At 5:45 a.m., Colleen Dewing was queued up for a lifetime first: voting. The West Springfield High School senior needed to fulfill her civic duty early in order to take a shift right away at the senior class’ annual bake sale outside the school.

“You hear, ‘My vote doesn’t count,’” around school, Dewing said. “But it’s cool I can have say. Not a lot of people know what’s being discussed, but you can make a difference locally. If you complain, you’ve got to vote.”

Dewing said her teacher Mr Spicer encouraged her to register, and to know what she was voting for. Her dad also “made me research, the Meals Tax, the park bond.”

As a result, she said, she wasn’t anxious about the experience at all. “It was interesting,” she said.

Dewing was one of about 156 people in line at West Springfield High School’s precinct when the poll doors opened at 6 a.m. on Nov. 8.

“It was crazy,” said chief election officer Allyn Hammel. “A lot of excitement, a lot of first-time voters. Everyone has been nice, even on their way to work.”

By 10:17 a.m., Hammel said her team of election officers had already processed 1,280 in-person voters. She said the addition of new Ipads to help officers sign voters in sped up the process dramatically.

Around southern Fairfax County, election officials had similar experiences.

At Silverbrook Elementary School in Fairfax Station, assistant chief election officer Krystyna Kolesar said the opening line stretched from the school’s entrance down around the building to the parking lot.

“It’s been crazy busy,” Kolesar said, “but good energy, very positive.”

Chief election officer at Silverbrook Mary Brown said they kept the line for about an hour before things died down. But things moved smoothly and quickly thanks, she said, to what she saw as good communication from Fairfax County as to what voters needed to bring with them to the polls and what to expect when they arrived.

At 6 at Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax, chief election officer Teri Ayers said there were 168 voters in line.

Ayers, with five years at her post, said the advanced search capabilities and covering for misspellings afforded by the check-in Ipads have “really seen a line cut-down.”

By 11:30 a.m. with 1,656 voters processed, Ayers’ operation still ran somewhat of a line. But she said she was still encouraged by their ability with the Ipads and paper ballots to move people through the process quickly.

Outside the Robinson precinct, supervisor John Cook (R-Braddock) mingled with voters on one of several stops over the course of the day.

Cook said his impression of the election day turnout and emotion was “all very positive.”

“The ugliness is not reflected out here,” he said. “It’s festive, like it ought to be. That’s a good sign.”