone should still be careful driving out there on your ways to voting stations. Besides selecting a new president, don’t forget that we have many Vietnamese running for local offices.”

Switched to the Pan Asian language radio on KALI-FM 106.3, headquartered in Los Angeles, the Japanese language program was on. I didn’t understand a word of Japanese but I could discern some key words like “voting,” “McCain,” and “Obama.”

Scanning the major Latino radio stations in Southern California like KLAX, KLVE, KXOL, and KBUE, “El dia de elecciones” also dominates the Spanish-language airwaves with seemingly enthusiastic conversations among the show hosts and their callers.

Regardless of demographic affiliations, people in the Southland are buzzing about voting today.

After dropping my son off at his school, I drove to my designated voting station at a small elementary school, which is conveniently located less than two miles from my house. To my surprise, there was no line. I gave my ID card to one of the poll workers, a late 50-looking man whose name tag indicated that he’s of Vietnamese origin. Looked around the room, I noticed there were nine other poll workers: six seniors – four ladies and two men; and three youths – two females and one male. I could tell that the Latino-looking poll worker could help voters who were more fluent in Spanish; the lady with the “Kim” name tag could assist Korean-speaking voters; and the Vietnamese man who was registering me could provide Vietnamese instruction if I needed. Having multi-lingual poll workers at poll stations made sense.

I don’t know about the rest of the California, but voting at my station was by computer. I had the option to choose either English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean, or Chinese ballots. I selected English and made my choices based on my pre-marked sample ballot, which took me several hours of research of the pros and cons in the wee hours to prepare.

After I pressed the red “Cast Ballot” button, an American flag appeared and waving with the display: “Congratulations. You have voted successfully. You now can leave.” As I turned away from my voting booth, I noticed the line was building up with six new comers. I proceeded to the door and a young female poll worker, who was fully dressed in Muslim garb, handed me an “I voted” sticker. “Cool. Thanks,” I said.

A couple of days ago, a friend had sent me an email about Starbuck’s offering free small-size cups of coffee to people who have voted. So I drove to a nearby Starbucks. The moment I stepped inside, a middle-aged man sitting near the entrance raised a coffee cup and said: “If you voted today, you can get a free cup.” I smiled and showed him my “I voted” sticker. He gave me a thumb up.

The Starbucks staffs seemed to be prepared for a larger crowd than usual today. As soon as I waved my sticker, the salesperson asked a perfunctory question: “Room for cream?” “No, thanks,” I said. Fearing these salespersons may get small tips due to many free-coffee voter customers like me, I dropped a buck in the tips jar.

As I headed to the exit door, another man walked in with an “I voted” sticker in his hand.